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Election 2020
Tom Crann

Can you trust opinion polls? We asked a Minneapolis pollster

People standing at voter booths spaced apart from each other.
Voters wear masks and maintain social distance Sept. 18 during early voting at the Ramsey County Elections Office in St. Paul.
Christine T. Nguyen | MPR News file

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Just about all of the polls in 2016 projected Hillary Clinton would win both the popular vote and the electoral college. She didn’t.

Now, as the polls project a win for former Vice President Joe Biden, can we trust them?

Rob Daves, principal researcher for Minneapolis polling firm Daves and Associates Research, said they still offer useful information — if they’re the good ones.

“The first thing I would suggest is to look at the poll’s transparency,” he said. “If they’re hiding how they did likely voters or they won’t cough that information up, then there might be a reason for that. Who conducted and who paid for the poll? If they have a dog in the fight, well, they may have paid for more than just the numbers. What’s the sample size? When did they do the poll?”

Daves said the news changes so quickly, you can’t guarantee that voter opinions collected even a few days ago still hold.

Daves shared more with MPR News host Tom Crann on what makes a good poll, what went wrong with state polling in 2016, and which polls he trusts. Hear the conversation by clicking play on the audio player above.

And for even more on polling, listen to MPR News with Kerri Miller Wednesday at 9 a.m.

Minnesota Poll