ST. Norbert College: Election poll ranks high in national listing

Contact: Erich Wegenke, St. Norbert College
Website: www.snc.edu
Phone: (920) 403-3089
Email:erich.wegenke@snc.edu

DE PERE, WIS.: The St. Norbert College/Wisconsin Public Radio election poll has earned a high ranking on the nationally known statistical-analysis blog FiveThirtyEight, which recently released its rankings of pollsters across the nation.

The St. Norbert College poll is ranked 31st out of the 337 national polling organizations that the blog evaluated. It is 11th out of 85 academic polling organizations and is the number-one poll from Wisconsin on the listing, followed by those from Marquette University and UW-Madison.

David Wegge, executive director of the Strategic Research Institute at St. Norbert College, had this to say about the ranking: “We are very pleased to receive high rankings in Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog rankings of 337 national pollsters. We have a long and successful track record of polling in Wisconsin that goes back to 1984. The key to accuracy in pre-election polling comes in the methodological procedures that are utilized. For years we have carefully followed some very strict methodological procedures that give us a high level of accuracy.”

Created by analyst Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight — which takes its name from the number of electors in the United States Electoral College — is a blog dedicated to polling aggregation and statistical analysis. It examines and interprets data on various topics related to politics, economics, sports and science. Currently owned by ESPN and featured on The New York Times’ website, FiveThirtyEight gained widespread recognition in part due to its accurate predictions of election outcomes.

For more information, please contact David Wegge by phone at

920-403-3247 or by email at dave.wegge@snc.edu.