William J. Walsh

In this month's episode, HDSR editor-in-chief Shally Mang and I are taking a closer look at election polling, how polls are conducted, what they can tell us about voters, and the challenges facing modern survey research, all in preparation for the Harvard Political Analytics Conference twenty twenty-six, taking place October eighth and ninth in Washington, D.C. We're joined by two leading voices in the field, who will also be speaking at the conference.

Anthony Salvanto, PhD, is CBS News's director of elections and surveys, and really the voice of elections, and Michael A. Bailey, author of Polling at a Crossroads: Rethinking Modern Survey Research, and the Colonel William J. Walsh Professor of American Government in the Department of Government and McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University.

We talk about what goes on behind the numbers, the changing landscape of election polling, and what researchers and really the public should keep in mind when interpreting survey results.

So let's get into the numbers and what they really mean.