Years ago I worked for a marketing research consultant, a PhD in that field (very rare). From that experience I learned that surveys in general are poorly written/conducted, resulting in data that should be viewed skeptically..... if not trashed entirely. So l learned to be leery of most polls results. BUT: I do believe that stuff put out these days by the Cook Report is solid and believable.
Good point, but keep in mind that a typical national political poll costs about $30,000. A focus group costs about $1100 per person. The NYT-Sienna probably costs closer to 75K.
At those rates, nobody is going to not bother to do a good job at putting together the right set of questions. Plus, most of the questions that frame the body of most political polls are not variable (a benefit and a bug in and of itself). They don't have to think up those questions, they are standard.
Years ago I worked for a marketing research consultant, a PhD in that field (very rare). From that experience I learned that surveys in general are poorly written/conducted, resulting in data that should be viewed skeptically..... if not trashed entirely. So l learned to be leery of most polls results. BUT: I do believe that stuff put out these days by the Cook Report is solid and believable.
Good point, but keep in mind that a typical national political poll costs about $30,000. A focus group costs about $1100 per person. The NYT-Sienna probably costs closer to 75K.
At those rates, nobody is going to not bother to do a good job at putting together the right set of questions. Plus, most of the questions that frame the body of most political polls are not variable (a benefit and a bug in and of itself). They don't have to think up those questions, they are standard.
538 has a reasonable listing of polls by quality: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/