An opinion poll , often simply referred to as a survey or a poll (although strictly a poll is an actual election), is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample . Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence intervals . A person who conducts polls is referred to as a pollster .
75-627: The American National Election Studies ( ANES ) are academically-run national surveys of voters in the United States, conducted before and after every presidential election . Although it was formally established by a National Science Foundation grant in 1977, the data are a continuation of studies going back to 1948. The study has been based at the University of Michigan since its origin and, since 2005, has been run in partnership with Stanford University . Its principal investigators for
150-441: A margin of error – usually defined as the radius of a 95% confidence interval for a particular statistic. One example is the percent of people who prefer product A versus product B. When a single, global margin of error is reported for a survey, it refers to the maximum margin of error for all reported percentages using the full sample from the survey. If the statistic is a percentage, this maximum margin of error can be calculated as
225-562: A $ 14 million grant to study the 2024 United States elections. University of Michigan professor Nicholas Valentino , Stanford University 's Shanto Iyengar , Duke University 's D. Sunshine Hillygus, and the University of Texas' Daron Shaw will be principal investigators. Opinion poll The first known example of an opinion poll was a tally of voter preferences reported by the Raleigh Star and North Carolina State Gazette and
300-489: A fixed number of the most recent periods, for example the past five days. In this example, the next calculated results will use data for five days counting backwards from the next day, namely the same data as before, but with the data from the next day included, and without the data from the sixth day before that day. However, these polls are sometimes subject to dramatic fluctuations, and so political campaigns and candidates are cautious in analyzing their results. An example of
375-471: A huge role in the supplying of news: 62 percent of US adults get news on social media. This fact makes the issue of fake news on social media more pertinent. Other evidence shows that the most popular fake news stories were more widely shared on Facebook than the most popular mainstream news stories; many people who see fake news stories report that they believe them; and the most discussed fake news stories tended to favor Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. As
450-445: A larger sample, however if a pollster wishes to reduce the margin of error to 1% they would need a sample of around 10,000 people. In practice, pollsters need to balance the cost of a large sample against the reduction in sampling error and a sample size of around 500–1,000 is a typical compromise for political polls. (To get complete responses it may be necessary to include thousands of additional participators.) Another way to reduce
525-575: A national survey (partly as a circulation-raising exercise) and correctly predicted Woodrow Wilson 's election as president. Mailing out millions of postcards and simply counting the returns, The Literary Digest also correctly predicted the victories of Warren Harding in 1920, Calvin Coolidge in 1924, Herbert Hoover in 1928, and Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. Then, in 1936 , its survey of 2.3 million voters suggested that Alf Landon would win
600-449: A new analysis technique for CBS News to enable the television network to predict the outcome of an election based on computer analysis of voting results from a small number of "key precincts ." It was felt that predicting the election on television before polling was ended across the US was a negative action, as West Coast voters felt this lessened the importance of their votes. The practice
675-526: A person who is described by the surveyor as one of the "leading candidates". This description is "leading" as it indicates a subtle bias for that candidate, since it implies that the others in the race are not serious contenders. Additionally, leading questions often contain, or lack, certain facts that can sway a respondent's answer. Argumentative Questions can also impact the outcome of a survey. These types of questions, depending on their nature, either positive or negative, influence respondents' answers to reflect
750-548: A publicly traded company, Harris Interactive , in December 1999. In February 2014, The Harris Poll was acquired by Nielsen. In 2017, The Harris Poll was acquired by the Stagwell Group, which took the company private and renamed the polling firm as Harris Insights & Analytics . The continuous polling of American opinion is now found at this online site . His papers, Louis Harris papers, 1940-1990s, are held in
825-463: A question, with each version presented to half the respondents. The most effective controls, used by attitude researchers, are: These controls are not widely used in the polling industry. . However, as it is important that questions to test the product have a high quality, survey methodologists work on methods to test them. Empirical tests provide insight into the quality of the questionnaire, some may be more complex than others. For instance, testing
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#1732780942238900-407: A questionnaire can be done by: One of the criticisms of opinion polls is that societal assumptions that opinions between which there is no logical link are "correlated attitudes" can push people with one opinion into a group that forces them to pretend to have a supposedly linked but actually unrelated opinion. That, in turn, may cause people who have the first opinion to claim on polls that they have
975-766: A real estate developer, and the former Frances Smith. He was raised in New Haven, Connecticut . He attended New Haven High School and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , where he graduated in 1942. He then joined the Navy, as World War II was underway. Harris began working in the field of public opinion and marketing research in 1947, when he joined the Elmo Roper firm as Roper's assistant. In 1956 Harris left Roper's business and started his own firm, Louis Harris and Associates, Inc. The Harris firm conducted polling for political candidates. In 1960 Harris became
1050-621: A result of these facts, some have concluded that if not for these stories, Donald Trump may not have won the election over Hillary Clinton. By providing information about voting intentions, opinion polls can sometimes influence the behavior of electors, and in his book The Broken Compass , Peter Hitchens asserts that opinion polls are actually a device for influencing public opinion. The various theories about how this happens can be split into two groups: bandwagon/underdog effects, and strategic ("tactical") voting. Louis Harris Louis Harris (January 6, 1921 – December 17, 2016)
1125-427: A sample is drawn from a large panel of volunteers, and the results are weighted to reflect the demographics of the population of interest. In contrast, popular web polls draw on whoever wishes to participate rather than a scientific sample of the population, and are therefore not generally considered professional. Statistical learning methods have been proposed in order to exploit social media content (such as posts on
1200-415: A significant problem if a poll is conducted too early for anyone to know about the potential candidate. A benchmark poll needs to be undertaken when voters are starting to learn more about the possible candidate running for office. A benchmark poll serves a number of purposes for a campaign. First, it gives the candidate a picture of where they stand with the electorate before any campaigning takes place. If
1275-618: A subsidiary in the United Kingdom that was almost alone in correctly predicting Labour's victory in the 1945 general election : virtually all other commentators had expected a victory for the Conservative Party , led by wartime leader Winston Churchill . The Allied occupation powers helped to create survey institutes in all of the Western occupation zones of Germany in 1947 and 1948 to better steer denazification . By
1350-479: A tracking poll that generated controversy over its accuracy, is one conducted during the 2000 U.S. presidential election, by the Gallup Organization . The results for one day showed Democratic candidate Al Gore with an eleven-point lead over Republican candidate George W. Bush . Then, a subsequent poll conducted just two days later showed Bush ahead of Gore by seven points. It was soon determined that
1425-497: Is a popular medium for the candidates to campaign and for gauging the public reaction to the campaigns. Social media can also be used as an indicator of the voter opinion regarding the poll. Some research studies have shown that predictions made using social media signals can match traditional opinion polls. Regarding the 2016 U.S. presidential election , a major concern has been that of the effect of false stories spread throughout social media . Evidence shows that social media plays
1500-517: Is much more effective than traditional public opinion polling. Unlike traditional public polling, deliberative opinion polls measure what the public believes about issues after being offered information and the ability to discuss them with other voters. Since voters generally do not actively research various issues, they often base their opinions on these issues on what the media and candidates say about them. Scholars argued that these polls can truly reflect voters' feelings about an issue once they are given
1575-555: Is now used by scholars, students and journalists. It has allowed the detection of partisan bias in survey responses, showing that respondents' political affiliations contribute to their responses, extending even to questions with objective, known answers, such as whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction . In 2006, ANES opened the ANES Online Commons to allow interested scholars and survey professionals to propose questions for future surveys. In 2022, ANES received
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#17327809422381650-485: Is often referred to as the Bradley effect . If the results of surveys are widely publicized this effect may be magnified – a phenomenon commonly referred to as the spiral of silence . Use of the plurality voting system (select only one candidate) in a poll puts an unintentional bias into the poll, since people who favor more than one candidate cannot indicate this. The fact that they must choose only one candidate biases
1725-491: Is probability sampling and statistical theory that enable one to determine sampling error, confidence levels, and the like and to generalize from the results of the sample to the broader population from which it was selected. Other factors also come into play in making a survey scientific. One must select a sample of sufficient size. If the sampling error is too large or the level of confidence too low, it will be difficult to make reasonably precise statements about characteristics of
1800-401: Is subject to controversy. Deliberative Opinion Polls combine the aspects of a public opinion poll and a focus group. These polls bring a group of voters and provide information about specific issues. They are then allowed to discuss those issues with the other voters. Once they know more about the issues, they are polled afterward on their thoughts. Many scholars argue that this type of polling
1875-422: Is that an estimate of a trend is subject to a larger error than an estimate of a level. This is because if one estimates the change, the difference between two numbers X and Y, then one has to contend with errors in both X and Y . A rough guide is that if the change in measurement falls outside the margin of error it is worth attention. Since some people do not answer calls from strangers, or refuse to answer
1950-494: The 1993 general election predicted the governing National Party would increase its majority. However, the preliminary results on election night showed a hung parliament with National one seat short of a majority, leading to Prime Minister Jim Bolger exclaiming "bugger the pollsters" on live national television. The official count saw National gain Waitaki to hold a one-seat majority and retain government. Social media today
2025-560: The Nazi extermination of the Jews never happened?" The confusing wording of this question led to inaccurate results which indicated that 22 percent of respondents believed it seemed possible the Holocaust might not have ever happened. When the question was reworded, significantly fewer respondents (only 1 percent) expressed that same sentiment. Thus comparisons between polls often boil down to
2100-493: The United States was the prediction that Thomas Dewey would defeat Harry S. Truman in the 1948 US presidential election . Major polling organizations, including Gallup and Roper, had indicated that Dewey would defeat Truman in a landslide; Truman won a narrow victory. There were also substantial polling errors in the presidential elections of 1952, 1980, 1996, 2000, and 2016: while the first three correctly predicted
2175-613: The Wilmington American Watchman and Delaware Advertiser prior to the 1824 presidential election , showing Andrew Jackson leading John Quincy Adams by 335 votes to 169 in the contest for the United States Presidency . Since Jackson won the popular vote in that state and the national popular vote, such straw votes gradually became more popular, but they remained local, usually citywide phenomena. In 1916, The Literary Digest embarked on
2250-470: The 1950s, various types of polling had spread to most democracies. Viewed from a long-term perspective, advertising had come under heavy pressure in the early 1930s. The Great Depression forced businesses to drastically cut back on their advertising spending. Layoffs and reductions were common at all agencies. The New Deal furthermore aggressively promoted consumerism, and minimized the value of (or need for) advertising. Historian Jackson Lears argues that "By
2325-456: The 2016 New York primary, where a news organization reports misleading primary results. Government officials argue that since many Americans believe in exit polls more, election results are likely to make voters not think they are impacted electorally and be more doubtful about the credibility of news organizations. Over time, a number of theories and mechanisms have been offered to explain erroneous polling results. Some of these reflect errors on
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2400-545: The 2016 U.S. primaries, CNN reported that the Democratic primary in New York was too close to call, and they made this judgment based on exit polls. However, the vote count revealed that these exit polls were misleading, and Hillary Clinton was far ahead of Bernie Sanders in the popular vote, winning the state by 58% to 42% margin. The overreliance on exit polling leads to the second point of how it undermines public trust in
2475-463: The Conservatives neck and neck, when the actual result was a clear Conservative majority. On the other hand, in 2017 , the opposite appears to have occurred. Most polls predicted an increased Conservative majority, even though in reality the election resulted in a hung parliament with a Conservative plurality: some polls correctly predicted this outcome. In New Zealand, the polls leading up to
2550-521: The Pew Research Center in the US, in 2007, concluded that "cell-only respondents are different from landline respondents in important ways, (but) they were neither numerous enough nor different enough on the questions we examined to produce a significant change in overall general population survey estimates when included with the landline samples and weighted according to US Census parameters on basic demographic characteristics." This issue
2625-489: The United States (because the phone's owner may be charged for taking a call ), these individuals are typically excluded from polling samples. There is concern that, if the subset of the population without cell phones differs markedly from the rest of the population, these differences can skew the results of the poll. Polling organizations have developed many weighting techniques to help overcome these deficiencies, with varying degrees of success. Studies of mobile phone users by
2700-422: The actual sample is a biased version of the universe the pollster wants to analyze. In these cases, bias introduces new errors, one way or the other, that are in addition to errors caused by sample size. Error due to bias does not become smaller with larger sample sizes, because taking a larger sample size simply repeats the same mistake on a larger scale. If the people who refuse to answer, or are never reached, have
2775-449: The answers given by respondents do not reflect their true beliefs. This may be deliberately engineered by unscrupulous pollsters in order to generate a certain result or please their clients, but more often is a result of the detailed wording or ordering of questions (see below). Respondents may deliberately try to manipulate the outcome of a poll by e.g. advocating a more extreme position than they actually hold in order to boost their side of
2850-424: The argument or give rapid and ill-considered answers in order to hasten the end of their questioning. Respondents may also feel under social pressure not to give an unpopular answer. For example, respondents might be unwilling to admit to unpopular attitudes like racism or sexism , and thus polls might not reflect the true incidence of these attitudes in the population. In American political parlance, this phenomenon
2925-584: The assumption that opinion polls show actual links between opinions is considered important. Another source of error is the use of samples that are not representative of the population as a consequence of the methodology used, as was the experience of The Literary Digest in 1936. For example, telephone sampling has a built-in error because in many times and places, those with telephones have generally been richer than those without. In some places many people have only mobile telephones . Because pollsters cannot use automated dialing machines to call mobile phones in
3000-445: The breakdown of the US population by party identification has not changed since the previous presidential election, you may underestimate a victory or a defeat of a particular party candidate that saw a surge or decline in its party registration relative to the previous presidential election cycle. Sample Techniques are also used and recommended to reduce sample errors and errors of margin. In chapter four of author Herb Asher he says,"it
3075-425: The campaign know which voters are persuadable so they can spend their limited resources in the most effective manner. Second, it can give them an idea of what messages, ideas, or slogans are the strongest with the electorate. In a tracking poll responses are obtained in a number of consecutive periods, for instance daily, and then results are calculated using a moving average of the responses that were gathered over
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3150-609: The country, allowing for a comparative analysis between specific regions. For example, in the United States, exit polls are beneficial in accurately determining how the state voters cast their ballot instead of relying on a national survey. Third, exit polls can give journalists and social scientists a greater understanding of why voters voted the way they did and what factors contributed to their vote. Exit polling has several disadvantages that can cause controversy depending on its use. First, these polls are not always accurate and can sometimes mislead election reporting. For instance, during
3225-404: The factors that impact the results of opinion polls are the wording and order of the questions being posed by the surveyor. Questions that intentionally affect a respondents answer are referred to as leading questions . Individuals and/or groups use these types of questions in surveys to elicit responses favorable to their interests. For instance, the public is more likely to indicate support for
3300-693: The field of public opinion since 1947 when he joined the Elmo Roper firm, then later became partner. In September 1938, Jean Stoetzel , after having met Gallup, created IFOP, the Institut Français d'Opinion Publique , as the first European survey institute in Paris. Stoetzel started political polls in summer 1939 with the question " Why die for Danzig? ", looking for popular support or dissent with this question asked by appeasement politician and future collaborationist Marcel Déat . Gallup launched
3375-415: The first four years of the partnership were Arthur Lupia and Jon Krosnick . As of 2017, the principal investigators are Ted Brader and Vincent Hutchings of the University of Michigan and Shanto Iyengar of Stanford University. The studies ask the same questions repeatedly over time and are frequently cited in works of political science . Early ANES data was the basis for The American Voter (1960). It
3450-483: The first presidential pollster, working for the campaign of John F. Kennedy , who was elected U.S. President that year. Kennedy had initially hired Harris in 1958 for assistance with his campaign for re-election to the US Senate; following that re-election, Harris persuaded Kennedy to run for the presidency, and had much advice on how to achieve that goal, using his opinion polling techniques. In 1962, Harris devised
3525-413: The late 1930s, though, corporate advertisers had begun a successful counterattack against their critics." They rehabilitated the concept of consumer sovereignty by inventing scientific public opinion polls, and making it the centerpiece of their own market research, as well as the key to understanding politics. George Gallup, the vice president of Young and Rubicam, and numerous other advertising experts, led
3600-409: The margin of error is to rely on poll averages . This makes the assumption that the procedure is similar enough between many different polls and uses the sample size of each poll to create a polling average. Another source of error stems from faulty demographic models by pollsters who weigh their samples by particular variables such as party identification in an election. For example, if you assume that
3675-425: The media and the electoral process. In the U.S., Congress and state governments have criticized the use of exit polling because Americans tend to believe more in the accuracy of exit polls. If an exit poll shows that American voters were leaning toward a particular candidate, most would assume that the candidate would win. However, as mentioned earlier, an exit poll can sometimes be inaccurate and lead to situations like
3750-467: The micro-blogging platform Twitter ) for modelling and predicting voting intention polls. A benchmark poll is generally the first poll taken in a campaign. It is often taken before a candidate announces their bid for office, but sometimes it happens immediately following that announcement after they have had some opportunity to raise funds. This is generally a short and simple survey of likely voters. Benchmark polling often relies on timing, which can be
3825-429: The necessary information to learn more about it. Despite this, there are two issues with deliberative opinion polls. First, they are expensive and challenging to perform since they require a representative sample of voters, and the information given on specific issues must be fair and balanced. Second, the results of deliberative opinion polls generally do not reflect the opinions of most voters since most voters do not take
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#17327809422383900-545: The part of the pollsters; many of them are statistical in nature. Some blame respondents for not providing genuine answers to pollsters, a phenomenon known as social desirability-bias (also referred to as the Bradley effect or the Shy Tory Factor ); these terms can be quite controversial. Polls based on samples of populations are subject to sampling error which reflects the effects of chance and uncertainty in
3975-403: The poll is done prior to announcing for office the candidate may use the poll to decide whether or not they should even run for office. Secondly, it shows them where their weaknesses and strengths are in two main areas. The first is the electorate. A benchmark poll shows them what types of voters they are sure to win, those they are sure to lose, and everyone in-between these two extremes. This lets
4050-611: The poll, causing it to favor the candidate most different from the others while it disfavors candidates who are similar to other candidates. The plurality voting system also biases elections in the same way. Some people responding may not understand the words being used, but may wish to avoid the embarrassment of admitting this, or the poll mechanism may not allow clarification, so they may make an arbitrary choice. Some percentage of people also answer whimsically or out of annoyance at being polled. This results in perhaps 4% of Americans reporting they have personally been decapitated . Among
4125-434: The poll, poll samples may not be representative samples from a population due to a non-response bias . Response rates have been declining, and are down to about 10% in recent years. Various pollsters have attributed this to an increased skepticism and lack of interest in polling. Because of this selection bias , the characteristics of those who agree to be interviewed may be markedly different from those who decline. That is,
4200-504: The population of interest to the pollster. A scientific poll not only will have a sufficiently large sample, it will also be sensitive to response rates. Very low response rates will raise questions about how representative and accurate the results are. Are there systematic differences between those who participated in the survey and those who, for whatever reason, did not participate? Sampling methods, sample size, and response rates will all be discussed in this chapter" (Asher 2017). A caution
4275-492: The presidential election, but Roosevelt was instead re-elected by a landslide. George Gallup 's research found that the error was mainly caused by participation bias ; those who favored Landon were more enthusiastic about returning their postcards. Furthermore, the postcards were sent to a target audience who were more affluent than the American population as a whole, and therefore more likely to have Republican sympathies. At
4350-570: The questions are then worded in a way that limit the possible answers, typically to yes or no. Another type of question that can produce inaccurate results are " Double-Negative Questions". These are more often the result of human error, rather than intentional manipulation. One such example is a survey done in 1992 by the Roper Organization , concerning the Holocaust . The question read "Does it seem possible or impossible to you that
4425-455: The radius of the confidence interval for a reported percentage of 50%. Others suggest that a poll with a random sample of 1,000 people has margin of sampling error of ±3% for the estimated percentage of the whole population. A 3% margin of error means that if the same procedure is used a large number of times, 95% of the time the true population average will be within the sample estimate plus or minus 3%. The margin of error can be reduced by using
4500-416: The same characteristics as the people who do answer, then the final results should be unbiased. If the people who do not answer have different opinions then there is bias in the results. In terms of election polls, studies suggest that bias effects are small, but each polling firm has its own techniques for adjusting weights to minimize selection bias. Survey results may be affected by response bias , where
4575-402: The same time, Gallup, Archibald Crossley and Elmo Roper conducted surveys that were far smaller but more scientifically based, and all three managed to correctly predict the result. The Literary Digest soon went out of business, while polling started to take off. Roper went on to correctly predict the two subsequent reelections of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Louis Harris had been in
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#17327809422384650-408: The sampling process. Sampling polls rely on the law of large numbers to measure the opinions of the whole population based only on a subset, and for this purpose the absolute size of the sample is important, but the percentage of the whole population is not important (unless it happens to be close to the sample size). The possible difference between the sample and whole population is often expressed as
4725-776: The second opinion without having it, causing opinion polls to become part of self-fulfilling prophecy problems. It has been suggested that attempts to counteract unethical opinions by condemning supposedly linked opinions may favor the groups that promote the actually unethical opinions by forcing people with supposedly linked opinions into them by ostracism elsewhere in society making such efforts counterproductive, that not being sent between groups that assume ulterior motives from each other and not being allowed to express consistent critical thought anywhere may create psychological stress because humans are sapient, and that discussion spaces free from assumptions of ulterior motives behind specific opinions should be created. In this context, rejection of
4800-466: The time to research issues the way an academic researches issues. Exit polls interview voters just as they are leaving polling places. Unlike general public opinion polls, these are polls of people who voted in the election. Exit polls provide a more accurate picture of which candidates the public prefers in an election because people participating in the poll did vote in the election. Second, these polls are conducted across multiple voting locations across
4875-445: The tone of the question(s) and generate a certain response or reaction, rather than gauge sentiment in an unbiased manner. In opinion polling, there are also " loaded questions ", otherwise known as " trick questions ". This type of leading question may concern an uncomfortable or controversial issue, and/or automatically assume the subject of the question is related to the respondent(s) or that they are knowledgeable about it. Likewise,
4950-534: The volatility of the results was at least in part due to an uneven distribution of Democratic and Republican affiliated voters in the samples. Though the Gallup Organization argued the volatility in the poll was a genuine representation of the electorate, other polling organizations took steps to reduce such wide variations in their results. One such step included manipulating the proportion of Democrats and Republicans in any given sample, but this method
5025-796: The way. Moving into the 1940s, the industry played a leading role in the ideological mobilization of the American people in fighting the Nazis and the Japanese in World War II. As part of that effort, they redefined the "American Way of Life" in terms of a commitment to free enterprise. "Advertisers", Lears concludes, "played a crucial hegemonic role in creating the consumer culture that dominated post-World War II American society." Opinion polls for many years were maintained through telecommunications or in person-to-person contact. Methods and techniques vary, though they are widely accepted in most areas. Over
5100-653: The winner (albeit not the extent of their winning margin), with the last two correctly predicting the winner of the popular vote (but not the Electoral College). In the United Kingdom, most polls failed to predict the Conservative election victories of 1970 and 1992 , and Labour's victory in February 1974 . In the 2015 election , virtually every poll predicted a hung parliament with Labour and
5175-440: The wording of the question. On some issues, question wording can result in quite pronounced differences between surveys. This can also, however, be a result of legitimately conflicted feelings or evolving attitudes, rather than a poorly constructed survey. A common technique to control for this bias is to rotate the order in which questions are asked. Many pollsters also split-sample. This involves having two different versions of
5250-461: The years, technological innovations have also influenced survey methods such as the availability of electronic clipboards and Internet based polling. Opinion polling developed into popular applications through popular thought, although response rates for some surveys declined. Also, the following has also led to differentiating results: Some polling organizations, such as Angus Reid Public Opinion , YouGov and Zogby use Internet surveys, where
5325-430: Was a clear tendency for polls which included mobile phones in their samples to show a much larger lead for Obama , than polls that did not. The potential sources of bias are: Some polling companies have attempted to get around that problem by including a "cellphone supplement". There are a number of problems with including cellphones in a telephone poll: A widely publicized failure of opinion polling to date in
5400-464: Was an American opinion polling entrepreneur, journalist , and author. He ran one of the best-known polling organizations of his time, Louis Harris and Associates, which conducted The Harris Poll . He followed Elmo Roper and George Gallup in using and improving the art and the techniques of opinion polling. Harris was born on January 6, 1921, in New Haven, one of three children of Harry Harris,
5475-573: Was first identified in 2004, but came to prominence only during the 2008 US presidential election . In previous elections, the proportion of the general population using cell phones was small, but as this proportion has increased, there is concern that polling only landlines is no longer representative of the general population. In 2003, only 2.9% of households were wireless (cellphones only), compared to 12.8% in 2006. This results in " coverage error ". Many polling organisations select their sample by dialling random telephone numbers; however, in 2008, there
5550-558: Was owned by Gannett in that year, and formed his second company, LH Associates. Harris's firm was bought by Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in 1969, and then by Gannett in 1975, with Louis Harris continuing as chief executive until he retired in 1992. In 1996, the Gannett Corporation sold Louis Harris & Associates to the Gordon S. Black Corporation, which operated under the name Harris Black International before becoming
5625-647: Was then discontinued. Harris wrote columns that appeared in several print media, and then on television. From 1963 to 1968, his columns appeared in The Washington Post and in Newsweek . Then from 1969 to 1988, his columns were written for The Chicago Tribune-New York Daily News Syndicate, appearing in over 100 newspapers. He wrote for Time Magazine from 1969 to 1972, and later gave his commentaries on CBS and ABC News. In January 1992 at age 70, Lou Harris retired from Louis Harris & Associates, which
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