‘They Became Blinded by Ideology’: Richard Baris Talks Midterm Predictions and the Weaponization of Polling

“The overwhelming sentiment is a sentiment that things cost too much, things are out of control, and that we need to make a change,” says Big Data Poll director Richard Baris, a data journalist and host of the “Inside the Numbers” podcast. Going into the midterm elections, “half of the electorate or more is citing economic issues” as their top concern, Baris says. Baris tells us what he sees on the ground in key battleground states and why a lot of polling these days is simply inaccurate. “So many [pollsters] no longer even understand the people that they’re trying to learn about. … And polling is essentially attempting to predict human behavior. It’s very much almost a behavioral social science. How could you do that if you don’t know that much about the subject, right? And maybe even dislike them?” Baris says.