The Evolution of Election Polling in the United States

Abstract

Public opinion polls have long played an important role in the study and conduct of elections. In this essay, I outline the evolution of poll- ing as used for three different functions in U.S. presidential elections: fore- casting election outcomes, understanding voter behavior, and planning campaign strategy. Since the introduction of scientific polling in the 1936 election, technology has altered the way polls are used by the media, public, candidates, and scholars. Today, polls and surveys remain vital to electoral behavior and our understanding of it, but they are being increas- ingly supplemented or replaced by alternate measures and methods. Public opinion polls are now conducted on every topic under the sun—everything from presidential approval to celebrity outfits and sports predictions—but they remain especially fundamental to the conduct and study of elections. Elections and polling are so intertwined that it is hard to imagine one without the other. Poll numbers provide fodder for media coverage and election predictions, they shape candidate and voter behavior, and they are the basis of interpreting the meaning of election outcomes. Public Opinion Quarterly was founded in January 1937 on the heels of the advent of modern scientific polling in U.S. presidential elections. The first issue included an essay, ''Straw Polls in 1936,'' explaining how George Gallups quota-controlled survey of a few thousand triumphed over the Literary Digests straw poll of millions in correctly predicting the election outcome (Crossley 1937). Election polling has evolved considerably since that inaugural issue. Perhaps most notably, there has been an explosion in the number of election polls in the United States. Traugott (2005) estimated a 900-percent increase in trial heat polls between 1984 and 2000. The number has continued to grow since then, due largely to the rise in interactive-voice-response (IVR) and Internet polls since the 2000 election. In the 2008 election, there were an estimated 975