Gallup Takes a Pass

Politico reports the Gallup polling organization has decided to not conduct so-called "horserace" style polling in the primary season leading up to the 2016 general election. They may not, in fact, even do so for the election itself, after the two major parties have officailly annointed their nominees at the summer conventions.

This reflects a concern by serious polling operations that there is something fundamentally wrong with the conventional wisdom of polling. As the article notes, we are now in an era

When fewer people are reachable or willing to talk to pollsters.

Polling has been decreasingly accurate in recent elections. The extent to which this inacccuracy reflects "tribal" voting - surges of non-whites showing up to vote for a non-white presidential candidate - is also unclear. Perhaps the 2016 voting cycle will be more predictable; apparently Gallup wasn't sufficiently convinced to proceed.