[Townhall] First, an interesting polling note about this pollster itself. The Wall Street Journal has teamed up with NBC News to conduct national and state-level surveys for decades -- and we've analyzed them many times. But that longstanding alliance has apparently been dissolved, as the Journal launches its own proprietary polling product without any media partners. Axios reported on this development a few days ago, mining a few worthwhile nuggets:Now, it's launching a new polling operation without media partners and it's bringing on campaign experts to help, the Journal’s executive Washington editor Jerry Seib told Axios. The company has contracted two firms led by John Anzalone, the lead pollster for President Biden's 2020 presidential campaign, and Tony Fabrizio, the lead pollster for former President Trump's presidential 2016 and 2020 campaigns. The firms will help put together the new "The Wall Street Journal Poll." The quarterly poll will explore political trends and voter sentiments around key issues. The data will be deployed across all Dow Jones properties, including Barron’s, Dow Jones Newswires and MarketWatch. The polls will have larger sample sizes, "to add confidence to the results and be able to look at demographic groups with increased statistical reliability," Seib said.
I think political observers should welcome innovations and changes in the polling space, given some of the industry's infamous flops and misses over the years (although successes sometimes get overlooked). That's why I find Trafalgar's work so intriguing. The inaugural Wall Street Journal poll was released yesterday, and its results are rather ugly for President Biden and his party. Let's start with the top line number on approval: