dtollaksen

Coverage of Michigan’s Democratic primary revealed a significant divergence between data journalists and those reporters who focus on storytelling. The data journalists were convinced the uncommitted vote was not terribly…

We’re desperate to know who’ll win the presidency. We become like the sailor who’ll choose “any port in a storm” — a phrase that began life in the erotic 1749…

Numbers can be seductive (though perhaps only a pollster or mathematician could think of them that way). Long considered the language of science, numbers appeal to those interested in truth.…

Some dear friends and valued colleagues recently took to the op-ed page of the New York Times to argue that Donald Trump could well become an electoral fatality if he…

Today I’m going to quickly update two previous columns. The first, published nearly a year ago, argued “Iowa and New Hampshire…will be critically important in sorting out the winner (of…

With Donald Trump smacking down his Republican rivals in Iowa, it’s worth asking why a disgusting human being and incompetent former president, facing multiple indictments is faring so well in the…

If pollsters bothered to ask questions like, “Do you favor or oppose world peace?” I’d wager they’d find 90 percent in favor. Pollsters don’t waste time and budgets on such questions, though, in part because the…

Last week we warned about misleading crosstabs. This week’s warning is about different questions on the same topic producing different answers and divergent interpretations. Compared to forecasting elections you’d think…