The demise of polling has been greatly exaggerated

So today I and a colleague gave a presentation on interpreting polls for students. I focused on why polls get a bad rap, and what you need to keep in mind when it comes to understanding them. My favorite part of my presentation is this super neat visualization from Nathan Yau at Flowing Data.com. His post “What that Election Probability Means” has a great graphic that allows you to simulate elections depending on which percentage each candidate has to win. Really helps you see what an 80% chance means, which is a hard concept for most- me included.

If you’re interested, you can find the whole presentation here