Announcing a regular Q&A/AMA feature

Send me your questions by June 13th. Answers to be sent out Tuesday the 14th

Hi everyone. Democracy by the Numbers is back this week from an unplanned vacation to start the summer. I hope you have all had a nice week.

This post is an especially fun one; we are starting a new question-and-answer feature for the blog! Some writers call this a “mailbag.” You may also think of it, to borrow from the pandemic work-from-home nomenclature, as an “asynchronous” “ask me anything” (AMA). But I am just going to call it a “Q&A” for now.

You can submit questions by filling out this form. More details follow.

Here’s a preliminary plan for how this is going to work. I will run one Q&A post roughly once a month or when someone sends in an excellent question—whichever comes first. For each issue, I will collect several questions submitted via the form and pick one to answer for the entire subscriber list. I will select several other questions to answer for those who support the blog with a paid subscription.

The first Q&A will run Tuesday, June 14th. So please send in your questions by then. After that, I’ll consult the list and post a new set of answers on the first Tuesday of the following month. (In your submission, please tell me if you want me to keep you completely anonymous, otherwise I’ll use your real first name in the post.)

For those keeping track, the amended content schedule for the newsletter is now: Sunday (free weekly column), Tuesday (long subscribers-only read of all-reader Q&A), and Saturdays (link threads and discussion), with special one-off posts published whenever. Readers will be able to find archived Q&A threads at a new tab on the Democracy by the Numbers online homepage.

Okay, enough with the programming details. The fun part? You can ask questions about anything you want, provided the subject is at least loosely related to politics, the polls, political science, history, democracy, statistics and data, etc.

I hope that this feature will be fruitful for you, who will gain a closer relationship with me, the author; and fruitful for me, who will be able to think about all of your great questions and gain more content to write! And hopefully, we can spend a little more time thinking about elections and polling and a little less time on Twitter.

Here are a few examples of questions people have submitted to the blog in the past:

• Can Democrats make up ground before the mid-term elections?

• How much is Joe Biden’s approval rating being dragged down by right-leaning pollsters, such as Rasmussen Reports or the Trafalgar Group?

• How have polls changed since 2016 2020?

• Will Republicans pay a price if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade?

• Why inspired you to write a book about polls?

• Etc.

I hope that gets the juices flowing. Remember to have fun, and ask away.

Elliott