Why Do Polls Lead To Successful In Presidential Elections?

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.

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

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).

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.

The two major political parties, organizations made up of those seeking control of Government offices through elections, often clash due to each party’s different political ideology, its views and opinions of public policy. Despite Hillary Clinton’s best efforts to appeal to all Americans, in which she did accomplished with the popular vote, Donald Trump had won the Presidency through the Electoral College, an American institution that cast votes for the United States President that are usually representative of a state’s overall vote. Clinton lost consistently blue states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, indicating a shift with both liberal and moderate party identification, how an individual’s is loyalty to or identifies with a political party. This election serves as a perfect example of the Rational Choice Theory, a theory used frequently in political science to explain how an individual votes based on their own best interest. In the case of this election, Donald Trump won the presidency as his party platform focused primarily on economic stimulation which appealed most Americans interests, unlike Clinton’s whose objectives and principles as President were focused on cultural issues. The Democratic party can come back from this election if it decides to recognize the public interest of the people to rebuild the economy and not ignore the working

The 2016 election, viewed from the lens of partisanship, should not have elicit any surprises from individuals that is familiar with current American political science research. The results of the election only seemed surprising due to the multitude of polls that predicted that Hillary Clinton would win, based on thousands of simulations ran by pundits and pollsters. However, the underlying attitudes, namely partisanship, that drove voters to select Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States, has been consistent throughout the two most recent election that did not feature an incumbent president. Although partisanship, defined by the unwillingness of voters to vote for the opposing candidate, has been highest in this recent election, it is not driven by extreme support for the partisan candidate, but rather extreme disdain and fear for the opposing candidate. Despite numerous events,

In the New York Times article “What’s the Matter With Polling?” public policy and political science professor Cliff Zukin argues that polls and pollsters have grown to be unreliable due to the growth of cellphones and the decline in people willing to answer surveys. Since a higher percentage of people have acquired and use cellphones more than landlines in the past decade and the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act has been interpreted to prohibit the calling of cellphones through automatic dialers, survey companies have to devote more money, time, and resources to contacting potential participants. The rapidly declining response rate has also increased the risk of surveys failing to reflect public opinion, and therefore increase the number of failed predictions. Although conducting polls on the Internet is cheaper, “coverage error” is prominent, and Internet use correlates inversely with age and voting habits, making it even more difficult to predict the outcome of elections. Beyond this, as Zukin illustrates, it is nearly impossible to figure out how to draw a representative sample of Internet users.

It seems to me that we are just fascinated with polls. That almost everything is based on a poll, and they often base their opinions and views of the world on their results. Politicians do the same, but to a much greater extent. Most leaders will try to base their decisions largely on their poll numbers. I think that it is not right for them to base everything off poll. Polls are a way to make the voice of the individual citizen heard. Unfortunately, it is not simple. That reason is be causes that polls are not that accurate or reliable for many reasons. Some of those reasons are that; the samples are too small to represent the population, the result from the polls can be presented in a way that misleads many people, the result of the polls

In the article The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Public Opinion Polls there are many types of polls and poll reports that at a quick glance might seem to be giving accurate information, but when looked at critically the discrepancies begin to show. Most average people who see political polls or any other polls usually don’t question the results let alone go and do research to see if those results are true or if they are bias. This tends to leave people misinformed and can cause them to be easily convinced by people like politicians. Fortunately, we live in the modern age where information is readily available to us, and with a click of a button we can search for the true results. But where do we start and how do we know if the results of a

United States of America has a democratic political system with two major parties: Democratic and Republican. This research paper will provide the insight on the social and cultural characteristics of both Republican and Democratic loyalists as well as uncommitted middle. Many changes occurred in the behavior of American electorate since 1952, however, some trends remain today. The existence of the Electoral College affects the campaigns of the presidential candidates. This paper will also analyse the concerns of citizens with this system and whether it is beneficial for candidates and reveals the true choice of the population.

National polls are an important tool used by political parties and news outlets to gauge how the public feels about current issues or political candidates. Only one month into his presidency, President Donald Trump is facing a lot of heat from the public, and that is very evident in the polls. Polls can be used for both good and evil. Some are used to promote agendas or favor towards certain politicians or policy, while others can be used to simply see where the public stands on current issues.

Polling was created by a man named George Gallup. “ In 1935 he founded the American Institute for Public Opinion. His Gallup Organization continues to track America's opinions today.” (Ashley Dugger) Polls might seem like a simple process but that's not the case. There’s a lot of actually a lot of math involved and some other factors. when i was reading the articles I didn’t understand the process completely.

The aim of the report is to investigate whether the polls analysed in the report are fair and unbiased or unfair and biased or a concoction of both. Before any judgements are declared, the definition of what makes a fair and unbiased poll must be outlined. A poll is where people are asked to give their opinions on a subjective or objective matter. A poll diverges into nine types; benchmark polls, tracking polls, bushfire polls, entrance polls, exit polls, deliberative opinion polls, opinion polls, push polls and straw polls. A benchmark poll is generally a short and simple survey of respondent’s opinion designated to help political candidates craft their campaigns. Tracking polls are repeated over several consecutive days to create a picture of where opinion is moving over time, to enable a rough report of the campaigns. The bushfire polls are polls taken during the period between the benchmark and tracking polls. The number of brushfire polls taken by a campaign is determined by how competitive the race is and how much money the campaign has to spend. These polls usually focus on likely voters and the

I agree that information on the ones that conducts the polls is important. Insight into the people that conducted the polls may explain the direction of the results reported. The results can sometimes be bias and not truly represent the population that was sampled. The reporter of the results may speak louder than the results themselves. You also make a valid point in regards to the funding of the polls. The people funding the polls may have an influence on the results also.

The role of the political party conventions, as demonstrated in both the 2012 and 2016 elections, demonstrated a close merger between both candidates’ votes, nonetheless the electoral votes were more significant for Barack Obama. As the same story told for Donald Trump, however he had a greater gap of indifference of the general population due to his shameful campaign.