This repo contains the responses from pollsters to FiveThirtyEight's three polls of professional political pollsters, as described in these articles:
Pollsters Predict Greater Polling Error In Midterm Elections
Pollsters Say They Follow Ethical Standards, But They Aren’t So Sure About Their Peers
Even Pollsters Don’t Know All The Details Of How Their Polls Are Made
Most Pollsters We Surveyed Say Polling Did Well This Year
We sent out the first poll starting Wed. Sept. 24, and 26 pollsters responded by deadline. We sent out the second poll starting Sunday, Oct. 12, and 24 pollsters responded by deadline. We sent out the third poll starting Friday, Oct. 24, and 26 pollsters responded by deadline. We sent out the fourth poll starting Wednesday, Nov. 5, and 17 pollsters responded by deadline.
Respondents include commercial and academic pollsters who identify their polling organizations as liberal, nonpartisan or conservative. Some poll online, some by phone, some both. Some answers have been edited, primarily for spelling, grammar, style and to protect anonymity, when requested.
The responses are broken up into two files for each poll.
Here are the files for the first poll:
poll-of-pollsters.tsv:
This tab-separated file contains the names of 25 respondents, their polling organizations, and those responses that they have agreed can be attributed to them. (One respondent wished to remain anonymous.) The heading of each column contains a question, and below it, in each row the answer given by the pollster listed in that row. Empty fields either mean the pollster didn't answer that question, or didn't wish to have the answer attributed.
poll-of-pollsters-anonymous-answers.tsv:
This tab-separated file contains those responses that pollsters didn't want attributed to them. The heading of each column contains a question, and below it, the responses to that question, in alphabetical order. That means that each row doesn’t correspond to any one respondent. For example, the answer in the fourth row, in the third column, wasn't necessarily given by the same respondent as the rest of the answers in the fourth row. This sorting step was taken to better protect anonymity, by making it harder to figure out who gave which answer.
Here are the files for the second poll:
poll-of-pollsters-2.tsv:
This tab-separated file contains the names of 24 respondents, their polling organizations, and those responses that they have agreed can be attributed to them. The heading of each column or set of columns contains a question and the next row contains the types of answer. Starting with the third row, each row lists the answer given by the pollster listed in that row. Empty fields either mean the corresponding pollster didn't answer that question, or didn't wish to have the answer attributed.
poll-of-pollsters-anonymous-answers-2.tsv:
This tab-separated file contains those responses that pollsters didn't want attributed to them. The heading of each column or set of columns contains a question and the next row contains the types of answer. Starting with the third row come the responses, in alphabetical order, grouped by question grouping. That means that each row doesn’t correspond to any one respondent. For example, the answers in the fourth row weren't all necessarily given by the same respondent. This sorting step was taken to better protect anonymity, by making it harder to figure out who gave which answer.
Here are the files for the third poll:
poll-of-pollsters-3.tsv:
This tab-separated file contains the names of 26 respondents, their polling organizations, and those responses that they have agreed can be attributed to them. The heading of each column or set of columns contains a question and the next row contains the types of answer. Starting with the third row, each row lists the answer given by the pollster listed in that row. Empty fields either mean the corresponding pollster didn't answer that question, or didn't wish to have the answer attributed.
poll-of-pollsters-anonymous-answers-3.tsv:
This tab-separated file contains those responses that pollsters didn't want attributed to them. The heading of each column or set of columns contains a question and the next row contains the types of answer. Starting with the third row come the responses, in alphabetical order, grouped by question grouping. That means that each row doesn’t correspond to any one respondent. For example, the answers in the fourth row weren't all necessarily given by the same respondent. This sorting step was taken to better protect anonymity, by making it harder to figure out who gave which answer.
Here are the files for the fourth poll:
poll-of-pollsters-4.tsv:
This tab-separated file contains the names of 17 respondents, their polling organizations, and those responses that they have agreed can be attributed to them. The heading of each column or set of columns contains a question and the next row contains the types of answer. Starting with the third row, each row lists the answer given by the pollster listed in that row. Empty fields either mean the corresponding pollster didn't answer that question, or didn't wish to have the answer attributed.
poll-of-pollsters-anonymous-answers-4.tsv:
This tab-separated file contains those responses that pollsters didn't want attributed to them. The heading of each column or set of columns contains a question and the next row contains the types of answer. Starting with the third row come the responses, in alphabetical order, grouped by question grouping. That means that each row doesn’t correspond to any one respondent. For example, the answers in the fourth row weren't all necessarily given by the same respondent. This sorting step was taken to better protect anonymity, by making it harder to figure out who gave which answer.