Today, we turn the focus of the Polling Wrap to a simple guide to saving the sanity of our readers (no matter your political persuasion). We are now in the final weeks of the nearly interminable campaign cycle. For poll junkies, the next three weeks are the greatest thrills and most agonizing spills of the year. And that, my friends, is owed simply to one word: volume.
This week, we are seeing an average of about 20 polls a day (the total number of polls you will find beneath the fold, this time around, is 59 polls over the past three days, and that’s without a big data dump via YouGov or some other source).
That number will only escalate as we get closer to November 4th.
Which means, just by virtue of that sheer tonnage of polling, there will be individual polls that will bring you great joy, and polls that will make you want to dive under the bed. So, today, consider this “close of the workweek” edition of the Wrap a friendly reminder from your intrepid little curator of the polls here at Daily Kos Elections: be smart enough to not exult or despair over every single poll.
What to do, instead? Glad you asked (even if you didn’t). We’ll refresh some rules of being a good poll consumer on the other side of the jump, after the customary listing of all of the polls that have dropped out of the sky since the last time we gathered on Tuesday.
