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The Fall of Poll News
"Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?" - Robert Orben (comic writer)
Conventional wisdom says most folks take a campaign time-out in the summer. It's not until September that interest picks up, before it gets intense around October. Yet, according to the latest News Coverage Index, published weekly by the Project for the Excellence in Journalism (PEJ), news about McCain and Obama made up 26 percent of last week's newshole (the amount of print space or air time devoted to news amid the avalanche of ads).
If a quarter of all news being focused on the race for the White House seems like a lot, that's half of what it was during the Democratic primaries. That breeze you feel is what PEJ describes as an early summer "period when media attention to the race is cooling noticeably."
But even with campaign coverage "cooling," it was still the top story in all five media sectors (newspapers, online, network TV, cable TV, and radio). On cable TV, 49 percent of airtime focused on McCain v. Obama.
To break it down a bit further, one of the most covered campaign stories of last week was how McCain and Obama matched up in polls. Even though the primary season is over, journalists and news consumers can still expect to be hit with a constant flurry of presidential poll news, leading up to presidential poll-a-palooza as we approach November.
And while it may sound dignified and sophisticated to say: I don't believe in polls, the science of quantifying public sentiment has come a long way. That's not to say polls should be taken at face value. You have to learn how to interpret polls. If you're so inclined, a good place to start is the online course offered by News University and the American Association for Public Opinion Research. For free, you can learn about polling methods and how to crunch the numbers to see if the polls add up. Even if you're not a journalist, imagine the intriguing cocktail party conversation you can have, sharing with your company how to know when nine out of 10, really isn't nine out of 10.
Meanwhile, your curmudgeonly neighborhood columnist has done you the favor of coming up with the five things you need to know about polls -- a little list I distilled after talking with polling expert and political science professor at MIT, Steve Ansolabehere. Author of "Going Negative: How Political Advertising Alienates and Polarizes the American Electorate" and former co-director of the Caltech-MIT Voting Technology Project, trust me -- he's wicked smaaht.
5. This far away from the November election, polls about which candidate is ahead don't tell you much. "If you take a survey this far from an election, the intention measured in the poll may not be a good indicator of how people will vote." (Poll history note: When Dukakis was the Democratic contender running against Bush Sr. in 1988, Dukakis was ahead in the polls at this point in the campaign).
4. Over the course of a general election campaign, fluctuations in the polls actually show what voters are learning about the candidates. But, "people usually end up learning more about the candidate they were probably going to vote for anyway. The underlying, fundamental indicator of how someone will vote is party identification. That tends to be where most people end." The seminal treatment on this is considered to be Gary King and Andrew Gelman's paper, published in the British Journal of Political Science where they explore the question: "why do polls vary so much when elections are so predictable."
3. The big debate among pollsters right now is about how to conduct polls. The good old-fashioned way was to do it going door-to-door. With the rise of communication technology, came the advent of the "random digital dialing (phone) survey." The cheapest and supposedly lowest-quality polling is done with "robo calls" - when a computer calls and conducts the survey.
The problem with phone surveys, Ansolabehere noted, is that response rates have dropped over the years. Also, it's not clear how much the polling picture is distorted because pollsters don't call the growing number of voters who only have cell-phones. Yet, if you compare all the various polls with actual voting results in the primaries, you'll find that "robo-calling" Survey USA, "beat the pants off everybody." Still, in terms of overall quality and accessibility, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press is the best in the business.
2. There are things even polling experts don't understand about polls. For example, when it comes to predicting winners, Gallup polls "has a systematic GOP bias, while exit polling data has a Democratic bias. It's a mystery why that is, really."
1. While polling data is used by the ruling elite to manipulate and massage public opinion, we can all gain a valuable insight from stepping outside of the campaign polling arena and consider one of the most consistent findings of public opinion across decades. In poll after poll, year after year, the overwhelming majority of Americans say they want universal health care, despite considerable propaganda about "socialized medicine" lobbed from pure "free-market" ideologues. But now that big business is worried about health care costs, suddenly the dominant conversation isn't about whether there ought to be universal health care but what policy is the "right" one to deliver it.
That we don't have universal health care -- despite a consistent, majority public opinion in favor of it, going back decades -- tells you something about power in U.S. society, not the least of which is that when politicians like W say they don't pay attention to the polls, they're not joking. Apparently, what "the people" want doesn't matter. What business people want, does.
Now, summer on -- before poll news falls on us again.
Sean Gonsalves is a columnist and news editor with the Cape Cod Times. He can be reached at sgonsalves@capecodonline.com
20 Comments so far
Show AllMillions and millions of Bushbucks to buy propaganda on television - I unpluged mine last year - but not a dime for health care or education. Sometimes you get what you pay for and sometimes a whole lot less.
The overwhelming majority of Americans say they want universal health care,they want effective government, they want illegal immigration stopped, they want us out of the war in Iraq they want a fair tax system....by over 80% on each item. Thats what the poll's show. Every time and for years.
But the writer has them pegged, till big business got worried about health care costs and wanted to shift the cost onto the taxpayers there was no conversation about it.
And till our citizens quit buying the balderdash big business is selling on all these things, we will stay where we are.
I do believe that some folks are waking up however.
They're getting hungry Thomas More and they are just now beginning to see their future in all it's debased and degraded horror - and it's too late. They chose exclusion and constant war forty years ago and they reaffirmed their choice for Oligarchy in each succeeding generation. My fellow white Americans wanted victims to spit on and kick and throw under the bus. It grows them wood to this day. As a result, they refuse to make a place for everyone at the table to this day. Remember? "Who said life was supposed to be fair." That ain't Repug speak. That's Main Street America. "I got mine. Fuck you. Go get your own." From our own mouths.
And yes, you are all the virtuous Americans. Just like you were in '65, and '75, and '85, and '95, and '05. And you counted for nothing then. You count for less now.
Sorry.
Apparently, what "the people" want doesn't matter. What business people want, does.
That's the capitalist version of "freedom and democracy", folks. You should be accustomed to it by now. Just carry on with your "democratic" endorsements of the establishment's "electable" canadidates and be sure to support all those force-of-arms exports of the same system to other nations "yearning to breathe free."
Luckylefty,
Since you are correct, I'll just try not to whine about my misfortunes.
But, please man, just cut me a little respect,hey?
:)
luckylefty July 15th, 2008 1:52 pm
Good thing both you and DogLeg are wrong!
But I'm with DogLeg after that...please, cut us a little respect. We can't possibly be that bad.
Oops....forgot to say that of course its far, far from too late.
All of the polls today are wrong because they are adjusted or fixed based off of the recent election results. Anyone paying attention knows that recent election have been manipulated, so these "false" election results are used as the basis to fine tune the polling. For instance if in exit polling 75% voted Dem and 25% voted Repub but the actual reported election results finished 50%-50%, the polling would be adjusted so that a Repub responding to an exit poll in the next election would count as 2 Republican votes (equaling the 50% they supposedly received) and a Dem responding in the next election would count as .67 votes for the Democratic candidate (to get to the 50% they supposedly received). So as more and more elections are stolen or manipulated, the fraud gets built in to the system. The polls start to reflect the expected fraud.
2. There are things even polling experts don't understand about polls. For example, when it comes to predicting winners, Gallup polls "has a systematic GOP bias, while exit polling data has a Democratic bias. It's a mystery why that is, really."
The Gallup polls oversample Republicans because they don't want to predict who will get the most votes, but rather who will win the election given that the official vote counting is biased by about 6-to-8% in favor of Republican candidates.
The exit polls are correct.
pols have become utterly irrelevant since the election-stealing apparatus has been firmly put into place. go ahead, conduct your little surveys, break it down by region, demographics, etc. but our elections have the feel of a lot of sporting events - the winner often benefiting from "performance enhancing" devices.
Thomas More Said: "We can't possibly be that bad."
From an outsider looking into US Society, it looks to me like yes, you are that bad. The whole "I got mine, fuck you" attitude that luckylefty spoke of is something that I see a lot from mainstream America.
elmysterio July 15th, 2008 4:43 pm
Gee, I really think you need to come on over. A lot of what you see in the media is not what you see out here. Nor is our culture what you see on TV. Its a bit of everybody.
There is certainly some of that "I got mine" attitude, but its generally confined to the new urban elite and Academics....along with the politicians and business management. The other 95% of Americans aren't too bad.
So I'll hope I'm right and you're wrong.
Single payer is the telling point in Sean's piece.
Neither of the two corporate candidates is in favor of the popular single payer proposal that would solve our health care crisis.
Vote Nader.
Thomas More: "The other 95% of Americans aren't too bad."
When your leaders say you have no civic responsibilities then when your society collapses you can't be blamed, so you are not really bad at all, but a good guy, innocent and all. You met your society's demands: You ran the rat wheel and churned a pile of bucks. Congratulations!
rtdrury July 15th, 2008 6:32 pm
You seem to be somewhat bitter. But thats correct, most people aren't near as bad as the posts on here make them out to be.
Nor is our situation as bad as its made out to be.
"Exit polling data has a Democratic bias. It's a mystery why that is, really."
No mystery, Mr. Gonsalves. The exit polls are correct, and then the vote counters, electronic and otherwise, cheat for the Republicans. Why else would the Republicans in Congress fight so hard against a paper trail? Because the voting machine companies are owned by Republicans, that's why.
When these companies, (Diebold et al) and their GOP buddies are prosecuted for fraud, for conspiracy, and for constituting a continuing criminal enterprise, then and only then will we be able to begin to call ourselves a democracy.
I would like to see just one poll that gives figures for the number of people who are not pleased with either candidate. In a country the size of America it seems logical that we would have the cream of the crop in articulate, educated, qualified statesmen (or women) running for the position of leading this country. Are they just smart enough to know it is no place for honest, caring and sincerely independent thinkers?
It's quite simple: we don't have universal healthcare because people won't give up the two-party (sic) system! Until people WAKE UP and start voting, at all levels, for only those candidates who will create REAL change, real hope for us; and we must acknowledge our own complicity as a terrorist nation (and STOP the behavior!). As long as people stay stuck in the idea that there are only 2 "viable" candidates, we will continue to lose.
But there are only two viable political *parties*, and every attempt at a genuine 3rd party run in the U.S., since Andrew Jackson, has failed.
Folks who whine endlessly about both parties being the same are re-arranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. If it helps, drop the terms Democratic and Republican and use the terms "Party in Power" and "Party Out of Power." Or Red Party and Blue Party. Whatever.
U.S. history proves you can alter the course of a party by amassing a grassroots effort behind an idea and negotiating with one of the main parties to adopt it. I can site many examples of that at work, such as the alliance between Evangelical Christians and the (formerly)limited-government Republicans that gives the Federal Guv'ment a say in matters of reproduction and marriage.
You don't need to invent a new political party. You need to get 15 percent of likely voters -- by name, address, email address and cell phone numbers -- to endorese a single payer for health insurance. When you can deliver that long list, one of the parties will adopt it.
No one can site any examples of a third-party candidate winning the presidency. It would make an interesting TV show like "The West Wing," but that's all we'll ever see.
I believe people long for universal healthcare, but they've been made to fear it. Which means we need an FDR and some "Fireside Chatting" to overcome it.
It's been written and theorized by folks smarter than me that pre-election polls have to be "close" for one big reason: To avoid at all costs the post-election DISCREPANCY between honest _realistic_ polls, where one candidate is the "predicted," (obvious) winner by a wide-margin VERSUS the _staged_ "close elections results" where one candidate or the other wins by a "squeeker"; and _not necessarily_ the poll-predicted "winner!"
This would not only be a wake-up call that elections are _fixed_ but such discrepancy would tend to anger the large and relatively _indifferent_ segment of the voting (and even non-voting) populace.
Results? We could have possible civil war on your hands, riots in the streets, and a lot of anger. This discrepancy would tend to energize mobs in major cities and re-awaken Jeffersonian civic spirit, as happened in this country between 1965 and 1972. More Watts? More Kent States? More Detroits? More Seattles?
Therefore, if candidates at pre-election are polled as "close," it comes as no "big surprise" that--at the eleventh hour--X candidate "rallied his troops and won..." And nationally all walk away sedated and content. The better ("and harder working") man "won." Well, "in 4 years we get our chance," the "losers" on Main Street tell themselves as they lick their wounds and their pride.
Another theory is that if voters sense via polls that one party is a "pre-election winner," a lot of voters won't turn out to vote and that would be "bad for democracy."
The bottom line is that there is a sense at large that an intellectual dishonesty is built into poll questions and, even when these questions are honest, the results are fudged for public consumption.
Pollsters and Big Biz don't want to rile up the media-tamed masses.
Our European brethren may have stumbled on a solution with the multi-party Parliamentary system. It may have its flaws, but it tends to be _responsive_ to voting blocs and actual voters. If anything our current two party system politicos (with very rare exceptions) have demonstrated a near-complete unresponsiveness to anything and anyone but corporate contributors and their lobbyists.
Three examples: The unpopular, blood for oil war in Iraq continues unabated. FISA passed despite a lack of support by energized voters. And the new and improved Pelosian democratic majority took "impeachment of the table..."