Predicting elections is getting harder. What did the midterms teach us?

In this episode

Famously, polls got the 2016 election wrong. And they’d been off for multiple elections since. So, Monday night, political scientist Jack Rametta nervously refreshed his Senate forecasting model for the final time. Would it be right this time? Or would it yet again cast doubt on whether modeling, statistics and forecasting can still help us understand what motivates people to vote? Now that the results are in, so is Jack – to tell us how he did, and what his and other researchers’ predictions tell us about the evolving science of polling and forecasting. Interested in more science behind the news? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org . Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks fo…