PollTracker, released with just under 100 days until Election Day, delivers the latest polling data to your smartphone. It collects information from a variety of sources, including Gallup and Rasmussen, and displays them as averages or as in-depth breakdowns including voters’ political leanings and demographic info, such as age and gender.
The feature that most election watchers will likely appreciate are the push notifications. PollTracker users can choose to be automatically notified of new polling data for a particular set of races, including either the presidential contest or congressional elections, as soon as it’s available.
Users can designate “favorite” elections to watch, and share polling results with their social networks directly from the app.
PollTracker, which pulls data from TPM‘s PollTracker web-based vertical, also features analysis from the site’s staff that can help explain the latest polling trends.
“This is TPM’s fourth major election cycle, so we’ve been in this rodeo a few times before,” said Marshall. “There’s a pattern where in the last three months [before Election Day], a lot more people become junkies. We designed it mainly for those people. When you get down to last few months, even a lot of people who aren’t hardcore political people want to know when the latest poll comes out.”
The original idea for PollTracker, which took roughly three months to develop, goes back to 2010. However, Marshall said the demand wasn’t quite there during a midterm election, so they stashed the idea until this presidential election year.
For now, the app is iPhone-only, which Marshall said is a reflection of the TPM’s audience. However, he added that if his team saw enough demand for an Android version, they could easily port the app over to that platform
