Organizations are starting to release so-called entrance polls — final polls taken right before the caucuses. These polls, which are also sometimes known as exit polls in non-caucus states, have taken on outsize importance in the minds of politicos.
Here’s what you need to know.
There are two of these exit-type polls. The National Election Pool — made up of ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC — and Edison Research conduct one, commonly known as the N.E.P. Exit Poll. The A.P.-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducts the other, called VoteCast, for The Associated Press and Fox News.
The National Election Pool poll is a more traditional exit poll that contacts voters outside polling places — or in the case of caucuses, before people enter to caucus. After the 2016 cycle, the N.E.P. poll added a phone component in some states, in which some people are called in advance of Election Day in order to reach those who vote early. (There will be no pre-election calling in the N.E.P.’s Iowa caucus entrance poll, since there is no early voting.)
VoteCast isn’t really a traditional exit poll — it surveys voters over the phone and online in the days and hours before the election and asks them how they intend to vote; in some ways it’s more similar to a traditional pre-election poll.
After 2016, the N.E.P. made some methodological changes to its poll to account for educational division in the electorate. That means its polls this cycle may not always necessarily be directly comparable to exit polls from 2016, the last year there was a competitive Republican primary. VoteCast began in 2018, so it does not have 2016 data for comparison.
At The Times, we’ll consider the N.E.P. and VoteCast polls in the context of our own Times/Siena polls, other public polling and, after votes are reported, precinct-level returns provided by the Iowa Republican Party.
