Panel cumulative response reveals bias risk

Even when a survey’s immediate response looks healthy (here 95% of sampled panelists responded), the underlying cumulative recruitment-and-attrition rate (3% for this ATP wave) can be vanishingly small, concentrating the sample among long-run respondents and raising the risk that weighted estimates do not reflect the broader population. Method sections that prominently report cumulative response rates let readers and reporters better assess how much confidence to place in headline poll numbers. — Greater public and media attention to cumulative response rates would change how poll results are reported, reducing overconfidence in fine-grained subgroup claims and improving transparency around survey uncertainty.