About Political Opinion Polls
Political polls are a part of elections in the United States. Politicians use them to identify strengths and weaknesses, and voters watch them in the same way they watch football or basketball ratings in non-election years. A fairly recent addition to the process of American elections, political polls have become more scientific and less understandable. Even with a group of media commentators to explain, it takes a real fan to make sense of them.
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History
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The first recorded political poll in American political politics was a "straw poll"---a solicitation among readers of the Harrisburg Pennsylvanian newspaper during the election of 1828. It correctly projected the winner, Andrew Jackson. Voluntary local surveys went national when the affluent, overwhelmingly Republican readership of the Literary Review was surveyed in the election of 1916. They picked Woodrow Wilson. The concept of scientific polls was invented by George Gallup in the same election that ended the Review's leadership in the game---the 1932 election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Although Gallup had some notable failures (including the Dewey-Truman election of 1948), he, Louis Harris and Elmo Roper developed the modern science of opinion polls based on scientifically determined groups that accurately reflect the economic, social and cultural demographics of a given population, whether in a local or national election.
Function
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Political opinion polls serve a number of purposes, the first being to give candidates a picture of what voters are thinking. They identify which candidates are increasing in popularity and which are losing the attention of the voters. Polls are commissioned to identify pockets of undecided voters and help target campaign efforts. Beyond their usefulness in predicting votes, polls help identify important issues and shifts in thinking about candidates. For the public, political polls give a snapshot of who we are and how we think. We can compare our thinking to others' opinions, particularly those of other demographic groups.
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Features
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Political opinion polls cannot predict an election's outcome but merely point to likely outcomes if identified trends continue. They can tell how a group is likely to vote but can never guarantee anything but a picture of a representative sample. Polls also have some drawbacks; positive trends can have a "bandwagon" effect --they may encourage more voters to vote for a certain candidate. They can also be used to paint a candidate as an "underdog" and encourage sympathy votes. Pollsters have to be very careful about the way they word questions and their choice of "sample" (the people they choose to use in their poll) to keep a given poll as neutral and objective as possible.
Types
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The first political polls were commissioned by periodicals or political parties and conducted face-to-face or by mail. Today, polls are still conducted for these groups but have a much larger following thanks to radio, television and the Internet. They are conducted by telephone and email and still take "snapshots" over a period to identify trends. The science of polling is now an integral part of political science, even though its founders came from the worlds of advertising and finance.
Warning
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Every poll's accuracy is limited by the skill of its designers and the accuracy of its sample. This "margin of error" is often larger than the pollsters figure. Probability to vote, undecided voters and other factors can "skew" poll results.
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Resources
- Photo Credit Microsoft Office clip art, Library of Congress, Microsoft Office clip art
