Kabir Khanna

Kabir Khanna, Ph.D., is Director, Election Analytics & Technical Systems at CBS News. He produces stories on elections, polling, and politics, applying best practices and innovations in quantitative social science. He ensures CBS News surveys and estimates are representative and accurate, and he breaks down the results on air.

On election nights, Kabir characterizes races and projects their outcomes, and along with a team of analysts he manages, generates data-driven insights into the electorate and contests around the country. He produces data visualization and statistical models that enable these projections, as well as estimates of turnout, how ballots are cast, and key voter groups. He is responsible for the CBS News Battleground Tracker methodology, which combines big data and statistical modeling to estimate public opinion in every U.S. state and congressional district.

Prior to joining CBS News in 2016, Kabir conducted scholarly research in the fields of political behavior, survey methodology, and data science. He has published work in academic journals, such as Political Analysis and the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, and developed statistical software that has been widely adopted to estimate the race of registered voters. He earned a Ph.D. in political science at Princeton University, and previously studied neuroscience at Stanford University (M.A. and B.A.).

He is affiliated with the Society for Political Methodology, and serves on the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research Board of Directors and the Special Task Force on Pre-election Polling convened by the American Association for Public Opinion Research.