When you hear the words “exit polls,” it probably conjures an image of people with clipboards outside polling places asking voters how they voted. And that does happen — but because so many people vote early or by mail these days, those interviews have to be supplemented with traditional phone polls. That makes the exit polls … just another poll, albeit a high-quality one, which means it’s not quite the definitive source a lot of people want it to be. But unfortunately, people still throw around exit polls on election night to say that Joe Schmo is winning women or that Jane Candidate is winning college-educated voters. We don’t recommend putting a lot of stock in these numbers — especially since they’ll change after election night, once the data is reweighted to reflect the final, actual results.
