Polls and Politics.
A guided tour led by Adam Berinsky.
(The News Items Podcast, Episode #22: Interview with MIT Professor Adam Berinsky. Recorded 4 August 2026. Produced by Dale Eisinger. You can find this podcast, and previous News Items podcasts, on most of the major platforms, including Apple, Amazon and Spotify.)
Adam Berinsky is the Mitsui Professor of Political Science at MIT and serves as the director of the MIT Political Experiments Research Lab (PERL). He is also a Faculty Affiliate at the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). Berinsky received his PhD from the University of Michigan in 2000. He is the author of “Political Rumors: Why We Accept Misinformation and How to Fight It” (Princeton University Press, 2023), “In Time of War: Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq” (University of Chicago Press, 2009), and “Silent Voices: Public Opinion and Political Participation in America“ (Princeton University Press, 2004). He has published articles in many journals and is currently the co-editor of the Chicago Studies in American Politics book series at the University of Chicago Press. He is the recipient of multiple grants from the National Science Foundation and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Berinsky was appointed a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow to study how political rumors spread and how they can be effectively debunked.
Understanding public opinion, how it’s measured and what moves it this way or that, is Professor Berinsky’s life’s work. With the mid-term elections approaching, it seemed like a good idea to get him on the podcast to discuss the subject. We focused on the mechanics of survey research, the rise of disinformation and the impact of artificial intelligence. Among other topics.
Few understand the subject matter as well.