McClatchy Newspapers has long been praised for keeping its Washington, D.C., bureau largely intact despite budget cutbacks and diminishing resources.

But one longtime element of its coverage is disappearing in the coming weeks:polling.

Robert Rankin, government and politics editor for the chain that serves The Miami Herald and 29 other daily papers, said the bureau is dropping its contract with Ipsos, which conducted polls for the news outlet for years.

“It stops this month,” Rankin told me. “The budget requires that that relationship comes to an end.”

Rankin said McClatchy did 10 to 11 polls each year, most on politics. “We would do them about once a month,” he added. “This hurts.”

He added, “We are staffing (political coverage) at about the same level. But we can't cover the absence of polls. There is no way to replace them.”

McClatchy's move is not unique. Numerous news outlets in print and on air have been cutting back on the use of polls, most citing budgetary needs.

Newspapers from New Jersey to Washington state have eliminated polls in just the past few years because of the cost, while some local television outlets have seen them as unnecessary.

“I don't think it adds anything to the story,” said Steve Schwaid, news director at CBS affiliate WGCL-TV in Atlanta. “I spend more time with candidates on the air.”

Schwaid, who served at five other stations prior to his two-year Atlanta stint, said none of them used polling for local races: “It is not about the horse-race politics, we want to educate viewers.” He also added, “It is much more of a newspaper thing.”

But even some newspapers are giving them up, citing financial cutbacks.

Frank Scandale, editor of The Record in Hackensack, N.J. - and the state's second-largest daily paper - has not done a political poll since 2009. “We looked at various things to cut in the budget, to realign our money,” he said. “We looked at what we could cut back on without hurting the product.”

Scandale, like most editors I interviewed, said political coverage had not been reduced. “You look at what you can do,” he said.

Chris Powell, managing editor of the Journal Enquirer in Manchester, Ct., said he last did a political poll in 2006 for a gubernatorial race. Even though that office is up again this year, a poll is not being done.

“We are under the same constraints that everyone else is,” Powell said. “We have not ruled it out, but we have not done one this year.”

Powell said the paper also did no presidential polling in 2008 for the first time in many years: “I think we lose something (without polling) when an election is expected to be close.”

At The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., polls have also been eliminated since 2008, with the last political poll dating back to a 2005 mayoral recall.

“When we have had to lay people off, spending $10,000 for a poll doesn't make sense,” says Editor Gary Graham. “We can cover politics as well as we can, but we do not have as many bodies as we used to.” He said the news staff has dropped from 120 in 2004 to 81 today.

Another approach taken by some newspapers is to finance polls via a joint project. Eight papers in Ohio began that practice two years ago and have financed several statewide polls together.

“It is one of the ways that we can afford it,” said Lu Ann Sharp, assistant managing editor of The Blade in Toledo. “We all share the cost of the poll and publish on the same day.”

The Blade has done the joint polling with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Cincinnati Enquirer, Columbus Dispatch, Canton Repository, Youngstown Vindicator, Dayton Daily News, and the Akron Beacon-Journal.

Several Ohio presidential polls were done via the alliance in 2008.

A similar plan launched this year in Texas with the Dallas Morning News, Austin American-Statesman, Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

“It is the first time the big five in the state have worked together on it,” said Editor Bob Mong of the Morning News. He said the initial effort was a March Texas primary poll. “We came up with a formula and we are getting the same level of polling, so we are happy.”

But do news outlets lose something when they have to share the data with others? And is there a loss of local or regional polling data. Some say yes.

“It depends on how significant or contested a race is,” Mong says. “Before, it was exclusive to us.”

How much do polls really matter in political coverage anyway? Some say horse-race polls only feed the political junkies and do little for average readers.

“The democracy would probably survive just fine without another horse-race poll,” said Bill Mitchell, a top instructor at The Poynter Institute. “The problem is that campaigns, understandably, will never abandon those polls. Knowing where they stand in the race at any given time is seen as critical to candidates' efforts to end up on top.

”And we can rely on campaign managers to leak and spin their polling numbers to their own best advantage. If news organizations have no independent measure of what's happening in any given race, they're really at the mercy of very interested parties. And that's never a good place for a news organization to find itself."

Adds Frank Sesno, director of the School of Media and Politics at George Washington University: “I have seen a lot of polling that is mediocre and doesn't add much.” But he said polls can be useful if they are done properly with a true scientific approach and background information on who is responding.

“You have to get on the phone and talk to them,” Sesno, a former CNN reporter, said of poll participants. “I am leery of automated polls.”

Most of the top 10 daily papers appear to be continuing the polling that they have always done. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post are still releasing polls as before.

But even the Los Angeles Times has had to partner up, with the University of Southern California, to keep some polls going, according to Assistant Managing Editor David Lauter.

“Budget cuts had taken us almost completely out of the state and local polling business as of 2008, but by shifting around money internally, we were able to free resources to resume polling in 2009 and then, in combination with USC, proceed with an ambitious polling program during this election year,” he wrote in an e-mail.

“In 2009, we did a citywide poll in Los Angeles - our first citywide poll in several years. We followed that up with a statewide poll in the fall. So far this year, we've done two statewide polls and expect to do three more during the fall - all in conjunction with USC.”

But beyond the top national papers, the use of polls varies, with many dropping them in recent years.

“At this point we are pretty much taking wire polling,” said Mike Fannin, editor of the Kansas City Star. “We are still on top of our political coverage, we have remained faithful to that.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer has not done any local polling under Editor William Marimow, who took over in 2006. “It makes it harder to do precision stories,” he admits. “But polling is not a top priority.”