# This Year's Model

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/beyond-the-polls-with-henry-olsen-1207991/this-year-s-model
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/beyond-the-polls-with-henry-olsen-1207991/this-year-s-model.md
Podcast: [Beyond the Polls with Henry Olsen](https://stenobird.com/podcast/beyond-the-polls-with-henry-olsen-1207991)
Published: 2026-05-28T19:45:14+00:00
Episode link: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/this-year-s-model--72214468
Audio file: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/media.blubrry.com/3808868/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72214468/beyond_the_polls_127.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/beyond-the-polls-with-henry-olsen-1207991/episodes/this-year-s-model
Duration seconds: 4086

## Resource

America is a change agent. Just this week, we witnessed another sign of that as unstoppable MAGA momentum pushed notorious Ken Paxton to a walloping victory over party loyalist John Cornyn. So how does one gauge public opinion in such a dynamic terrain? To answer that, Henry sits down with James Kanagasooriam of the research firm Focaldata. The duo discusses the history of polling and the current methods for addressing new challenges, such as response rate collapse and demographic biases toward politically engaged voters, and how these fit into the timeless task of interpreting the results. All of it adds up to a must-listen lesson on how some pollsters innovate to make their boldly accurate calls. Plus, Henry examines the Texas runoff results and looks ahead to exciting primaries coming up in California, New Jersey, Iowa, Montana, and South Dakota.

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## Transcript

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