Emerson Polling Releasing New Roundtable Analysis Podcast

Just in time for the run up to the midterm elections, Emerson College Polling is this week premiering the Emerson Polling Student Roundtable, a podcast that will dive deep into the results of the student-conducted polls.

A new Roundtable will be released every Thursday, beginning on August 9. Joined by Emerson Polling’s analyst, Assistant Professor Spencer Kimball, student pollsters, and respected members from the national media, each episode will announce and analyze the upcoming Emerson e-Poll and dissect the prior release.

“This podcast will be of tremendous value and service to the citizens of our democracy as we navigate through the midterm elections” Kimball said.  “Roundtable productions will provide our audience with not just exclusive insight into upcoming e-Polls, but unique perspectives from a cast of respected voices on the elections and issues that affect the nation, including a student voice.”

Cole Mootz ’19, a Political Communication major and most recent Emerson Polling president, said he was excited about the new educational opportunities this podcast provides.

“[I’m] looking forward to learning how to use a new platform to share our polls,” Mootz said.

Roundtable broadcasts will be available by subscribing on iTunes, Stitcher and the CLNS Media Network mobile app.

Emerson Polling, now in its seventh year, is part of Emerson’s School of Communication, and provides students with the opportunity to conduct public opinion surveys on business, economics, political, and social issues, as well as local, state, and national political races.

Earlier this year, political analysis website FiveThirtyEight ranked Emerson Polling as the second-most accurate pollster out of 19 organizations conducting frequent campaign polls since the November 2016 election.

In 2016, Bloomberg News noted that Emerson predicted the winners of 16 races in eight states 94 percent of the time. And in the 2016 Republican Iowa caucuses, Emerson was the only pollster to show a late break for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who went on to defeat eventually nominee and president Donald Trump.

The debut of the Roundtable comes one year after the launch of the critically acclaimed Emerson Polling Weekly podcast.