I don't get it. State Navigate, L2A, and L2B all weighted on age, among other things, and ignored ideology and income. So why did State Navigate end up with way too many young voters after weighting? If more young voters voted in primaries in 2025 and 2026, that could increase State Navigate's weighting from 2% to 9%, but how did they get to 17%?
Considering that all of the state schools were out for the summer, seemed quite foolish to weigh so heavily on younger voters. In Madison alone, there are probably 60-70k students during the school year, but only about a third in the summer months.
For a non-nerd, a tough read. But the result is remarkable. Could the diagnostic be run in the future on other sample polls to show whether or not the weighting corrections that brought the State Navigate poll results close to the actual results? Can you later comment on responses to your analysis from other pollsters (or even other nerds)? Thanks to you and State Navigate for this discussion.
Wow, what an article! Great reporting, Elliot, and even a non-pollster like me understood what I was reading. Thank you for this, it helps explain yesterday's piece much better.
You beat me to it. To expand on this, my questions are, is there a chance that the Republican and undeclared demographics weren't sampled at all for the Democratic Primary? Do these voters vote in numbers sufficient to sway the results significantly?
Wisconsin (and Michigan) have open primaries. A voter doesn't have to go to the effort to register as a Democrat to vote in the Democratic Party primary.
Neither Republican primary was competitive. Democrats are favored in both races. So if you're a Republican or undeclared voter and you want your vote to count the most, you should vote in the Democratic Primary.
Almost 500k people voted in the GOP gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin, even though Tiffany was going to win no matter what, which is about 150k more votes than in 2018, compared to a 300k increase on the Democratic side, from about 500k to nearly 800k. Considering massive increases in Democratic turnout broadly, I don't think crossover voting was much of a factor.
I don't get it. State Navigate, L2A, and L2B all weighted on age, among other things, and ignored ideology and income. So why did State Navigate end up with way too many young voters after weighting? If more young voters voted in primaries in 2025 and 2026, that could increase State Navigate's weighting from 2% to 9%, but how did they get to 17%?
How did you handle the missing age data on the Wisconsin file? It is substantial and not randomly distributed. I assume some imputation or age model.
Considering that all of the state schools were out for the summer, seemed quite foolish to weigh so heavily on younger voters. In Madison alone, there are probably 60-70k students during the school year, but only about a third in the summer months.
For a non-nerd, a tough read. But the result is remarkable. Could the diagnostic be run in the future on other sample polls to show whether or not the weighting corrections that brought the State Navigate poll results close to the actual results? Can you later comment on responses to your analysis from other pollsters (or even other nerds)? Thanks to you and State Navigate for this discussion.
Wow, what an article! Great reporting, Elliot, and even a non-pollster like me understood what I was reading. Thank you for this, it helps explain yesterday's piece much better.
Was any of this manipulated by Republicans voting as democrats?
You beat me to it. To expand on this, my questions are, is there a chance that the Republican and undeclared demographics weren't sampled at all for the Democratic Primary? Do these voters vote in numbers sufficient to sway the results significantly?
Wisconsin (and Michigan) have open primaries. A voter doesn't have to go to the effort to register as a Democrat to vote in the Democratic Party primary.
Neither Republican primary was competitive. Democrats are favored in both races. So if you're a Republican or undeclared voter and you want your vote to count the most, you should vote in the Democratic Primary.
Almost 500k people voted in the GOP gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin, even though Tiffany was going to win no matter what, which is about 150k more votes than in 2018, compared to a 300k increase on the Democratic side, from about 500k to nearly 800k. Considering massive increases in Democratic turnout broadly, I don't think crossover voting was much of a factor.
Joel, that is what I was thinking too, including that Elon Musk could have been greasing their palms too.