Welcome!
Pollster.com is the new home of Mystery Pollster, the blog that has labored to demystify the art and science of political polling for the last two years, but it is also much more. Our Polls feature will take you to pages with complete listings of all the public polls available for the most competitive races for Senate and Governor with an important bonus: Interactive charts that show you how the poll results compare to each other as well as trends over time.
Before you dive into the data pages, let me tell you about the incredible team behind Pollster.com. Regular MP readers will notice a similarity between our charts and the stellar graphics produced by our friend Charles Franklin, professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin and creator of the blog PoliticalArithmetik. Franklin is a central part of the Pollster team and will also provide frequent commentary here on the Pollster blog as well as lead in the development of new ways to visualize results graphically.
By the way, today also marks the debut of our strategic partnership with Slate Magazine. We have worked with Slate to create an Election Scorecard that will track the daily trends in the race to control the U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives and key Governorships in 2006. With the help of Charles Franklin, I will write a daily update for Slate through Election Day on where those races stand. Links to that update will also appear here daily.
The owner and primary sponsor of Pollster.com is the survey research company Polimetrix, Inc. We have been hard at work over the last few weeks getting this site up and running, with the help of some very very talented people. Special credit belongs to the very talented development teams at Interactive Strategies, CDev Technologies and Polimetrix.
We have much planned for Pollster, although for now you will mostly see room for expansion. We plan to add contributors to the blog pages who are professional pollsters of different stripes and types. Some may post regularly. Some may contribute only once in a blue moon when they have new results to discuss or if they have a bone to pick with something we have written.
In a post below, I provide an initial guide to the charts on Pollster. But keep one thing in mind, especially if you dive into the poll data and charts right way. This site is still very much in its "beta" stage. Some tasks are unfinished; some things will not work as we had hoped in the first few days. But be patient. We will be improving and upgrading everything in the days and weeks ahead. It's going to be an exciting couple of months. And if you like what you see so far, well, hang on, because as some well-known politician used to say, "you ain't seen nothing yet." And unlike that campaign promise, you won't have to wait until after Election Day to see what we mean.
To those who know me, yes, this new gig will be more than a labor of love. While I will continue to consult for my remaining political clients this cycle, come November, my role as publisher and editor of Pollster will be my full time day job (which means no more scare quotes around those last two words).
Finally, to MP's loyal readers: The mysterypollster.com address will begin redirecting you to this page later today, so you need not change your bookmarks or blog roll links. Your continuing support for my efforts over the last two years has made this exciting new site possible. Thank you . . . and stay tuned!