‘Polling may never have been less reliable, or more influential, than it is now’ .As stated by J. Lepore from The New Yorker, the importance of polling as an instrument is worldwide recognized. Nowadays more than ever, polling is a prominent part of our lives. However, what exactly a political opinion poll is, and how it works, is something shady and worth some attentions. ‘Public opinion polls are but a statistical snapshot of a certain moment in time’ (Newport, F. et al.,2009). The definition given by Newport is the one I believe get the closest to what an opinion poll is. It is short, but provides profound information. However, some additional conceptualization results necessary: an opinion poll is based on the idea that public opinion, …show more content…
This form of survey takes the name of census, and it is extremely expensive and time consuming. Obviously, to have a concrete and reliable outcome based also on relatively small sources, it is impossible to survey the whole population of a country in a timely manner, especially in the case of the United States (more than 300 million inhabitants). Moreover, surveys and polls are an instrument used by politicians, media and marketing, which reduces it to a service based on profits. For this reason, pollsters have to be cost-efficient: the expenditure to provide the information to the client has to be lower than the earnings. As a result, election pollster samples an incredibly smaller percentage of the population …show more content…
This information allows nominee seekers to determine how much money and founds are necessary, to run efficiently their campaign. A solid concern is represented by issues-opinion. Oftentimes, public opinion’s view on specific matters is what makes candidates win or lose the nomination. Due to this reason, candidates run polls in different constituencies and states and adjust their discourses and speeches according to what the public think of them. Again, in the states with the larger amount of independents, candidates tend to mitigate their statements about issues, in order to get as much favorability as possible among the less partisan population spectrums; on the other side when it comes to partisan states (California for the democrats, for instance) speeches are partisan-driven and strong. Without the information provided by polls on public preferences, campaigning becomes a ‘guessing game’ without statistical forecasting possibilities; with information, a candidate can formulate camping plans (Stonecash, 2003). Poll results tell candidates where they stand: how well known they are (name recognition), which sectors of the society know them (cluster based), and what people think. Polls also tell candidates about the opinions or attitudes of the electorate, who holds those opinions, and how people with differing preferences are likely to vote. The challenge
Curtis, J., Fisher S., Lessard-Philips L. 2007.Proportional Representation and disappearing voter. British Social Attitudes: Perspectives on a changing society, ed. A.Park 119-25. London: Sage Publications Ltd.
Every four years during any US Presidential election, overzealous patriotism hits an all-time high, and it truly shows with the citizen turnout at the newly elected President’s inaugural ceremony. In the months leading up to election day, presidential candidates attempt to persuade voters to cast ballots in their favor through different forms of advertising which contains strategic rhetoric and political language. Political language, otherwise known as “political propaganda”, is designed to influence masses of people within a nation, and even across the globe. As Harry S. Truman stated during the National Conference on Family Life on May 6th, 1948: “the principal power that the President has is to bring people in and try to persuade them to do what they ought to do without persuasion”(Truman,Worksheet). The power that Truman spoke of is undeniable during any President’s inaugural address, which highlights the beginning of their term as the newly elected President, while addressing their plans for the people of the United States over the next four years.
This method will have a more accurate stance on how the American society perceives Homeland security issues.Reasoning being because we are a very diverse country with many minorities groups and this will allow the poll to have representation from a variety of people on this topic. In conclusion this sampling method is better than the other ones for example Interactive Voice Response has a disadvantage that it is you won't be informed on who is voting because anybody can take it . The Random Digit Dialing method has disadvantages like it has outdated and exclude younger people. The Cluster Sampling method and Systematic Sampling method is not possible in this scenario because it needs a larger population and since the sampling will be low in this scenario this won't give us the best results and possibly won't be as diverse as we needed to be. The Random Sampling method is not diverse also it is hard to conduct research on how and who voted and does not have quality
Gelman, Andrew and Gary King, “Why Are America Presidential Election Campaign Polls So Variable When Votes Are So Predictable?” 1993. PDF.
...ling or the results. The sample was sufficient enough to prevent any hastiness or weak generalizations and the process by which they went about collecting the data was completely random in terms of selecting a balanced and equal number of participants. The target population was the general American public and these methods seem to accurately reflect the target’s characteristics. With the techniques conducted by Rasmussen it becomes possible for a bias to creep in. The main issue comes with the online surveys because, despite being sent to a specific set of people, the amount of those who decided to participate or if it was the correct person can not be out of the control of the pollsters, which is one aspect was. The target population for this then, the active voters in the U.S., becomes harder to connect to due to the lapse in full randomly selected participants.
...onducted by Gallup in this article are well designed and representative of the entire voting population. However, there is always room for improvement, and I am confident that the polls are becoming more and more accurate every day. It is very important that polls are as accurate as possible because people trust polls, basing their views and reports on them.
A survey can be defined as a gathering of a sample of data or opinions considered to be representative of a whole. Such as when the United States government polls a random selection of people throughout the country to get an accurate reading of the people's overall prospective of what the American people think is best for the country. As I almost reach the age of eighteen, not only do I have to start worrying about my career and college, I have to affliate myself with a party and prepare to vote. I have taken three online polls and they all came out with similar results; I am a republican. The three polls I took were The Political Affiliation Quiz, The Political Quiz, and Political Compass. I liked them all but all for various reasons.
I believe the results of this survey to be accurate as the survey was conducted in a fair and professional manner. However, I also discovered how easy it can be to manipulate the data and the opinions of participants to favor a single viewpoint. Surveys are an important method of gathering, summarizing and presenting large amounts of data. However, when relying on polls to form opinions or make decisions, people should consider the source, look for any conflicts of interest, contemplate other avenues of information and draw their own conclusions.
On the spectrum of politics (or any other ideologically-based matter), personal opinions will inevitably vary from one extreme on the left to the opposite on the right. In a governing system such as that of the United States, where the population directly elects representatives to govern, the position a candidate holds on the spectrum pertaining to certain issues in relation to other candidates becomes increasingly important. Theoretically, two people coming from different backgrounds and different political parties should provide contrasting opinions on major issues, allowing an individual voter to clearly and easily see the difference between his options and choose which option would be best for himself and his country. According to the Median Value Theorem, however, in most cases, the candidate's personal views and priorities cannot be considered if a victorious election is the ultimate goal, leading to nearly identical candidates at the time of election. Although this theory contains flaws, both theoretically in the actual workings and ideologically in the results, it is still valid and important to today's political strategies.
"If industry is to be successful in dealing with public opinion . . . it must learn the language of the people, it must consider the study of public opinion as important as any phase of its operations. It must recognize that public opinion can be measured, and utilize the increasingly scientific methods developing today for gauging it"(Ross)
Sanders, D., Clarke, H., Stewart, M. and Whiteley, P. (2005) The 2005 General Election in Great Britain, [Online], Available: http://www.essex.ac.uk/bes/Papers/ec%20report%20final.pdf [Date Accessed: 25/01/2014].
The airing of presidential debates on television is another very crucial part of the election process today. They are a chance for the public to see the candidates speak about vital current issues and their stance on political subjects. They are also a major deciding factor for voters. For example we can contrast the election between Kennedy and Nixon in 1960 and the election between Gore and Bus...
In the last three decades, polls became an important instrument for the media, especially television networks, to determine who wins and who loses the election. Caprini conducted a study about the impact of the early prediction of a winner in the 1980 presidential race by the television networks. He observed that, shortly after 8 p.m. Eastern standard time, NBC announced that, according to its analysis of exit poll data, Ronald Reagan was to be the next president of the United States (Caprini, 1984, p. 866). That early call was controversial because the polls in many states were still open at the time and, in some of th...
How to move voters successfully does not depend more on the political campaign art it solely depends on the candidate's ability to sell his or her manifesto to the voters as well as how convincing he is (Plasser, Fritz & Gunda, 22).Different researchers works have even indicated that in the current political world political candidates are supposed to have apolitical qualities like demeanor as well as personality. They are also required to cultivate vagueness when it comes to their positions with aims of minimizing cognitive dissonance in voter’s eyes. This clearly indicates political campaign arts only plays a very small part in votes hunting with the major roles being played by the candidates
Polls have a role in political campaigns and shaping government policies but recently the reliability of polls have come into question. The Republican polls provided the information to Presidential candidate Mitt Romney that he had a strong chance of winning key battle ground states. The polls showed "he had at least 267 out of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election" (Hoffman). When watching the election night returns the reality was Romney only received 206 Electoral College votes far away from the magic number needed to win or tie the national election. The candidate’s team used these polls and focused on states that showed a strong chance to gain votes. Romney focused his energy in Ohio and Pennsylvania, both states he eventually lost.