Strength In Numbers How Polls Work And Why We Need Them

Download or read book Strength in Numbers: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them written by G. Elliott Morris and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2022-07-12 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insightful exploration of political polling and a bold defense of its crucial role in a modern democracy. Public opinion polling is the ultimate democratic process; it gives every person an equal voice in letting elected leaders know what they need and want. But in the eyes of the public, polls today are tarnished. Recent election forecasts have routinely missed the mark and media coverage of polls has focused solely on their ability to predict winners and losers. Polls deserve better. In Strength in Numbers, data journalist G. Elliott Morris argues that the larger purpose of political polls is to improve democracy, not just predict elections. Whether used by interest groups, the press, or politicians, polling serves as a pipeline from the governed to the government, giving citizens influence they would otherwise lack. No one who believes in democracy can afford to give up on polls; they should commit, instead, to understanding them better. In a vibrant history of polling, Morris takes readers from the first semblance of data-gathering in the ancient world through to the development of modern-day scientific polling. He explains how the internet and “big data” have solved many challenges in polling—and created others. He covers the rise of polling aggregation and methods of election forecasting, reveals how data can be distorted and misrepresented, and demystifies the real uncertainty of polling. Candidly acknowledging where polls have gone wrong in the past, Morris charts a path for the industry’s future where it can truly work for the people. Persuasively argued and deeply researched, Strength in Numbers is an essential guide to understanding and embracing one of the most important and overlooked democratic institutions in the United States.

Download or read book Where Did You Get This Number? written by Anthony Salvanto and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2019-08-27 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CBS News’ Elections and Surveys Director Anthony Salvanto takes you behind the scenes of polling to show you how to think about who we are and where we’re headed as a nation. As Elections and Surveys Director for CBS News, it’s Anthony Salvanto’s job to understand you—what you think and how you vote. He’s the person behind so many of the poll numbers you see today, making the winner calls on election nights and surveying thousands of Americans. In Where Did You Get This Number? A Pollster’s Guide to Making Sense of the World, Salvanto takes readers on a fast-paced, eye-opening tour through the world of polling and elections and what they really show about America today, beyond the who's-up-who’s-down headlines and horse races. Salvanto is just the person to bring much-needed clarity in a time when divisions seem to run so deep. The language of polling may be numbers, but the stories it tells are about people. In this engaging insider’s account, Salvanto demystifies jargon with plain language and answers readers’ biggest questions about polling and pollsters. How can they talk to 1,000 people and know the country? How do they know the winner so fast? How do they decide what questions to ask? Why didn't they call you? Salvanto offers data-driven perspective on how Americans see the biggest issues of our time, from the surprising 2016 election, to the shocks of the financial crisis, the response to terrorism and the backlash against big money. He doesn’t shy away from pointing out what’s worked and what hasn’t. Salvanto takes readers inside the CBS newsroom on Election Night 2016 and makes readers rethink conventional wisdom and punditry just in time for the 2018 midterms. He shows who really decides elections and why you should think about a poll differently from the forecasts popularized by Nate Silver and others. Where Did You Get This Number? is an essential resource for anyone interested in politics—and how to better measure and understand patterns of human behavior. For any American who wants to get a better read on what America is thinking, this book shows you how to make sense of it all.

Download or read book Lost in a Gallup written by W. Joseph Campbell and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping look at the messy and contentious past of US presidential pre-election polls and why they aren’t as reliable as we think. Polls in U.S. presidential elections can and do get it wrong—as surprising outcomes in 2020, in 2016, in 2012, in 2004, in 2000 all remind us. Lost in a Gallup captures in lively and unprecedented fashion the stories of polling flops, epic upsets, unforeseen landslides, and exit poll fiascoes in presidential elections since 1936. Polling’s checkered record in elections has rarely been considered in detail and, until now, has never been addressed collectively. Polling embarrassments are not all alike. Pollsters have anticipated tight elections when landslides occurred; they have indicated the wrong winner in closer elections; state polls have confounded expected national outcomes. Exit polling has thrown Election Day into confusion. The work of venerable pollsters has been singularly and memorably in error. It is a rare presidential election not to be marred by polling controversies. Lost in a Gallup casts a critical eye on major figures in election polling such as George Gallup, a prickly founding father of public opinion research. The book also considers the polling innovations of Warren Mitofsky, whose admonition rings true across generations: “There’s a lot of room for humility in polling. Every time you get cocky, you lose.” Lost in a Gallup examines how polling failure often equates to journalistic failure. Historically, poll-bashing was quite pronounced among prominent journalists, including well-known newspaper columnists such as Mike Royko in Chicago and Jimmy Breslin in New York. They and other journalists challenged the presumption that polls could accurately measure or interpret what the public was thinking. Even so, polls drive news media narratives about presidential elections, shaping conventional wisdom about how competitive those races are. As Lost in a Gallup makes clear, polls are not always in error. But when they fail, they can fail in surprising ways.

Download or read book The Polls Weren't Wrong written by Carl Allen and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2024-09-24 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interpreting poll data as a prediction of election outcomes is a practice as old as the field, rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of what poll data means. By first understanding how polls work at a fundamental level, this book gives readers the ability to discern flaws in the current methods. Then, through specific political examples from both the United States and the United Kingdom, it is shown how polls famously derided as "wrong" were, in fact, accurate. While polls are not always accurate, the reasons we can and can’t (rightly) call them "wrong" are explained in this book. This book will equip readers with the tools to navigate the mismatch of expectations. It is not intended to replace more technical applications of statistics but is accessible to anyone interested in learning more about how poll data should be understood, compared to how it’s currently misunderstood.

Download or read book Polling at a Crossroads written by Michael A. Bailey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-03-31 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Polling at a Crossroads presents an intuitive paradigm that allows us to understand and confront the challenges facing modern polling.

Download or read book Margin of Victory written by Nathaniel G. Pearlman and published by Praeger. This book was released on 2012-04-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes the role of political technology and how the innovations in the use of new media, software tools, data, and analytics hold potential for politicians to win elections.

Download or read book All Too Human written by George Stephanopoulos and published by Back Bay Books. This book was released on 2008-08-01 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All Too Human is a new-generation political memoir, written from the refreshing perspective of one who got his hands on the levers of awesome power at an early age. At thirty, the author was at Bill Clinton's side during the presidential campaign of 1992, & for the next five years he was rarely more than a step away from the president & his other advisers at every important moment of the first term. What Liar's Poker did to Wall Street, this book will do to politics. It is an irreverent & intimate portrait of how the nation's weighty business is conducted by people whose egos & idiosyncrasies are no sturdier than anyone else's. Including sharp portraits of the Clintons, Al Gore, Dick Morris, Colin Powell, & scores of others, as well as candid & revelatory accounts of the famous debacles & triumphs of an administration that constantly went over the top, All Too Human is, like its author, a brilliant combination of pragmatic insight & idealism. It is destined to be the most important & enduring book to come out of the Clinton administration.