Polls are snapshots, not predictions: how to read them critically this election year

With nine months to go, how much can opinion polls tell us about the general election on November 7. Short answer: not much. Based solely on polls, no one could have predicted the past three elections this early in the year they were held. Trends shifted over the subsequent months, and events (especially COVID in 2020) intervened to shake things up. Each poll is a snapshot of past public opinion – and it s out of focus, due to statistically inevitable sampling error. A sample of 1 000 people