Polling Insanity

While the majority claim that taking a step to deport people is cruel and inconsistent with our legal value that undocumented immigrant strengthen our economy and country. Claim-makers use the polls because they offer feedback at the early stages in the process and to determine whether their claim is effective or not. Policymakers often base their decision on what the polls say. Public opinion overall there is little support to deport all those undocumented immigrants in the U.S. nonetheless survey in the past have found great support for building a barrier along the Mexican border and change the constitution. This form of public- opinion is often viewed as inaccurate because polls are formalized situation in which people know they are being solicited for analysis and this can affect what they are willing to

A vast amount of public opinion polling takes place during election cycles. These polls are studied by evaluating a sample of a population. Pollsters aim to study random sample of the population to gain a true understand of the public opinion. Unfortunately, pollsters often run into what is known as a sample bias. This is when a sample does not represent the public true opinion. Instead in sample bias only a fragment of the opinions is present. Though polls are subject to error, they do have the ability to echo the sentiments of the population. I believe this is both most effective and prevalent in exit polls. The important of exit polls as highlighted in the article “Exit polls and voter turnout” by Asger Lau Anderson and Thomas Jensen. In the article the authors suggest that exit polls drive voters to get involved. They state that “In relation to the debate on the implications of exit polls, the most important insight from our analysis is the following. It may well happen that the incentive to vote increases after the revelation of an exit poll.” By suggesting this, the authors relay the idea that exit polls are the way to truly gain an understanding of the public opinion.

Public opinion polls come in a wide-set of different subjects and are good examples of inductive arguments that are seen and used in our day to day lives to measure the public’s views regarding a particular topic or topics done so by taking a non-biased survey/questions. This is an excellent example of inductive arguments, because the person or party/entity conducting these surveys, is looking to validate their argument and assumptions, or to provide a guarantee of truth in the concluding result. However, it is not simply easy to rely on “experts” and believe that the data from these polls they collect, are completely accurate and are not skewed from their own biases. Since a survey is an inductive generalization, a sample is taken from the target population from which a conclusion is drawn regarding the entire population.Which makes these inductive arguments fall into two categories: either weak or strong.

Campaigns in politics are important in determining outcomes and inform the voters who remain undecided. Also, campaigns matter because although the candidates or media officials may know what the outcome will be, the voters themselves do not (107). Aside from campaigns, conventions are also important, if not more important. Party nominating conventions affect the apathetic, uninterested electorates who think conventions are interesting and exciting, often known as the Olympic games of politics (121). This experience for voters can carry influence, and is a time of “intense political learning” (129). Therefore, aggregately, conventions make public opinion meaningful because the citizens who watch make an informed decision about a candidate, and have facts about why they will vote for that candidate. The chief reason why individual public opinion is meaningless during presidential elections is the “nonattitudes.” Nonattitudes are survey responses made up on the spot during an interview by a respondent who has no attitude on politics (113). Therefore, these individuals diminish the value of public opinion because we hate inconsistency and this creates an abundance of views on issues. However, during election night, exit polls support why aggregate opinion is also important. Exit polls are meaningful because one hundred percent of those leaving the polls have voted (102). Therefore, we can get real results from the electorates and this makes collective public opinion

Undoubtedly, the last 80 years have brought the biggest change to the election process - polling. Beginning with the Gallup poll in 1936, the industry has become a titanic business, growing unregulated by the United States government. Frequently, polls have come under fire for their inaccuracy, or for their role in blocking the Democratic process (the 2000 and 2004 elections come to mind). Nonetheless, the 1992 election was not notable because of alleged bias, but because of what the polls said about

With looming elections, polls with independent samples were taken to obtain the following data concerning the number of people who favor two different major

Jay Van Bavel’s 2016 article addresses an important and relevant issue: voters’ deeply divided perceptions of presidential candidates. According to Bavel, approximately 70 million viewers tuned in to watch the final presidential debate on October 19, 2016. In theory, one would be valid in assuming that while processing such an event, everyone should be experiencing the same reality—all are watching the same debate, hearing the same words said by the same people. Strangely, however, this is not the case: in reality, Republicans and Democrats concluded the debates with drastically separate conclusions on the candidates. According to a CNN poll referenced to within Bavel’s article, Hillary Clinton won the first debate, with 67% compared to Donald Trump’s 27%. However, a further examination of these statistics reveals an obvious divergence between the democratic and republican parties. According to democrats, Clinton won (89% to 5%); according to republicans, Trump won (54% to 28%). Why is there such a great divide when both parties were presented with the exact same information? People do not see the world objectively—without the influence of personal biases. Instead, people reinforce the goals and values of the partisan group they identify with, allowing the party’s views to color their perceptions of identical information (Bavel).

The legacy and lessons of Truman’s whistle-stop campaign continue to be studied by political analysts, and politicians today often mimic his campaign methods by scheduling multiple visits to key states, as Truman did. He visited California, Illinois, and Ohio 48 times, compared with 6 visits to those states by Dewey. Political scientist Thomas M. Holbrook concludes that his strategic campaigning in those states and others gave Truman the electoral votes he needed to win (61, 65). The 1948 election also had an effect on pollsters, who, as Elmo Roper admitted, “couldn’t have been more wrong” (qtd. in Karabell 255). Life magazine’s editors concluded that pollsters as well as reporters and commentators were too convinced of a Dewey victory to analyze the polls seriously, especially the opinions of undecided voters (Karabell 256). Pollsters assumed that undecided voters would vote in the same proportion as decided voters — and that turned out to be a false assumption (Karabell 258). In fact, the lopsidedness of the polls might have led voters who supported Truman to call themselves undecided out of an unwillingness to associate themselves with the losing side, further skewing the polls’ results (McDonald, Glynn, Kim, and Ostman 152). Such errors led pollsters to change their methods significantly after the 1948 election. After the election, many political analysts, journalists, and historians concluded

I think it is also worth noting that Green and Palmquist use the NES poll data in their study which bring us back to the first question which is how to accurately measure partisanship? If question asked by pools can heavily change the result of studies we need to know what question to ask when we are measuring short term variance and when we are measuring long term variance. I think the Gallup poll might be useful to measure the short term variance in macro partisanship and the NES and GSS poll might be effecting when it comes to long term shifts in partisanship. However these article failed to discuss the polls in general and find if the interviewed population is representative of the US population. Abramson and Ostrom also briefly talked about the effect telephone poll can have on polls result but it was discussed in depth. In last week Alan S. Gerber and Donald P. Green found positive effect of personal contract on voting. Doing interviews for polls might have better result than telephone

This then leads into what is the sample size is too small and is not a great representation of the overall population. If the sample size is too small, it could lead to selection bias which is when the sample does a terrible job representing the actual ideologies of the population in that area. Push polling, which is asking questions in a way that gives the pollster the answer that is being sought out, is often another technique used to potentially skew the outcome. All of these are factors that could potentially be important when it comes to the outcome of the polls. Make sure to keep in mind that whenever a poll is taken there is always a way that someone/something can skew it to their

It is not a coincidence that the increased availability of news sources has been accompanied by increasing political polarization. Over time, polarization appears to have spread to the level of mass public opinion (Abramowitz & Saunders, 2006; Jacobson, 2006; Abrams, & Pope, 2005). For instance, in U.S. politics, Democrats’ and Republicans’ negative evaluations of a president of the other party have steadily intensified (Abramowitz & Saunders, 2006; Jacobson, 2006). The presidential approval data reveal a widening chasm between Republicans and Democrats; the percentage of partisans who respond at the extremes (‘‘strong approval’’ or ‘‘strong disapproval’’) has increased significantly over time. In fact, polarized assessments of U.S. presidential performance are higher today than at any other time in recent history, including the months preceding the resignation of President Nixon.

If I was presented with all the facts, and knew all the backgrounds of each individual polled, gleaned each question, understood the diction, and tone of the pollster, I still would not be satisfied with the results. A lot of people accept what they read as factual, I am not one of those, I question and satisfy myself with my gleaned truths.

According to Nate Cohn of the The New York Times says “the poll is extremely and admirable transparent: It has published a data set and the documentation necessary to replicate the survey.” The poll appears to display a non-probability sampling method with the determine sample size

The central concepts in the study are voter choice and political talk radio. Voter choice is operationally defined in terms of respondents who voted Republican in the Senate, House, and gubernatorial races in 1994. Respondents in the study were asked if they voted Democratic or Republican in each of the races. Those that did not vote, or who voted third party candidates were not included in the analysis. Political talk radio is defined as “call-in shows that emphasize discussion of politicians, elections, and public policy issues”. Political talk radio is operationally defined in terms of respondents who listened to the Rush Limbaugh show. Respondents were asked a series of questions pertaining to how often if at all did they listen to the Limbaugh show. The responses were measured on a 3-point scale, 0 equals respondents who did not listen at all, 1 equals respondents who listen sometimes, and 2 equals respondents who listened frequently. The variables ideology, party identification, state of the economy evaluations, Protestant affiliation, and incumbency status were also used in the study. These variables were used to control for spurious

How much does your vote really count? As a voter, does your choice really matter? How much influence does the media have on your vote? How many choices does the media actually make when it comes to our nation's leadership? These are questions pondered by both political scientists and the average American citizen each year as the second Tuesday in November approaches. Though we know that the framers founded this nation on the principles of representing it's citizens, and on the ideals of a nation for the people and by the people; it is obvious that the people feel that their vote doesn't always count. In this paper I plan to expand on these questions and the justifications behind asking them, and I plan to follow up with a specific