Titled book submission post

I asked you all for advice on book titles last month. See this post for some of the things we came up with.

Today, just shy of two months behind schedule, I sent the manuscript off to my editor. We are running with the tentative title STRENGTH IN NUMBERS, with the subtitle “How Polls Work and Why We Need Them.” The publication date is TBD, but sometime next year.

Here is the working table of contents:

Introduction
1. What’s the Matter With Polling?
2. Democracy and the Public Will
3. Polling Comes of Age
4. Machine Politics
5. One Bad Apple Doesn’t Spoil the Bunch
6. The Second Miracle of Aggregation
7. Big Data and Black Boxes
8. Taking the Pulse of the Pulse of Democracy
Conclusion

Thanks to everyone who has provided thoughts and feedback so far. I’m really happy with how things are shaping up, and this engaged newsletter audience is a big reason why. You helped me rehearse some of the book’s ideas, but also provide distractions when I need to step away and think about something else.

Here’s more about the book.

PS Andrew Gelman wanted to call the book “How Polls Work.” I added “And Why We Need Them” and made it the subtitle. He doesn’t really need the boost but deserves the credit.

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PPS, there is some related commentary about the polls on Twitter today.

See here:

G. Elliott Morris @gelliottmorris

If you decrease your expectations for the polls you will be much better off — but that doesn't mean they are useless, it means most people have been underrating potential error and misunderstanding exactly how (in)accurate they can be

Travis @Llamaoftime

@gelliottmorris The last few cycles made me think unpacking the district and state level polls would give a better national picture and now I'm just back to national polls give the best national picture but the EC makes it a crapshoot anyway

and here:

G. Elliott Morris @gelliottmorris

Biden's vote share was off by one point in the national polls — and even if you look at margin, a four-point miss is not "one of the worst pollster failures in modern history." They were worse in 2000 and 1980, not to mention in every Gallup poll election before 1956.

Mark Hemingway @Heminator

It also bears saying again -- we're a few months out from one of the worst pollster failures in modern history, notable for failing to capture right-of-center sentiment. There's no reason to believe 52% is accurate at at all, and if anything it's likely notably lower. https://t.co/0ujQySP0QG