Political Polls: Measuring Public Opinion Since 1932 How we tell them what we want…maybe

How We Learn About Politics Political Socialization How someone acquires particular political orientation Orientation grows firmer with age Process of Political Socialization The Family Political leanings of children often mirror their parents’

Socialization Con’t Mass Media School Chief source of information as children age Used to socialize young into political culture Better-educated citizens are more likely to vote and are more knowledge about politics and policy Generation gap in viewing television news How does social media affect/change this?

Measuring Public Opinion - Polls How are polls conducted? Sample: small proportion of people are chosen in a survey to be representative of the whole 1000-1500 people are necessary to represent the “universe” of potential voters This will give a sampling error of +/- 3% Does this seem low?

Measuring Public Opinion - Polls Random Sampling: used by researchers and operates on the principle that everyone should have an equal probability of being selected What are methods that could work? Random-digit dialing – calls randomly chosen listed and unlisted numbers Issues with this? How could (or are) polling companies adapting to the changing times?

Measuring Public Opinion - Polls Sampling Error: level of confidence in the findings of a public opinion poll Larger the population the higher the confidence and the lower the margin of error

Role of Polls How polls affect politics For polling: Against polling: Polls help politicians figure out preferences Against polling: Polls make politicians think more about following that leading What if people vote overwhelmingly for something but the politicians ignore it? Polls allow politicians to figure out how to word their opinions to get their bills passed “Our job isn’t to tell him [Obama] what to do. Our job is to help him figure out if he can strengthen his message and persuade more people to his side…” – Joel Benenson

Role of Polls con’t Questionable wording may affect results Push polling – polls taken to provide information on an opponent that would lead respondents to vote against that candidate

Role of Polls How polls affect democracy Polls may distort the election process Exit Polls – used by the media to predict election day winners May discourage people from voting (especially in Western states) 2000 presidential election in Florida

Role of Polls What polls reveal about American’s political information: We don’t know much about politics We may know our basic beliefs but not how those policies affect the gov’t We don’t really know the world either Decline of Trust in the Gov’t Since 1964, trust in the gov’t has declined What does this mean for the people? Gov’t?

How do you compare to the rest of America?

How do you compare to the rest of America? Gallup tracks daily the percentage of Americans who think that economic conditions in the country as a whole are "getting better" or "getting worse." The results are reported here and also included in Gallup's Economic Confidence Index. Daily results are based on telephone interviews with approximately 1,500 national adults; Margin of error is ±3 percentage points.

How do you compare to the rest of America?

How do you compare to the rest of America?

How do you compare to the rest of America?