Still, I was curious to see if over the past two cycles, pollsters have tightened the electorate, keeping in mind that only a few pollsters release results among both registered and likely voters, and most don't.
"OK", he replied, adding, as only an obsessive pollster could, "but all within the margin of error".Each of these tactics he had used before, but for a totally different purpose: to bring the Labour Party back to power in Britain after years in the post-war wilderness.
But partisanship is not the only reason that a pollster's work may repeatedly favor one party's candidates.
According to Ipsos MORI, a pollster, only 8% of people could name their commissioner a year after the elections.
The twittersphere still has a limited impact outside big cities: according to Mitofsky, a pollster, only 9% of Mexicans will base their vote on what they read on the internet, versus 39% who say they will be swayed by television or radio.
Only a handful of pollsters that conduct statewide surveys routinely provide this data, like the percentage of the sample that is male, or African-American, or under 30 or college-educated.
There are only a few professional pollsters that haven't already adapted their methods to reach Americans without landlines.
"The Peronist governors in the large provinces will make only formal criticism," says Ricardo Rouvier, a pollster.
Ipsos MORI, a pollster, thinks only 58% of the working-class electorate voted in 2010, compared with 76% of professionals.
A July poll by Demoskop, a pollster, found only 37.1% backing the coalition, against 50.4% for the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Left Party combined.
