Self-reported voting intention is unreliable: about 90% of people say they will vote in a primary but actual turnout is much lower (US presidential turnout has hovered in the mid-50% range, congressional under 40%), and likely-voter screens cannot fully fix this because people answer based on what they think they should say.

causalpending

Speaker

Doug Rivers

Evidence Quote

a lot of them won't vote they're telling you that because they think they should be telling people that they're gonna vote

Source

Doug Rivers on polling 7/21/2008EconTalk
Created: 6/15/2026, 9:28:54 AM

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