The 81st Annual AAPOR Conference was an amazing opportunity to learn, connect, and share findings from our recent work across a wide range of topics.  We’ve gathered the key takeaways from select sessions to share with those who were unable to attend the event.

The Voter Poll by SSRS uses a complex weighting procedure that is updated multiple times before, during, and after Election Day. In states with exit polls, the procedure leverages periodic Election Day turnout reports at sampled precincts to update a pre-election likely voter (LV) model, allowing for the generation of weighting targets that accurately reflect the composition of Election Day voters.

This presentation shared some key findings from our post hoc evaluation of this weighting procedure as applied in the inaugural 2025 Voter Poll, which covered gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, the New York City mayoral race, and the California redistricting referendum.

Modeling the 2025 Electorate and Weighting a Multimode Voter Poll

• By adjusting the pre-election LV model using real-time turnout reports from exit poll precincts, we accurately projected that turnout was trending more Democratic than previously modeled. The resulting updates to the weights improved the accuracy of the Voter Poll’s estimates at poll close, particularly in New Jersey, where much of the pre-election polling underestimated the magnitude of the Democratic victory.
• Despite this real-time adjustment, the specification of the baseline, pre-election LV model still mattered: estimates at poll close were more accurate with a baseline LV model trained on the 2017 electorate, relative to one trained on the 2021 electorate.
• Because the Voter Poll blends exit polls with respondents to a pre-election survey, it is important to account for the misreporting of intended vote method (Election Day vs. early) as part of the weighting procedure.

Additional information about the weighting of the 2025 Voter Poll can be found in that poll’s methodology statement. Informed by these findings, SSRS is continuing to refine and test the methodology ahead of November 2026, when the Voter Poll will cover midterm elections in all 50 states.