The Numbers
A Run at the Latest Data from ABC's Poobah of Polling, Gary Langer
Gary Langer is director of polling at ABC News, where he's covered the beat of public opinion for nearly 20 years - conducting and analyzing ABC News polls, evaluating data from other sources and setting the news division's standards for poll reporting. Langer is a two-time Emmy award winner, both for ABC's reporting of public opinion polls in Iraq.
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Election Polls: What We're After
July 24, 2007 11:48 AM
A colleague here sent me a nice pointed challenge to our latest election poll yesterday: National surveys by themselves are "close to meaningless," he said, because they measure national preferences in what'll really be a series of state caucuses and primaries.
It's a fair complaint, and a serious one – because it cuts to the heart of just what our new survey, and its multifarious brethren, are all about.
It’s true, of course, that a poll of current preferences nationally does not tell us about current preferences in Iowa, New Hampshire or anywhere else. Without knowing who’s thriving in Iowa and New Hampshire, it's hard to predict who survives to South Carolina, much less who wins where on Mega Tuesday and wakes up with the crown on Feb. 6.
But wait: That – I hope – is not what our polls are after.
I like to think there are two things we cover in an election campaign. One is the election; the other is the campaign.
The campaign is about who wins. It's about tactics and strategy, fundraising and ad buys, endorsements and get-out-the-vote drives. It's about the score of the game – the horse race, contest-by-contest, and nothing else. We cover it, as we should.
The election is the bigger picture: It's about Americans coming together in their quadrennial exercise of democracy – sizing up where we're at as a country, where we want to be and what kind of person we'd like to lead us there. It's a different story than the horse race, with more texture to it, and plenty of meaning. We cover it, too.
We ask the horse race question in our national polls for context – not to predict the winner of a made-up national primary, but to see how views on issues, candidate attributes and the public’s personal characteristics inform their preferences.
The horse race is one question of 51 in our last poll, on a wide range of subjects. Rarely does it make the lead of one of the analyses my unit produces; we’d rather write about what’s behind it, as in our assessment, yesterday, of the role of “strength and experience” vs. “new direction and new ideas” as a campaign dynamic – a dynamic I expect to be central not only in the primaries, but even more so in the general election beyond.
The early caucuses and primaries do play a winnowing role in the campaign, although it’s an open question whether they do much more than eject subpar candidates who wouldn’t make the cut anywhere else, either (or, conversely, give short-term legs to the occasional sure loser). Nor do they necessarily anoint nominees (not even New Hampshire, since 1992 and 2000), much less presidents. And their impact this year, with Mega Tuesday a few weeks down the road, may conceivably be attenuated.
Whatever the horse race in the early-state campaigns, I’d argue that national polls add something unique and useful to our understanding of the election, by widening the field of our scrutiny. A few hundred thousand caucus-goers in Iowa and primary attendees in New Hampshire – largely homogenous states with few big cities, few minorities and few immigrants – can tell us what they’re thinking. But they can’t tell us what the nation’s thinking, and in covering the election – not just the campaign – that matters even more.
July 24, 2007 in Favorite Posts | Permalink | User Comments (5)
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Gary Langer's insights are sagacious. The early horse race polling is of limited utility in predicting who might win the nomination. It is the other questions that provide the context and insights on what counts in the election.
Posted by: Peter D. Hart | Jul 24, 2007 2:49:59 PM
Polls at this stage of the Presidential election only serve to influence those who do not care to put the time and engery in to making an intelligent decision. Also as most of the samples are small ( and yes I understand statics )as to skew the direction of the public. I know that polls are just that - really unscientific questioning of a relatively small number of people picked at random -- or is it really that random?
I think that polls hurt more than help. Why? People tend to listen to results of a poll rather than finding out the true stance of a candidateb
Posted by: harriette majoros | Jul 25, 2007 3:37:27 PM
I think your polls are slanted to whom the media especially the one doing the poll detremines who they want to be in the mainstream and want to direct us towards voting for. No thanks, I have my own mind and am capable of doing my own research. When your polls get into the hundredes of thousands of voters or people polled it might start having some meaning.
Posted by: Kelly | Aug 5, 2007 10:13:29 AM
THE POLLS ARE FIXED. I HAVE NEVER BEEN ON ONE. ALL I CAN SAY IS I WILL NOT VOTE GOP. AND I DON'T LIKE THE 2 FRONT RUNNERS OF THE DEM. EDWARDS LOOKS THE BEST FOR ME SO FAR.
Posted by: RAY ROWLAND | Aug 31, 2007 11:04:12 AM
I'm voting for Edwards. I've been supporting him since January. I've been checking out all the candidates (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Prohibition Party, Independent, and Peace and Freedom) since January as they systematically entered the race and dropped out, and I still think Edwards is the best candidate for me. I haven't seen him change his position on any subject he's brought up or has been dealt. I don't agree with every issue he supports, but I do on the majority of them. There isn't a candidate who's going to have the exact same views on every issue as every American Voter, but he had a plan before he entered the race and was one of the first if not the very first to enter and let everyone know what his plans were. I've seen the other democratic candidates change and modify their stands so they can appear they are as good if not better then him. We all need to vote for Edwards because if Hillary wins the Democratic Primary she will lose the General Election and most likely in my opinion John McCain will become our next President. The Republicans already know they are going to win the Presidency if Hillary wins the Democratic Primary. Putting Hillary in the race was part of the Republicans plan from the start. They want the Democrats to focus their votes on Hillary so the votes will be pulled away from Edwards and Obama. The Republicans want Hillary to win the Democratic Primary. Their betting on it. They also know she won't become President in the upcoming year because (1)Too many people don't want her (ALL parties combined), and (2)She has picked through the ideas of her counterparts to assemble what the American People Want To Hear. She knows, supports and is supported by too many people in Washington (and elsewhere) and most surely has the backing of special interest groups lobbying for her exposure so they can benefit from her grabbing the Democratic seat in the Primary, then discarding her in the General. The people who really run our government are hidden behind the scenes and will never reveal themselves. Politics is all about profit for them. This is a Chess Game for them and they know exactly when and where to move each piece. Granted, it would be great to see someone who could actually guide This Nation out of the rut it is in, but the People who Actually Control our Government from behind our Elected Officials will never let it happen. When the American People realize they are also being manipulated towards the direction to vote for certain individuals by the people really controlling our Government, then maybe we'll head in the right direction for our benefit. Drop Hillary. She's not getting her exposure from donations by the Average Joe. She's getting it from her own money and the money she gets from the loopholes created by our Government. Research Hillarys past before supporting her. Sure she's cast votes in support of things she now regrets just like the rest of us have. But don't let that soften your feelings about her and cause you to vote for her. She has a side we don't want to see. She's a very secret person. We need someone with a new direction and ideas. Don't allow her to pull your vote away from someone else in the Primary Election who really has the best chance of becoming our next President and doing some good for this Country. Please help by supporting John Edwards as I am. Thank you.
Posted by: CaSEIUmember4Edwards | Oct 15, 2007 2:23:46 AM
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