Gary Langer

Gary Langer is one of the nation's leading news pollsters, known for the depth and acuity of his analysis as well as the breadth of his subject matter. The first and only pollster to have been awarded a news Emmy, Langer has produced influential and groundbreaking surveys on politics, presidential elections, consumer confidence, health care, war and terrorism, education and more-including ABC's coverage of the first media-sponsored national public opinion polls in Iraq and Afghanistan. The late ABC News anchor Peter Jennings called him "our great pollster." Ted Koppel, introducing Langer in a 2004 Nightline broadcast, said, "When Gary Langer talks, the White House listens." Mark Zandi, chief economist of economy.com, calls Langer's weekly consumer confidence index one of his "five favorite economic indicators;" its readership runs from the halls of the Fed to the towers of Wall Street.

A self-described "newsman who does polls, not a pollster who does news," Langer has been covering the beat of public opinion for more than 20 years, first as an award-winning reporter with The Associated Press (where he also covered national politics, plane crashes, train wrecks and more three-alarm fires than he cares to count), then since 1990 at ABC. He conducts, analyzes and reports on ABC News polls, either singly or with partners including The Washington Post, Time magazine, the BBC and others. He advises the news division on public opinion more broadly, and vets and interprets polling data produced by other organizations to ensure its suitability for ABC's air.

Langer has appeared on all the major ABC News broadcasts and on many other television and radio programs locally, nationally and internationally. Appearances include The Charlie Rose Show, the BBC, Fuji TV, NPR's Morning Edition and Weekend Edition, PRI's To the Point and uncounted other radio and television live shots. A frequent writer and speaker on public opinion, he's been published in the op-ed pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, Nihon Kezai Shimbun and others. His full poll reports can be read on ABCNews.com, as can "The Numbers", the ongoing blog in which Langer delves behind the latest data.

Langer earned a 2004 Emmy nomination, the first for a news pollster, for the ABC News series "Critical Condition: Healthcare in America," then won Emmys in 2005 and 2008 for "Iraq: Where Things Stand." He shared in the ABC-wide 2001-2002 DuPont award for ABC's coverage of the 9/11 attacks.

Langer was 2006-2007 president of the New York chapter of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, is a trustee of the National Council on Public Polls, and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of New Hampshire.