Polling on Issues People Know Little About Creates Illusion of Public Opinion

… While the general presidential approval rating provides some relevant insight into public opinion, the same cannot be said for presidential approval questions that focus on individual issues. …

Media polls get virtually all respondents to answer a question, regardless of whether they actually have an opinion, by the way in which questions are phrased. They often use a “forced-choice” format, which provides explicit answers like “approve” or “disapprove,” but fails to provide an explicit “unsure” or “don’t know” option. CONTINUED

David W. Moore, FAIR


The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.