Spring Break
Polls don't always reflect election reality
Matt Stevens
Issue date: 11/3/08 Section: Election Special
Anyone who has ever followed a political campaign, regardless of whether it was at the national, state, or local level, is familiar with polls. Every election season, people hear about which way polls show the election going. Over the course of the last several weeks, voters have heard that Sen. Barack Obama, according to polls, is on track to win the presidency by a comfortable margin. Given how many people are expressing their disapproval - in both conversations and in signs and bumper stickers - of the current Bush administration, and the fact that professional pollsters have gone out of their way to perfect their tactics, these poll results may very well turn out to be accurate. However, ever since the birth of scientific polling, pre-election polls and Election Day exit polls have, on occasion, wrongly predicted which candidate would win the election. This should come as no surprise, as there are so many different factors that pollsters must take into account when conducting a poll. If pollsters do not account for just one factor, voters are likely to be in for a big surprise on Election Day.
To begin, when pollsters ask voters questions, they must make sure that they give people choices if they want to get a truly accurate picture. For example, when a USA Today/Gallup Poll asked respondents if they thought that Bill Clinton was a good or bad president, 71 percent answered that he was a good president. Yet, when USA Today and Gallup asked people if they thought that Clinton was an outstanding, above average, average, below average, or poor president, only 49 percent ranked Clinton outstanding or even above average.
Pollsters have to make sure that they do not ask questions that present a certain candidate or point of view in a more favorable light than the other. For example, a pollster's asking voters if they see Barack Obama as "a strong leader capable of leading the U.S. to new heights," while also asking them if they see John McCain as a "strong leader," would almost certainly get an overwhelmingly pro-Obama response. Pollsters must make sure that their samples (people that they are interviewing) are representative of the entire voting population in order to get an accurate result.
To begin, when pollsters ask voters questions, they must make sure that they give people choices if they want to get a truly accurate picture. For example, when a USA Today/Gallup Poll asked respondents if they thought that Bill Clinton was a good or bad president, 71 percent answered that he was a good president. Yet, when USA Today and Gallup asked people if they thought that Clinton was an outstanding, above average, average, below average, or poor president, only 49 percent ranked Clinton outstanding or even above average.
Pollsters have to make sure that they do not ask questions that present a certain candidate or point of view in a more favorable light than the other. For example, a pollster's asking voters if they see Barack Obama as "a strong leader capable of leading the U.S. to new heights," while also asking them if they see John McCain as a "strong leader," would almost certainly get an overwhelmingly pro-Obama response. Pollsters must make sure that their samples (people that they are interviewing) are representative of the entire voting population in order to get an accurate result.
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