But What Do the Polls Show?
Perhaps the best way to think about public opinion and its relationship to politics and policymaking is that the American public is typically short on facts, but often long on judgment.
Accurately Locating Where Wireless Respondents Live Requires More Than A Phone Number
The mobile nature of wireless phones creates a significant problem for geographic sampling.This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the wireless-only are more geographically mobile than those with landline phones.
Perils of Polling in Election ’08
Despite such challenges as a growing wireless-only population, possible racially-related response bias and greater-than-usual difficulties in forecasting turnout, polllsters’ methods were evidently adequate to the task.
Why Surveys of Muslim Americans Differ
Because Muslim Americans make up a very small percentage of the U.S. public, it is difficult to provide a reliable picture of their views and differences in survey design can crucially affect findings.
New Tricks for Old — and New — Dogs
Pollsters and other communications researchers are finding their job ever more challenging but also more interesting, and, with the help of new techniques and data sources, even more amenable.
Calling Cell Phones In ’08 Pre-Election Polls
The latest study of Pew Research Center election surveys analyzes the effects of conducting both landline and cell phone interviews. While the addition of cell phones had at most a modest effect on estimates of candidate support in individual surveys, when looked at in the aggregate clear patterns emerge.
What a Year! People-Press Poll Reports in 2008
Findings from Pew Research Center polls over the year told the story of the longest — and one of the most exciting — presidential elections in U.S. history as well as recording the public’s reactions to other major events ranging from the pope’s visit, to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the onset of a mega-economic downturn.
Exit Poll Preview
In an exclusive interview, Joe Lenski, co-founder and Executive Vice President of Edison Media Research discusses his organization’s plans for conducting exit polls on November 4, given this year’s special challenges.
Poll Power
Though by no means a perfect instrument, polls make it possible for more opinions, held by a broader and more representative range of citizens, to be known to the government and thus, potentially, heeded.
Cell Phones and the 2008 Vote: An Update
As in two preceding tests, a new survey shows that including cell phone interviews results in slightly more support for Obama and slightly less for McCain.
