Why It’s So Hard To Poll People About The Death Penalty

In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew explains why one special election, like last Tuesday’s in New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District, isn’t a reliable gauge of the national political environment. They also debate whether phone or online polling is a better tool for determining Americans’ views on sensitive topics like the death penalty, and they preview a forthcoming report on how FiveThirtyEight’s forecast models did in 2020.

Galen Druke is FiveThirtyEight’s podcast producer and reporter. @galendruke

Nate Silver is the founder and editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight. @natesilver538

Sarah Frostenson is FiveThirtyEight’s politics editor. @sfrostenson

Nathaniel Rakich is an elections analyst at FiveThirtyEight. @baseballot