polls

On November 3, 1992, I strode into the United Methodist Church in Colfax, Washington to cast my first ballot in a U.S. presidential election. I remember the moment vividly — not only because I was doing my part to help choose the next leader of the free world, but because of the excitement I felt at the people I saw Read More ›

We have all grown up with that picture of President Harry Truman on the day after his surprise 1948 re-election gleefully displaying the early edition of the Chicago Tribune and its headline, “Dewey Defeats Truman.” The Gallup organization that year stopped polling a week before the election, imagining that Dewey would maintain his six-point lead. In fact, Dewey lost by Read More ›

If you follow polls, you may have noticed how voters increasingly seem to resist attempts to stick them firmly into any camp–conservative, liberal or even moderate. Or, rather, they feel free to jump from camp to camp, depending on the issue and how the pollster presents it to them. There are three possible explanation: 1) voters are becoming more fickle; Read More ›