(C) ShareAmerica
This story was originally published by ShareAmerica and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



What political polls do and don’t do [1]

[]

Date: 2024-03-20 04:03:50+00:00

There’s more to political polling than a bottom-line prediction of which candidate has the most support.

Polls can help decode the intensity of support for candidates, what types of people support them and which voters are likely to actually show up on Election Day, which for the upcoming U.S. presidential election is November 5.

Politicians, media and research groups spend money each election to poll the public about how they will vote. Some polls are released publicly while others — especially those paid for by political parties or candidates — are kept private. Campaigns use poll results to decide what messages play well with voters, what types of people favor a candidate and which voters can be convinced to support a candidate, says Barbara Norrander, an emeritus professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Government and Public Policy.

Americans may read too much into polls, according to one expert. “If you are expecting polls to say, ‘This person wins by 0.1 percentage point,’ they don’t do that,” says John Zogby, pollster and founder of John Zogby Strategies.

Zogby started in the polling business in 1984, when families owned landlines and actually answered the phone: 65 percent of voters were happy to participate in a poll. These days, relying on phone polls when many families don’t have landlines or answer cell phone calls from strangers would be fruitless. The majority of those surveyed answer online after getting an email or text invitation.

“These changes are happening, and happening rapidly,” Zogby says of the changing technology and social customs.

Polling has gotten harder, and it is tougher in the United States than in other countries, according to Donald P. Green, a political science professor at Columbia University. Only 1 in 7 potential voters asked to participate will, Green says.

The goal is to have a representative sample of those who are likely to show up on Election Day. “This is where polling is an art,” Zogby said.

When Zogby pulls out the names to be polled, he makes sure the respondents mirror the larger pool in geography and reflects a cross section in other demographic measures, such as race and gender. (If younger voters or minorities are less likely to participate, that can be factored in.)

Zogby’s poll in the 2020 presidential race showed Joe Biden ahead of then-President Donald Trump by 5.6 percentage points. Biden ended up winning the national vote by 4.5 percentage points, making Zogby’s prediction one of the closest.

Not all polls come so close, especially when 10 percent to 14 percent of voters wait until Election Day to decide whom to vote for. And even polls that are accurate don’t always tell who actually will become president.

Modern challenges

Polls give a snapshot of a particular moment in time. But news that sways voters might break after a poll is taken. (It happened in the 2016 presidential campaign, according to Courtney Kennedy, director of survey research at Pew Research Center.)

Also, estimating who’s going to get elected involves looking at polls from battleground states, not just national surveys, which don’t mirror the Electoral College system. (Presidents are selected by the electors from each state, not the national popular vote.)

Still, polls can offer helpful information, says Zogby, author of Beyond the Horse Race: How to Read Polls and Why We Should. They have proven that voters who love or hate a candidate, for instance, are more likely to show up on Election Day. Frequent polls can catch growing or weakening support for a candidate. And polls can tell speech writers what issues matter to voters, or “what’s pushing their buttons,” he says.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://share.america.gov/what-political-polls-do-and-dont-do/

Published and (C) by ShareAmerica
Content appears here under this condition or license:  Public Domain.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/shareamerica/