“Push polls” — which are not really polls at all — are often criticized as a particularly sleazy form of negative political campaigning. Voters pick up the phone to hear what sounds like a research poll. But there is no effort to collect information, which is what a legitimate poll does. …
But the fact that a poll contains questions with negative information about one or more candidates does not make it a push poll. CONT.
Marjorie Connelly, New York Times