Nate Cohn Defends Telephone Polling for New York Times

Nate Cohn, chief political analyst for The New York Times, defended the continued use of telephone surveys in the New York Times/Siena Poll. Despite experimenting with online panels, mail, and text messages, Cohn maintained that phone polling remains the most viable method for capturing a representative population.

Cohn argued that telephone surveys are faster and more cost-effective than high-incentive mail surveys. He specifically contrasted the method with text-message polling, which he claimed tends to attract non-representative political junkies rather than a broad cross-section of the electorate. He attributed the ongoing success of phone polling to high cooperation rates among those who choose to answer their phones.