A Rapid-Fire Polling Season Is Revealing Some Serious Quality Control Problems
If you’ve been paying attention to Nevada politics lately, you’ve noticed something: polls on the 2026 governor’s race are dropping fast and furious.
But a new round of scrutiny is raising a bigger question. Are the pollsters actually doing their homework?
The answer, at least in one recent case, appears to be no.
What Happened
Noble Predictive Insights, an Arizona-based polling firm, released a new survey touching on several Nevada 2026 races. The poll got attention quickly, but not for the right reasons.
The pollster erronously asked Nevada voters about candidates that ran in the 2022 cycle, instead of the current election cycle.
The poll referenced “Jesse Law” as a Secretary of State candidate. Problem: Jesse Law didn’t run for Secretary of State in 2022. Jesse Haw did. Jesse Law is the former Clark County Republican Party chair. Haw is a former Senator. They’re two different people.
That alone should raise eyebrows. But it gets worse.
Other issues with the poll:
Inclusion Superintendent of Public Instruction election. This election doesn’t exist in Nevada, as it is appointed by the Governor.Fred Simon is listed there but is running in CD2.
Crosstabs include Maricopa and Pima counties, located in Arizona. pic.twitter.com/HsbBQSWbeq
— BrutalBrittany💕 (@BrutalBrittany2) April 2, 2026
The poll included a race for Nevada Superintendent of Public Instruction. That office doesn’t exist as an elected position in Nevada. The Governor appoints it. You can’t poll voters on a race that isn’t on the ballot.
The poll also listed Fred Simon as a candidate in the Superintendent’s race. Fred Simon is actually running in Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District. Putting him in a made-up race is a double mistake.
Then there’s the AG race. The poll ignored the candidacy of Adriana Guzmán Fralick — a Republican candidate endorsed by Governor Joe Lombardo — entirely. Leaving out a Lombardo-backed candidate in a Republican primary poll isn’t a minor oversight. It’s a major blunder.
And perhaps the most baffling error of all: the poll’s crosstabs — the detailed breakdown of responses — included data from Maricopa and Pima counties. Those are in Arizona.
The pollster appears to have mixed up data from two different states.
Why This Matters
You might shrug and say, “It’s just a poll.” But polls matter — a lot. Campaigns use them to decide where to spend money. Donors use them to decide which candidates to back. Voters use them to gauge momentum.
When a poll is full of errors this basic, every number in it becomes suspect. If a firm doesn’t know which candidates are in which race, or which counties are in which state, how much can you trust the topline numbers they’re producing?
This isn’t about one bad poll. It’s about accountability. Nevada deserves accurate information heading into a critical election year.
The Bigger Polling Picture
Noble Predictive Insights has been driving a specific narrative about the Nevada governor’s race — and they’ve been at it for months.
Back in October, Noble released a poll showing Lombardo leading Ford 40% to 37%, and headlined it as an “early dead heat.” Then in March, they came back with Lombardo at 39% and Ford at 38% — and this time the story was that the race was “tightening.”
Notice the pattern. October: dead heat. March: tightening. Each poll feeds the next headline. The numbers barely moved, but the narrative kept building.
Now we learn this same firm’s latest Nevada survey included fictional races, wrong candidates, and Arizona counties in the crosstabs. That raises a fair question: if the basic facts are wrong, what’s driving the narrative?
The race is genuinely competitive. But competitive races deserve accurate polling. Not polling that appears to be building a story first and checking the facts second.
What You Can Do
Read every poll with a critical eye. Look at who conducted it, when the fieldwork was done, and what the sample looks like. When you see sloppy errors like these, say something. Call them out on social media. Contact the publication that ran the story uncritically.
Nevada’s elections are too close, and too consequential, to be shaped by polling that can’t get basic facts right.
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views. This article was written with the assistance of AI. Please verify information and consult additional sources as needed.
