Eliot morris is a data journalist at the economist who has recently written a book defending polling called strength in numbers. Eliot: The poles were right in the sense that they are relatively uncertain tools, and so when you have a close election, it can go either way. There's an election answer, and then there's sort of issue poling or political policy answer. And on the latter, poles are a pretty shining example of quatifying democracy.
Our model, built to predict the outcome of this year’s midterm elections, tips Republicans to take the House and Democrats to retain control of the Senate. The model’s architect discusses how and why he built it, and our polling guru explains why polls matter. Why there’s no nuclear-arms race in Asia—yet. And Egypt wants the Rosetta Stone back, but it’s not that simple.
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