Why the Election Polls Missed the Mark (blah, blah, blah)

[No Elephants]

Why the Election Polls Missed the Mark

By Steven Shepard
Updated: December 26, 2012 | 3:24 p.m.
December 26, 2012 | 8:00 a.m.

In the days following an election in which his organization's polls proved to be inaccurate, Gallup Editor in Chief Frank Newport published a blog post warning of "a collective mess."

The results of the election--President Obama's 4-point victory--was not the only indication that Gallup's polls were biased in favor of Republican Mitt Romney. Websites that average and aggregate polls showed, on balance, that Obama was in a stronger position than Gallup's polls did, which allowed some observers to paint the longtime pollster as an outlier, both before and after the votes were tallied.

Newport, in his blog post three days after the election, saw these aggregators as a threat--not only to the Gallup Organization but to the entire for-profit (and nonprofit) public-opinion industry. "It's not easy nor cheap to conduct traditional random sample polls," Newport wrote. "It's much easier, cheaper, and mostly less risky to focus on aggregating and analyzing others' polls. Organizations that traditionally go to the expense and effort to conduct individual polls could, in theory, decide to put their efforts into aggregation and statistical analyses of other people's polls in the next election cycle and cut out their own polling. If many organizations make this seemingly rational decision, we could quickly be in a situation in which there are fewer and fewer polls left to aggregate and put into statistical models."

http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/why-the-election-polls-missed-the-mark-20121226?page=1


Blah, blah, blah.

I have contended that pollsters attempt to use their poll results to shape public opinion, more than using their polls to measure public opinion.

And it goes largely undetected because their questions, how they chose their sample and how they conducted the poll is rarely published.

During the Bush era, I took a telephone poll.

The first question was whether I attended church regularly. Note: not a place of worship, but church.

At some point, the questions subtly built on each other and toward favoring Dummya.

After about ten such questions, I was asked if blamed Bush for the problems of the country.

When I said "yes," the pollster actually snickered audibly.

A less stubborn and more approval-seeking person than I might have said, "Oh, did I say I blamed Bush? I meant, no, of course I don't blame Bush."

Those kinds of things are rarely in a story about poll results.

And raise your hand if you're the slightest bit surprised that a Gallup poll was biased in favor of the Republican candidate.

But, an article like this is never going to say anything remotely like that.

[Enthusiast]

1. There is no question

that pollsters attempt to use their poll results to shape public opinion. No question.

And that is what they were doing during this past election when they insisted that Romney was neck and neck with Obama. I heard from Scott Pelly every evening on the CBS News how tight the race was. Scott told us, "It is so tight that no one can possibly predict the results." I kept thinking, "How can this be?"

I wish I had the opportunity to tell a pollster that Bush was to blame for the economy. But I fear I would have given them an enthusiastic, "Fuck yes!"