How do polls get conducted in the cellphone era?

WASHINGTON — We are in the homestretch of the Election. Every day we hear about polls. They can be confusing or anxiety inducing- so we wanted to peel back the curtain on how polls are conducted in the 21st century and how to read into them.

“Nowadays, it's a little bit more about finding people where they are,” Dr. Candace Turitto, a University of Maryland political scientist with a focus on political polling said.

“We're trying to contact them in multiple ways: doing mixed surveys where I can call you on your home phone, your cellphone, through social media online or through a text message.”

Dr. Turitto said another way to measure voters is to keep an ongoing-online focus group- so to speak.

“So pollsters will build a larger panel of people who have agreed to occasionally take surveys and we can measure all of their demographic information,” she said. “We can occasionally dip back into this pool of people who, again, have already agreed to participate and find people that way.”

But what about young voters?

We found Zach Miller on UMD’s campus.

“Have you or your friends been contacted about polls at all?” WUSA9 asked him.

“I have not, no,” he said. “Neither have any of my friends.”

The question here is how do you measure GenZ or younger millennials who may not answer the poll requests?

“Social media at the very least can be used as a marketing tool,” Dr. Turitto said.  “So I can target people say on Facebook or on X, based on basic demographics.”

“But, it's a consistent concern in polling even before this generation of young voters: how do you get young voters?” she elaborated. They're just a little bit less involved in the process.”

“For young people voting is less of a habit, so it can be really difficult to gauge them no matter what time period we're talking about.”

The polls are not done after the responses get collected. Turrito said pollsters then look at data from previous elections and weigh the responses from demographics.

There is an important part to the polling information that Turitto thinks escapes the public.  Not getting the exact win or loss percentage is not a loss. The important information from a poll is to show the direction of the race.

“If you look at, for example the Maryland Senate race right now, most polls show that Alsobrooks has a pretty big lead over Hogan,”  she explained. “For consumers reading those polls, if Angela Alsobrooks wins, but not by 12 points or whatever the margin is today, I don't think people are gonna be up in arms against pollsters saying, uh, you weren't correct. If that is the case then we got it directionally correct.”

However, when it comes to tight races, as in races where the difference between the candidates falls within the margin of error those should be read as toss ups.

“Yes, you cannot distinguish that from no difference between the candidate or between the candidates,” she explained.

Which means come Tuesday- as of now – pollsters see the presidential race as a genuine toss-up.