Public Opinion

1. Public Opinion
Politics By Numbers

2. Public Opinion
•What is the
role of public
opinion in our
American
democracy?
•Should the
role be
different?

3. History of Opinion Polling
•At the founding
–The language of the Declaration of
Independence requires that public
opinion be taken into account.
–Our government functions expressly
with "the consent of the governed.”
•What did the founders rely on to
gauge public opinion?

4. History of Opinion Polling
•Early straw polls
–Newspapers often augmented their
election coverage by interviewing voters
as they left the polling place.
–First one in the U.S. recorded in 1824.
–By the turn of the century they were
common in both local and national
newspapers and magazines

5. History of Opinion Polling
•Abraham Lincoln
–"What I want to get done is
what the people desire to
have done, and the
question for me is how to
find that out exactly.”
–Divided public opinion of
him as president
–Understood need for a
mandate, especially to take
nation into war

6. History of Opinion Polling
•Early 20th Century
–Rise of the social sciences in education
and government brought sociology and
statistics into the public consciousness
–Market research firms helped
manufacturers make and market products
of mass appeal
–Political applications are quickly
recognized

7. History of Opinion Polling
•George Gallup
–Founded the American
Institute of Public Opinion
in 1936.
–Correctly predicted
results of 1936 election
from only 5,000
respondents
–Literary Digest had over 2
million respondents and
predicted incorrectly

8. History of Opinion Polling
•Franklin Roosevelt
–First President to use a
private polling service
to advise him on both
election strategy and
public policy
–FDR's tenure in office
was marked by great
policy change and his
own great popularity

9. History of Opinion Polling
•Harry Truman
–Polls showed that a
Dewey presidency was
"inevitable", and that the
New York governor would
win the 1948 election
–Truman won the electoral
vote by a 303-189
majority over Dewey
–Polling had stopped 3
weeks earlier, models for
undecideds were wrong

10. History of Opinion Polling
•Dwight Eisenhower
–Employed Harris
polling to gauge
how to make
himself appealing to
the voting public
–Developed the
famous “We like
Ike” campaign
slogan

11. History of Opinion Polling
•Bill Clinton
–Heavily reliant on
polling data,
especially during
impeachment
scandal
–Even polled on
family pets and
vacation plans
–Used polling to
craft policy

12. History of Opinion Polling
•George W. Bush
–Tried to appear to
dismiss polling,
but did a lot of it
nonetheless
–Used polling to
spin existing
administration
policies

13. Kinds of Polls
•National polls
–Attempt to gauge public opinion using a national
representative sample
–Often conducted by media working with
professional pollsters
•Campaign polls
–Benchmark polls establish baseline of
candidate’s popularity at the start of
campaigning
–Tracking polls follow changes in attitudes of
voters during campaign
–Exit polls sample people who have just voted

14. Kinds of Polls
•Pseudo polls
–Non scientific, results are not reliable
–Self-selection polls
•Listener call-in, Internet polls
–Push polls
•Generally present false hypothetical information
about a candidate to influence voter’s opinion
negatively
•Can also be used to present positive information
about a candidate to influence voters
•Do not have a small or scientifically selected
sample size—mass persuasion attempt
–Voter Identification polling

15. Be Poll Savvy
•Who did the poll?
•Who paid for the poll and why was it done?
•How many people were interviewed?
•How were those people chosen?
•When was the poll done?
•How were the interviews conducted?
•What is the sampling error for the poll?
•Who's on first?
•What questions were asked?
•What other kinds of factors can skew results?

16. Be Poll Savvy
•“Ask yourself the question, when you
look at the poll results: is this an issue
where people have made up their
minds? You may not know, but if you
see inconsistencies, if the wording of
the question changes the response. If
you haven't made up your mind...
people that are being polled are like
you and they haven't made up their
minds. You can't rely on the poll
results.” —Daniel Yankelovich