We try to fix election polling (update) | Planet Money

Polling is in crisis because fewer people answer the phone, fewer still complete surveys, and the old telephone model no longer produces the random, representative samples pollsters need. The episode revisits Planet Money’s 2022 visit to Marist College, where Barbara Carvalo walked the hosts through the basics of modern polling, from training callers to the tactics used to keep people engaged, including the line, “Let’s try a few and see how it goes.”

The story frames polling history as a series of hard lessons: the 1936 Literary Digest failure, the 1948 Truman-Dewey miss, and the collapse of the old “golden age” after 2016. The central argument is that polling used to work because random sampling was easier, first with landlines and then with automation, but mobile phones, caller ID, and lower response rates have made that much harder and more expensive.

The update shows Marist still testing the hosts’ “wisdom of crowds” idea, which asks respondents who they think will win and who their friends and family will vote for. Barbara says those questions are still being used in 2026 midterm polling, but their main value may be in learning more about turnout and voter behavior, not just predicting winners.