This is the worst way to cover the polls. Please stop

Binary reports ("x is up, y is down") are perhaps the worst way to communicate polling information

Here’s a message I almost tweeted this morning until I reminded myself that I’m trying to stay off Twitter for a while:

Every four years is a chance for people to learn a lot of useful things about how to report on polls, and sadly you can count on them letting you down every time.

After I wrote this newsletter I also drafted another tweet, but decided to commit to the ban and not to post it:

I have seen a lot of reporting on the recent georgia polls that don't any information about margins of error or uncertainty. Have y'all learned absolutely nothing?

All this rage was prompted by the following article published in the National Review yesterday and which I just so happened to see this morning:

After an election in which polls saw a clearly above-average prediction error, I cannot believe people are still covering polls in the binary fashion — “Democrats are up, Republicans are down.” This is especially infuriating when the poll shows leads for both Rafael Warnock and Jon Ossoff well ins…