FOR RELEASE JULY 29, 2026

Video: How precise are polls really?

How precise are polls ... really? Here's a little secret: Even the best pollsters need some wiggle room when sharing results. This “wiggle room” (also known as the margin of error) is the range within the true answer likely falls.  

BY Courtney Kennedy and Sara Atske

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Pew Research Center, July 2026, "Video: How precise are polls really?"

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Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, computational social science research and other data-driven research. It studies politics and policy; news habits and media; the internet and technology; religion; race and ethnicity; international affairs; social, demographic and economic trends; science; research methodology and data science; and immigration and migration. Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder.

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Table of contents

Video: How precise are polls really?

How precise are polls ... really? Here's a little secret: Even the best pollsters need some wiggle room when sharing results. This “wiggle room” (also known as the margin of error) is the range within the true answer likely falls.  

How precise are polls … really? Here’s a little secret: Even the best pollsters need some wiggle room when sharing results. This “wiggle room” (also known as the margin of error) is the range within the true answer likely falls. To learn more about polling basics, watch our Methods 101 video series.