Good morning.

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Our colleagues at The Upshot have partnered with Siena College to conduct real-time polling in several of the most competitive races in the country, several of which are here in California. They have been reporting the results live, respondent by respondent, as survey calls are being placed. That includes live polls currently underway in California’s 45th and 48th Congressional Districts, in addition to dozens already completed nationally and in the state’s most competitive districts.

We spoke with Nate Cohn, a correspondent who covers elections, polling and demographics, to ask him about the project and what he has been seeing in California.

Q: What’s the reason behind doing live polling?

A: After the 2016 election, we felt like it was important to demystify polling for people. We felt like people didn’t understand why the polls could be wrong, and they took polls to be a little bit more precise than we do. So we wanted to lay out all the challenges involved in polling, the assumptions that underlie it and the increasing challenge of even reaching people in an era of cellphones and caller ID. We thought this would be a compelling way to do it.

Q: What are some of these challenges you’ve mentioned, which news consumers might not understand about polling itself?