Kabir Khanna, Ph.D.

Kabir Khanna, Ph.D., is Director, Election Analytics & Technical Systems at CBS News. He produces stories on elections, polling, and politics, ensuring they are evidence-based and methodologically rigorous, and he often appears on air to break down data. He manages the network Data Desk, projecting races on election nights and generating real-time insights into the American electorate. That includes building and validating statistical models to forecast turnout and estimate results from partial returns.

Kabir's background is in quantitative social science, and he has published academic research in journals like Political Analysis, Political Behavior, and the Harvard Data Science Review. He has developed statistical software to analyze survey data and voter files. He served on special task forces convened by the American Association of Public Opinion Research in 2020 and 2024 to evaluate election polling and the state of the field. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, as well as the corporate relations committee of the Society for Political Methodology.

Outside of CBS, his analysis and commentary have appeared in outlets such as the BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, FiveThirtyEight, Vox, Axios, and Politico, among others. Recent speaking engagements include events at Harvard, MIT, and Princeton, as well as the Analytics Institute of Ireland and Bipartisan Policy Center.

He is a graduate of Stanford University and earned his PhD in political science from Princeton.