Abstract
The New York State senatorial campaign of 1970 provided an op portunity to explore the impact of two types of events on the results of the election. One was the support of the President and Vice President of the United States for William Buckley, the candidate of the Conservative party, and their rejection of the Republican party nominee, Senator Charles Goodell. The other was publication of the results of the New York Daily News Straw Polls showing Buckley leading Representative Ottinger (Democrat) and Senator Goodell, the other two candidates for senator, in that order. While the evidence is not conclusive, there are indications that these events did affect the decisions of some voters who made up their minds at the last minute. Nevertheless, it is doubtful that they determined the outcome of the election; other factors were more important. On election night, prior to the announcement of any voting returns, a statewide random sample of i,ooo persons was interviewed by telephone from the offices of Audits & Surveys, Inc.1 The interviewing, conducted between 5:oo and 9g:oo P.M., was restricted to a randomly selected member of the sample household who had already voted. The results of this survey corresponded fairly closely to the actual election returns, as shown in Table i. Voters for senator were twice as
Published Version
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