Disclosing Party ID: Pew

Legacy blog posts Weighting by Party

Scott Keeter, Associate Director of the Pew Research Center, also responded to my question about why his organization does not typically include results for party identification for each survey.  Like Gallup, the Pew Center has disclosed party results upon request.  Pew also frequently prepares summary reports on trends in party ID, including their must-read report last September on the pitfalls of weighting by party, which included data from other organizations. 

MP asked — as explained in full in the previous post — why not include results for party ID in each survey release?  Here is Keeter’s answer:

You correctly note that the Pew Research Center freely reports party identification marginals for any survey upon request. And of course we have written several reports in which we present the trends in party identification and offer an analysis of the changes.

Given the evolution of the dialogue on the subject – for which MysteryPollster deserves a lot of credit — and the greater understanding among political observers regarding the perils of weighting party ID to an arbitrary parameter (clearly illustrated by the party ID distribution on Election Day 2004), we will begin posting party ID and its trend in our toplines in future survey releases [emphasis added].

Thank you Dr. Keeter!  We now have two prominent survey organizations committing to release information on the party leanings of each survey.  That’s one small step for consumers of political data everywhere.  Hopefully other organizations will follow the lead of Gallup and Pew. 

Tomorrow:  The response from SRBI’s Mark Schulman (and it should be noted again that the Time/SRBI poll included results for party identification in each pre-election survey released last fall).

Mark Blumenthal

Mark Blumenthal is political pollster with deep and varied experience across survey research, campaigns, and media. The original "Mystery Pollster" and co-creator of Pollster.com, he explains complex concepts to a multitude of audiences and how data informs politics and decision-making. A researcher and consultant who crafts effective questions and identifies innovative solutions to deliver results. An award winning political journalist who brings insights and crafts compelling narratives from chaotic data.