Tell me what you think...
In the past several days a number of polls have been released. Some of them have been "internal polls," which typically raises a red flag in one's mind. I wouldn't expect a candidate or his/her campaign to release poll numbers suggesting their guy/girl is doing poorly - so you can almost be assured the polling results are positive.
Then we have the independent polls, organizations surveying folks independently of any campaign..
Polls are tools, used to gather information that can then be used to shape the political message - or identify areas/issues where a candidate may not want to venture - at least not voluntarily.
Reporters tend to like polls because they are a simple way to gauge how a particular race is shaping up or how well a candidate's message is being received. But I also know that there is a segment of the population who will tell pollsters one thing one day, and something else the next time someone calls. So although polls can be useful, they're not all that reliable.
So..let me ask...
How much faith do you have in the results of a poll?
Then we have the independent polls, organizations surveying folks independently of any campaign..
Polls are tools, used to gather information that can then be used to shape the political message - or identify areas/issues where a candidate may not want to venture - at least not voluntarily.
Reporters tend to like polls because they are a simple way to gauge how a particular race is shaping up or how well a candidate's message is being received. But I also know that there is a segment of the population who will tell pollsters one thing one day, and something else the next time someone calls. So although polls can be useful, they're not all that reliable.
So..let me ask...
How much faith do you have in the results of a poll?
posted by Ray Hackett at 1:52 PM
5 Comments:
An interesting question...and welcome back.
Certainly there are some who probably are influenced by polls. I would suspect that they primarily are people sitting on the fence, and truly undecided on which of two candidates to support - weighing both strengths and weaknesses of both.
Human nature would suggest that a majority of us would like to be on the "winning" team - and there's likely a segment who would rather root for the underdog - and a poll could be the tipping point.
I would hope that very few would simply base their choice on a poll.
It depends on the quality of the poll or polling company. For example, Rasmussen is extremely reliable and accurate but "polls" performed by campaigns with the results given in a press release are essentially meaningless.
Bill...My only concern about the Rasmussen polls is that survey samples are traditionally small - and as a result I'm not quite as confident in their accuracy. But they are indeed a well-respected polling operation.
And although I tend to agree with you on polls conducted and released by the campaigns themselves as raising red flags., I wouldn't dismiss them that easily.
The accuracy of any poll - no matter who conducts it - depends solely on the responses they get from the people being surveyed. What I find confident is when you have a number of polls, conducted by different groups, that tend to mirror each other.
Well, Rasmussen called the presidential election in 2004 right on the money, particularly Ohio. I think they sucessfully called every "swing state" properly so while their samples may be small, I have yet to find any other poll as accurate.
One huge item with respect to "accuracy" is how the QUESTIONS are set up. Results from "push polling" are going to be quite different from a fair/unbiased poll.
Bill - no question that how the questions are phrased is another important aspect of a poll's accuracy. Like I said, in my opinion, it's not so much what any one poll shows as it is how close are all the polls in showing similar results.
And here's one that Ken Dautrich from UConn sent me. Seems back in October 2002, the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee released the results of an internal poll they had conducted on the 2nd District showing Simmons leading Courtney by an astounding 32-point advantage - with just six weeks to go before the election. Simmons did in fact win that race - but by only 8-points.
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