On Jan. 31, the New York Times (in print and on-line) had a fascinating Page One story about opinions of Americans on global warming, primarily as a function of party identification. The continuation page of the article had a long … discussion of the methodology of the poll, and on […] Read more »
Formulating Likely Voters — Ipsos’s Approach
In the reporting of public opinion, there are few widely-discussed concepts that are as confusing or misunderstood as “likely voters”. Many poll observers think likely voters are a hard and fast classification with clear definitions; this could not be further from the truth. The reality is the construction of likely […] Read more »
Pew Research Wins! 7th Annual Top 10 Dubious Polling Awards, 2015
“Squeezing Blood Out Of A Turnip” Award … “Remedial Math” Award … “Precedent Trumps Reality” Award CONT. David W. Moore, iMediaEthics Read more »
Cell Phones and the 2016 Elections
In December, the CDC released its most recent report on cell phone usage in the US. The report showed that 44% of American households are currently cell phone-only, meaning that there is not a landline phone in the household. This is a three-point increase over just six months ago, when […] Read more »
Do people want to stop Obama’s immigration move? Yes. And no.
Congressional Republicans face a major dilemma in how to respond to President Obama’s executive action delaying deportation for millions of undocumented immigrants. And to complicate that decision, two polls find conflicting results about what the public wants Republicans to do. CONT. Scott Clement, Washington Post Read more »
Why you can ignore that survey showing Americans want to label food containing DNA
Here’s the headline: “80% Of Americans Support Mandatory Labels On Foods Containing DNA. DNA!” Hahaha! Americans are so dumb etc etc. … As the philosopher H. P. Grice noted many years ago, people try to give informative answers. And this leads to problems when you try to directly interpret the […] Read more »