(NEWS CENTER Maine) — Maine's highly contested 2nd Congressional District race is one of several being polled by the New York Times and Siena College, and the results are being virtually displayed in real time through the newspaper's data-driven reporting venture, The Upshot.
The Upshot shows exactly how the poll is being conducted, how many calls are being made, how many people have spoken to them and how the latest call ended — whether someone answered, said they were voting Democrat or Republican, and so on — all shown within about 30 minutes.
The goal: to help people understand how polling works, and why it sometimes doesn't. Correspondent Nate Cohn says the newspaper wants people to see the poll results at the same time they do, hoping to give a sense of "what polling is really about: talking to real people, one by one, in every corner of a district." Cohn says they expect to call at least 1 million Americans during the two-month project.
The Upshot's Maine 2nd District page shows respondents' actions, a map of where respondents live in the district, background information regarding the race, how results have changed over time, a model for potential voter turnout, respondent demographics and other notable figures.
As of about 5 p.m. Tuesday, The Upshot's initial take on its live poll of Maine's 2nd District was this: "So far, voters in Maine's Second District overwhelmingly endorse Susan Collins and endorse her Kavanaugh decision, but this House race is very close. ... In other words, it's Maine."
