As pundits pounce on pollsters, pollsters downplay mistakes in a difficult cycle

That could be one of the reasons pundits are taking shots at the pollsters this year, said Isaac Wood, communications director at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. There are just too many polls out there, he said, widening the chance that someone, somewhere, is going to get something wrong.

“It’s important to realize that this degree of polling that we have now is brand new,” Wood said. “It’s not so much that there have been so many more polls that have been wrong this year, it’s that there have been so many more polls and some of them have been wrong.”

So despite a few hiccups, will 2010 become the year when the American people lose total faith in the polling process? No way, Jensen said. Pollsters aren’t going anywhere.

“I don’t see any evidence that this is going to be a particularly bad year for pollsters,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll be discussing a crisis in the polling industry in a week after election or anything like that.”

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