Gallup, which has long touted itself as the most trusted survey brand in the world, is facing a crisis. If Barack Obama’s reelection in November was widely considered a win for data crunchers, who had predicted the president’s victory in the face of skeptical pundits, it was a black mark […] Read more »
Two Misleading Polls on Sequestration
Two recent polls come to contradictory conclusions about the public’s willingness to accept spending cuts imposed by the sequestration that went into effect March 1. A Pew poll last month reported that among 19 government programs tested, not one elicited majority public support for cutting spending. And on 18 of […] Read more »
In Supreme Court Debate on Voting Rights Act, a Dubious Use of Statistics
In oral arguments before the Supreme Court last week, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. introduced a statistical claim that he took to imply that an important provision of the Voting Rights Act has become outmoded. … As much as it pleases me to see statistical data introduced in the […] Read more »
Twitter Reaction to Events Often at Odds with Overall Public Opinion
The reaction on Twitter to major political events and policy decisions often differs a great deal from public opinion as measured by surveys. This is the conclusion of a year-long Pew Research Center study that compared the results of national polls to the tone of tweets in response to eight […] Read more »
Can Election Polls In New York City Be Trusted?
… “I think the history of a lot of the public polls has shown that they’re wildly inaccurate,” Thompson said in a recent interview. “The one thing that the people of New York City have learned over a period of years and in different elections is that they’re just wrong. […] Read more »
Poll-itically Incorrect: Are Campaign Polls Or Public Polls More Accurate?
Though the Quinnipiac and Marist polls had Bill Thompson down by double digits during the week leading up to the 2009 [New York] mayoral election, the candidate’s own internal poll showed just an eight-point gap—and momentum in his favor. “We knew differently,” Thompson said of the projections in the race, which […] Read more »