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31 WINTER 2025 TM: The polls showed the 2024 presidential election to be pretty much a dead heat, but there were differences in predictions from poll to poll. Why is that? HL: The bulk of the polling suggested the race would come down to the wire, and we were no different. Each model has its own methodology, and there are some differences between them, and those can produce slightly different outcomes. We pull each poll that 538 [an established public opinion polling website] collects, but then we drill down deeper. Our aggregates control for poll age, pollster quality, whether the poll is of likely or registered voters, sample size, and whether a poll is from a partisan source or not. So for example, we give more weight to the most recent polls and to nonpartisan polls. And sometimes we do our own polls, too. TM: Are we in unusual times that everything is so close? HL: I would say that this was really the closest election from a polling and prediction standpoint since the Barack Obama and Mitt Romney campaign in 2012. In 2016, Hillary Clinton was actually strongly favored to win pretty comfortably according to all outlets, and that ended up being wrong. And in 2020, Joe Biden was expected to win by a lot more than he actually won by. I think pollsters have tried to account for the failings, if I can call them that, so we have seen changes to sampling methods. TM: Was there any outcome that surprised you in 2024? HL: One thing that was interesting was the popular vote win. Donald Trump was the first Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years. But for the most part, nothing was too surprising. Even with our prediction that Kamala Harris had a slightly better chance to win, there was still a decent probability in our model that Trump would sweep all of the swing states, which he did. Overall, our forecast ended up being one of the most accurate of the cycle. There were 525 federal elections in the United States this year. Of those, our forecast called all but 12 correctly, for a 97% accuracy rate. TM: Do you think the public has that same impression or do you think they came away feeling like the pollsters got it wrong again? HL: A lot of people read polls as an indicator of certainty, which is not what they're supposed to do. The polls are just meant to show you the range of possible outcomes. But I do think the narrative on polling needs to change, because if polls show a toss-up, it's a toss-up, right? People don't like it because they want a definitive answer. But it's kind of disingenuous to give you a definitive answer because we really don't know. TM: Do you think polling is still relevant even in our polarized political climate? HL: Oh, yeah, because polling is still the best thing that we do have to predict outcomes. ■ Michelle Gustafson is a photojournalist based in Philadelphia who focuses on national news and political coverage. The New York Times and TIME Magazine each named her work in their Top 100 Photos of 2020, and she earned The Guardian's 2019 favorite photograph of the year recognition.

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