The 2020 Presidential election may be over, but our understanding of what it means for the future of the country has only just begun. How much did the electorate shift since 2016 -- nationally, by state, and by demographic group? How much did early voting and mail-in voting affect the outcome? Why did the pre-election polls underestimate Republicans’ strength? Why were Biden’s coattails not stronger? And how different would the outcome have been without COVID-19?

New York AAPOR has put together an all-star panel to discuss these questions, including: Jennfier Agiesta, CNN Polling Director; John Lapinski, Director of Elections, NBC News; Joe Lenski, Executive Vice President of Edison Research, provider of the National Exit Poll; and Arnon Mishkin, Director of Fox News’ Decision Desk, and Michael Miller, Fox News Decision Desk.

Jennifer Agiesta, Director of Polling and Election Analytics at CNN

Jennifer Agiesta is Director of Polling and Election Analytics at CNN. Named to the position in January 2015, Agiesta produces all the network's polling and leads its Election Night decision team, while guiding CNN's reporting on the use of polls. She works out of CNN's Washington DC bureau. Prior to joining CNN, Agiesta served as director of polling at The Associated Press. There, she ran a two-person polling unit, conducting domestic and international survey research for the news cooperative and leading its election night exit poll coverage. She has also covered polling at The Washington Post, launching the site's polling blog Behind the Numbers, and helped build the National Election Pool exit poll operation at Edison Research. Prior to her media work, Agiesta worked on messaging research with DC firms Belden, Russonello and Stewart and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner.

John Lapinski, Director of Elections, NBC News

John Lapinski, Ph.D. is Director of Elections at NBC News. He is also the Robert A. Fox Professor of Political Science, Faculty Director of the Robert A. Fox Leadership Program and the Director of the Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies. He also serves as the Faculty Director for the Executive Masters of Public Administration program within the Fels Institute of Government. In his role for NBC News, Lapinski is responsible for projecting races for the network and produces election-related stories through exit polls for NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, Telemundo, and all of NBC’s digital properties. Dr. Lapinski earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 2000, and previously was an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Yale University. His primary area of research is concerned with understanding national elections as well as lawmaking in Congress through empirical analysis. He is the author of The Substance of Representation (Princeton University Press, 2013) and co-author (with David A. Bateman and Ira Katznelson) of Southern Nation (Princeton University Press, 2018).

Joe Lenski, Executive Vice President at Edison Research (NEP Exit Poll)

Joe Lenski is co-founder and Executive Vice President of Edison Research. Under his supervision, Edison Research currently conducts all exit polls for the major news organizations comprising the National Election Pool (NEP) – ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC. Edison Research has conducted all state and national exit polling for the NEP since 2003. Edison Research has also conducted exit polls for national elections in Iraq, Venezuela and the Republican of Georgia. Lenski has served on the Executive Council for the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), and as President of the New York Chapter of AAPOR. Lenski is a graduate of Princeton University and studied at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

Arnon Mishkin, Director of Fox News' Decision Desk

Arnon Mishkin is the Director of Fox News' Election Decision Desk. Mishkin worked as a pollster under political consultant David Garth for the Democratic Party during electoral campaigns for Ed Koch, Tom Bradley and Mike Bloomberg among others. Mishkin worked for a number of consultancy agencies such as the Boston Consulting Group and the Mitchell Madison Group, and he operates his own consultancy firm known as Mishkin Associates.[1] He joined the Fox Corporation in 1998 and became director of the Fox News Decision Desk for the 2012, 2016 and 2020 United States presidential elections.

Michael Miller, Fox News Decision Desk

Michael G. Miller is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Barnard College. Professor Miller's work applies quantitative methods to questions in American elections and political behavior. He is the author or coauthor of two books and more than a dozen peer-reviewed articles. His research appears in outlets such as The Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Political Behavior, American Politics Research, Publius, The Journal of Experimental Political Science, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, Research and Politics, Politics and Gender, and Election Law Journal. Professor Miller was part of Fox News' Election Decision Desk in 2020.