What does “Polls Say” in an Election even mean? How are they updated? No one has ever asked me my thoughts. Who are they asking and who is actually answering?

Question

What does “Polls Say” in an Election even mean? How are they updated? No one has ever asked me my thoughts. Who are they asking and who is actually answering?

In: Other

Answer 1

Pollsters ask a cross section of voters who they will vote for. They typically have to ask 1000 people to get a statistically significant answer. So if they poll voters in a state they try to reach a proportional amount of e.g. voters who are middle class, a proportional amount of female voters and so on. This method has shown to be accurate most of the time, though it can depend on factors such as how many of those polled don’t answer.