What about the entrance polls for the Iowa Caucus

Organizations are beginning to release so-called entrance polls – the final polls taken just before the caucuses. These polls, also called exit polls in non-caucus states, have taken on great importance in the minds of politicians.

Here's what you need to know.

There are two of these exit-type polls. The National Election Pool – made up of ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC – and Edison Research conduct one, commonly known as the NEP Exit Poll. The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research runs the other, called VoteCast, for The Associated Press and Fox News.

The National Election Pool poll is a more traditional exit poll that contacts voters outside of polling places – or in the case of caucuses, before people participate in the caucus. After the 2016 cycle, the NEP Poll added a telephone component in some states, calling some people before Election Day to reach those who vote early. (There will be no pre-election calling in the NEP Iowa caucus admission poll as there is no early voting.)

VoteCast isn't really a traditional exit poll – it surveys voters by phone and online in the days and hours before the election and asks them how they plan to vote; in some ways it is more like a traditional election poll.

After 2016, the NEP made a number of methodological changes to its poll to take into account educational divisions among the electorate. That means this cycle's polls aren't necessarily directly comparable to the 2016 exit polls, the latter year of which saw a competitive Republican primary. VoteCast started in 2018 and therefore does not have 2016 data for comparison.

At The Times, we will consider the NEP and VoteCast polls in the context of our own Times/Siena polls, other public polls and, after votes are reported, the Republican Party of Iowa's precinct-level results.