Former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker says opinion pollsters and news outlets should reassess their approach following polling errors in the 2016 and 2020 presidential election.
Baker, who served in the Reagan administration as Treasury Secretary and under former President George H. W. Bush as secretary of state, also floated the idea of regulating polling, though admitted doing so would “likely collide with First Amendment considerations.”
“Pollsters and those who employ them need to take a serious look at the way polls are conducted,” Baker wrote in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal. “They need to re-examine how to collect a truly representative sample of voters, an admittedly difficult task in a world of new technology where landlines have mostly been replaced by cellphones and the internet. They also need to examine whether they are intentionally, knowingly or subconsciously letting their biases influence them.”
Most polling-based predictions were off more than a bit.
FiveThirtyEight gave Biden an 8.4 percentage lead nationally and a lead in Florida and North Carolina and Quinnipiac gave Biden an 11-point lead. So far, Biden is ahead nationally by just 3.3 percentage points, with a recount expected in Georgia.
“During the five presidential campaigns I had the privilege of leading, we felt it was imperative that we receive accurate polling,” said Baker. “A misread of a trend in one state or another could lead to a loss. So our campaigns demanded the best polling we could find and tried to make sure that it was free of bias so that we could rely on it when making our decisions.
“All who use polling information, whether Democrats or Republicans, should do the same.”
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.