Frustration with the much-maligned Election Day fixture boils over
By Steve Shepard | POLITICO
After another perceived, high-profile miss in last year’s presidential election, the Election Day exit poll is on life support.
The Associated Press confirmed Friday it has joined Fox News in abandoning the so-called National Election Pool — the election surveying instrument that the news media, campaign operatives and political junkies have come to love and hate — marking the end of an era when one ubiquitous Election Day survey shaped the understanding of presidential and state election outcomes.
The departures of AP and Fox from the 20-year alliance of news organizations that have commissioned and reported national and state exit polls doesn’t necessarily sound the death knell for exit polling. The four remaining networks in the pool — ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News — are locked into the current exit poll regime through the next presidential election.
