Pollcat, AKA Scott Keeter

@pollcat.bsky.social

Part-time survey advisor at Pew Research Center, hiker, bad golfer, hoops fan

Do you feel like you don’t fit in as a ‘Democrat’ or a ‘Republican?’ Our new political typology shows this complexity, sorting the public into nine distinct groups based on their political and cultural values. The result is a picture of American politics with far more than just red and blue.

Chart of The 2026 Pew Research Center Political Typology.

Calling all data nerds! Pew Research Center has just released its 2025 edition of the National Public Opinion Reference Survey, with estimates of U.S. party affiliation, religious affiliation and frequency of internet use. Fact sheet and links to the dataset: www.pewresearch.org/methods/fact...

National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS)

NPORS is an annual survey of U.S. adults conducted by the Pew Research Center used to to produce benchmark estimates for several topics.

pewresearch.org

We put together a little grab-bag of things to know about election polling in the US, for example that polling methods are quite different today than in 2016, that the margin of sampling error captures just one of several kinds of error, and much more pewrsr.ch/3iay5d5

Key things to know about election polling in the United States

The real environment in which polls are conducted bears little resemblance to the idealized settings presented in textbooks.

pewrsr.ch

Now available from Pew Research Center: the annual National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS), which interviewed 5,626 U.S. adults identified via address-based sampling with a 32% response rate. View key estimates and download the data: pewrsr.ch/3ukleLR

National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS)

NPORS is an annual survey of U.S. adults conducted by the Pew Research Center used to to produce benchmark estimates for several topics.

pewrsr.ch

This week we released a new version of our short course “Public Opinion Polling Basics.” In six short lessons, I discuss why we have polls, how polls work, the challenges facing polls, what to look for in a poll, and more. A new lesson focuses on election polling. www.pewresearch.org/course/publi...

Public Opinion Polling Basics

How do polls work? What are the different kinds of polls? And what should you look for in a high-quality opinion poll? A Pew Research Center survey methodologist answers these questions and more in si...

pewresearch.org

We just released a new report exploring views of Americans about the Israel-Hamas war, including views among Jewish and Muslim Americans. Despite sharp disagreement on many questions, a majority of the public (57%) expresses sympathy for both the Palestinian and Israeli people pewrsr.ch/4co9bUo

Majority in U.S. Say Israel Has Valid Reasons for Fighting; Fewer Say the Same About Hamas

57% of Americans express some sympathy with both Israelis and Palestinians, including 26% who say their sympathies lie equally with both groups.

pewrsr.ch

Last year, my colleagues talked to a group of people who, while they may vote, are not strongly attached to either political party. By and large, they look at the nation’s politics as a topic better avoided than embraced. Here’s what some of them had to say: www.pewresearch.org/politics/?p=...

Tuning Out: Americans on the Edge of Politics

Untethered from partisan politics and uninterested in keeping up with political news, here is how some Americans view the current state of U.S. politics.

pewresearch.org

NEW from the Pew Research Center: Striking findings from 2023 These findings and charts from the past year include a record-high share of unmarried Americans, record-low views of the Supreme Court, rising public concern about artificial intelligence, and more. Read the full list: pewrsr.ch/47PSOx4

Featured image for Pew Research Center's annual list of striking findings from the past year