How to make sense of political polls

Post Reports

As Election Day looms, we’re seeing more and more headlines based on poll results. Some declare Trump and Harris neck and neck, while others state one candidate has a small advantage over the other. But how can we make sense of all these polls flooding the news cycle?

Today, Martine Powers speaks with The Post’s deputy polling director, Emily Guskin. Emily explains how a poll comes to be, what to look for when trying to understand whether a poll is trustworthy and breaks down once and for all what “margin of error” really means.

Today’s show was produced by Ariel Plotnick, with help from Bishop Sand. It was edited by Reena Flores and mixed by Sam Bair. Subscribe to The Washington Post here.

Correction: A previous version of this episode gave an example of a margin of error applying to a percentage of a sample that hated apples. In the example, the margin of error actually applied to the percentage of the population that hates apples. The audio has been corrected.