Image Politics, Polling & the Partisan Divide: Polling

Saturday, August 27, 2022

Polling – Tuesday, September 6th (Blog #1)

What impact do polls have on political communication? What can polls tell us about issues, candidates, and campaigns? In your opinion, is there too much emphasis placed on polls by the media, politicians, and the public OR is polling a valuable way to gauge political opinion? You must refer to Semiatin Ch. 5, one of the readings from Blackboard, and an outside source to support your response.

40 comments:

Michael SingerSeptember 1, 2022 at 3:15 PM
The type of impact that polls have on political communication are they are able to give the candidate information on the current race that they are in and how the race looks like. The impact can be both positive and negative at the same time. In the textbook titled “Campaigns on The Cutting Edge” they mention the impact of the 2016 presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. At the time, Trump thought he lost, and all the polling evidence supported his claim that he lost the election. “While the Clinton campaign expected a win, the Trump campaign expected he would lose. The Friday before the election, the Republican National Committee briefed network reporters on the committee’s prediction for Election Day. The prediction was that “Trump would get no more than 204 electoral votes, and that he had little chance of winning any of the battleground states, and that even dead-red Georgia was a toss-up.” (page 60). Clinton was just reading the polls and ended up losing the election because at one time she was so sure that she had it “in the bag”. The only thing that ended up remaining in the bag was her pants suit that she was planning on wearing on her first trip to Washington D.C as president-elect because Donald Trump ended up winning and becoming the next president of the United States.

I think that there is way too much emphasis on polling in the media, it’s an insane amount. In one of the articles provided titled “New Polls Show Democrats Could 'Win' the 2022 Midterms. Should You Believe Them?” They hold a lot of emphasis on small percentages of probabilities when it comes to Congress and if the Democrats can hang on or if Republicans can take it back. The article states “Democrats have trailed Republicans on the generic ballot. But they’ve only trailed by 1 or 2 points, on average — not 16.” I personally think that there is TOO MUCH emphasis on some of these polls and some of the “what ifs.”

Another source to back up the claim that there is too much emphasis on polling is in an article titled “Poll shows Marco Rubio with just a 3-point lead over Val Demings.” In the article it states that “U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio winning 49% of the vote, while Demings, an Orlando Congresswoman, takes 46% of the vote. That puts the candidates within the poll’s 3.5 percentage point margin of error.” When it comes to being in the 3.5 margin of error, it really is anyone’s game at that point. The saying “it’s not over till it’s over,” by Yogi Berra stands true. This is anyone’s game and to put so much emphasis on that Rubio has a 3 lead which is in the margin of error just shows that Demings has just as much of an equal opportunity to catch up to Rubio and take the lead if she plays her cards right.

Works Cited
Semiatin, Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, CQ Press c/o SAGE

Andrew Romano, August 20, 2022, New polls show Democrats could 'win' the 2022 midterms. Should you believe them? Yahoo, https://www.yahoo.com/news/new-polls-show-democrats-could-win-the-2022-midterms-should-you-believe-them-100037527.html

Jacob Ogles, August 31, 2022, Poll shows Marco Rubio with just a 3-point lead over Val Demings, Florida Politics, https://floridapolitics.com/archives/552835-poll-shows-marco-rubio-with-just-a-3-point-lead-over-val-demings/
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Anya GrondalskiSeptember 1, 2022 at 8:28 PM
Polls have the potential to reveal public attitudes. Each of the 4 parties that make up political communication are directly impacted by or directly impact polls. Politicians use polls to guide their campaign messaging, while the press use polls to make statements about politics. Social media is being explored as an avenue for polling and has increasingly become a platform for expressing views and advocating. The public are the ones being polled, the ones consuming social media, and are the ones politicians are supposed to answer to. In Political Communication Cultures in Western Europe, the relationship between the two is clearly defined as “public opinion polls are an integral part of political communication as they serve as an input factor for both the messages of politicians and their spokespersons, as well as the political reporting of the media” (Mayerhoffer and Brlek 105). In the U.S., polling has steadily gained more prominence as politicians rely on public opinion surveys as a “key input factor in the construction of political messages” (Mayerhoffer and Brlek 106). Through polls, we can look to determine election outcomes and collect data about issue-based public opinion. Campaign success can also be measured based on survey responses of approval ratings and general feelings toward elected officials. A poll of President Biden was completed in March of this year by Reuteurs/Ipsos which found his “approval rating fell to a new low of 40% this week, a clear warning sign for the Democratic Party as it seeks to retain control of Congress in the Nov. 8 election” (Sullivan). Approval rating polls can either inspire confidence or a losing attitude in voters, altering the trajectory of election outcomes and thus campaign messaging. Polls can additionally help us to understand public opinions of politicians in the context of current events, and/or how current events influence the public’s perception of an individual, such as the president. The Reuters/Ipsos Poll found that Americans approving or disapproving of Biden’s performance in office was related to pressing issues like inflation and America’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (Sullivan).

Although polls are heavily relied on as a guiding factor in political decision-making, they are not always accurate. There is often too much emphasis placed on polls by the media and politicians. If done correctly, they can be a powerful source of information, but too many issues currently exist in polling methods. For starters, there is no foolproof method of surveying. The introduction of cell phone technology and caller ID have made ignoring phone calls easier and have forced landlines to retire. This creates both extra expenses and a slanted demographic, as older, more conservative households are more likely to have landlines and reaching cell phones is harder to do (Semiatin 67). Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems are a divisive subject in the polling community, as they cannot call cellphones (an increasingly important category), do not work well for message testing, and are not able to rely on live techniques to keep subjects on the phone longer (Semiatin 69). Online surveys can be more beneficial for honest answers, but many who are poor or older do not have access to the Internet. The use of polling via text messaging and social media have raised many ethical and privacy concerns. Although an important part of political communication, polls are equated too closely to fact by both the public, media, and politicians. In order to better understand voter outcomes and public opinion, we should create an understanding that although useful and valuable mechanisms, polls are not the end all be all of how our public acts, thinks, and feels.
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Ryan BusilloSeptember 1, 2022 at 10:30 PM
Polls affect political communication by giving candidates a snapshot of the race they are running in. Whether the poll has them ahead or behind, in a tight race or a blowout has a major impact on the strategy a campaign will use to ensure their preferred candidate comes in first on election day. Campaigns on The Cutting Edge notes how in the 2016 Presidential election the polls left Hillary Clinton so confident in her coming victory that “she had purchased a purple (not red or blue) pantsuit to wear on her first visit to Washington D.C.” (65). This purchase demonstrates the level of confidence in the Clinton campaign due to its lead in the polls. Meanwhile, Politico reported that Trump had done six speeches in the final two days of the election to try and hurdle himself over the finish line. This stark division in attitude and strategy is the direct result of the campaign organizations reading the polls and basing their strategy and confidence based off that.
Polls can give the public great insight into what issues will drive campaigns and election cycles. With polls being one of the few metrics campaigns must know what voters care about, polls like the August 23rd study from the Pew Research center showing abortion rising in importance among voters. Campaigns, seeing this result, will know to touch on this issue more than they otherwise would to better connect to voters. That same poll showed the economy as voters’ greatest concern, meaning campaigns would likely focus on fiscal policy the most. Fundamentally a candidate must connect with voters, and using polls such as the Pew one are a key tool in knowing what issues matter the most.
While electoral snapshot polls can often dominate news cycles in an unhelpful manner, there is not nearly enough emphasis based on issue-based public opinion polls. In a nation where according to a poll by The Hill, nearly 7 in 10 Americans support Medicare for All there should be more campaigns with public healthcare as a central issue. As we stand today, most liberal politicians actively campaign against the idea. In a nation where 9 in 10 Americans support Social Security, candidates like the GOP’s Blake Masters should not float social security privatization. Though these two examples are some of the most egregious, the trend is clear: public opinion polls do not have enough bearing on the issues political campaigns focus on. Issues that are popular with the voting public are the ones that smart campaigns should make hallmarks. As far as public healthcare goes, often Democrats are often scared of being called socialists to support Medicare for All. The question I pose to them is: If the public is on your side, does it matter?
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AnonymousSeptember 3, 2022 at 9:47 AM

Polls play an important role in political communication as it is a way to easily communicate the general opinions of a group of respondents. It also gives politicians a good estimate of what the public thinks of them, their policies, and their chance of winning. Polls might be a little overvalued in the current political landscape

As we know, Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election. However, that was not the predicted outcome. Originally, Trump was thought to only get 204 votes at most. He made this prediction off the polls collected from the necessary swing states (Semiatin 66). The thing is the national polls themselves were accurate; It was the state polls that skewed the prediction in Hillary Clinton’s favor. The state polls failed to account for factors such as support in certain states and voters’ preferences changing.
The change in technology has had a big influence on the struggle polls face. Most people have wireless phones and no landlines (approximately 57 percent). Only within the past decade have some pollsters started including cell phones in their surveys. This is a big issue as a huge demographic of younger and minority voters had been cut out of the surveys and most likely skewed the data (Semitatin 67).
Another issue is the poll’s inability to perfectly encapsulate the thoughts and opinions of a single person. Most people aren’t constantly embroiled in public affairs and therefore might have little to no interest in responding to polls. This is an issue as it allows pollsters to construct an opinion out of the 3-8% (Semitatin 67) who respond to polls out of courtesy and not because they have strong and defined opinions on matters that more than likely don’t affect them in a day-to-day basis (Dionne et al).
With polls being such an important resource for businesses and politicians, they must be conducted. The article, “Polling & Public Opinion: The good, the bad. and the ugly” by E.J. Dionne, Jr. and Thomas E. Mann touched on the skepticism and controversy around polls and how they are conducted and how that information is used. Polls might be shoddily constructed and dictated by the pollsters to coax a certain response. A lot of poll data can be used to lead the public and exacerbate the truth. We can see an example of this in Andrew Romano’s article “New polls show Democrats could ‘win’ the 2022 midterms. Should you believe them?”. Romano points out how to poll data shows Biden’s approval rating went up. While this is true, it gives the illusion that he is doing well when in actuality his net approval rating is negative sixteen, which is “the worst of any modern president at this stage of his first term” (Romano).

While I do think polls can be useful in gauging public opinion, they should not be so heavily relied on. They make broad generalizations of the public, while only having a small number of respondents. I feel like they can be used as a benchmark for how the public feels about an issue or candidate, but I think using them as absolute facts is disingenuous.

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Jennifer MogliaSeptember 4, 2022 at 6:23 PM
Jennifer Moglia

I never thought polls were all that important since they don’t serve as the “official” election. After all, if a poll showed one candidate was winning, so they assumed that they would win, and they ultimately lost, would they feel like the polls mattered? The example that comes to mind here is Hillary Clinton thinking she had all but secured the presidency due to the polls leaning in her favor. Many factors went into this situation, including the fact that voters’ opinions changed drastically in the last two weeks of the election period, especially in states like Florida, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The 2016 election was also unique because Clinton won the popular vote but not the electoral college, throwing another curveball into the mix. (Semiatin 66)

Despite this instance where polls were relied on too heavily and caused a shock, I think that polls can be a useful indicator of the general public’s opinion on current issues and candidates and can help politicians and their campaign teams decide what their next moves should be. For example, in a July 2022 press release from the Quinnipiac Poll, it was stated that President Biden’s approval ratings were at an all-time low. The numbers were particularly bad for the issues of Biden’s handling of the economy (66% disapproved and 28% approved), gun violence (61% disapproved and 32% approved), and foreign policy (55% disapproved and 36% approved). These numbers don’t bode well for the president in terms of his chances of re-election; Trump’s lowest approval rating was 33% in December 2017, and Biden isn’t there yet (he sank to 40% in March 2022), but the current president’s numbers are mirroring that of his predecessor (Sullivan), which should certainly worry his team.

Canceling student debt was a big part of Biden’s presidential campaign, so when he hadn’t yet gone through with it, those who voted for him may have felt discouraged or regretful, possibly causing the low approval ratings. When the president put a plan in place to forgive student loans a few weeks back, those discouraged voters probably felt more satisfied with him, which could be indicated in a future poll (Lieber and Bernard).

However, I do think that a different move would have had a bigger impact on the polls. For example, since the public is so concerned about gun violence according to the Quinnipiac poll, steps forward in gun control and reform could have a bigger impact on public opinion. Obviously I haven’t put this theory into practice, but I think that if a politician put their energy into topics that the public thought they were lacking in, their approval rating could rise. I do think that polls can make politicians can be too reliant on polls, but I also think that, in general, they are a useful resource for candidates and their teams.

Works Cited:
“BIDEN APPROVAL HITS NEW LOW AMID PUBLIC DISCONTENT WITH BOTH PARTIES, QUINNIPIAC UNIVERSITY NATIONAL POLL FINDS; NEARLY HALF OF AMERICANS WORRY ABOUT BEING MASS SHOOTING VICTIM .” Quinnipiac University Poll, Quinnipiac University, 20 July 2022, Accessed 4 Sept. 2022.
Lieber, Ron, and Tara Siegel Bernard. “What You Need to Know about Biden's Student Loan Forgiveness Plan.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Aug. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/24/business/biden-student-loan-forgiveness.html.
Semiatin, Richard J. “Chapter Five.” Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA, 2021, pp. 66–67.
Sullivan, Andy. “Biden Approval Rating Drops to New Low of 40%, Reuters/Ipsos Poll Finds.” Yahoo! News, Reuters, 22 Mar. 2022, https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-approval-rating-drops-low-194716373.html.
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Franco MorganteSeptember 5, 2022 at 12:17 PM
Polling has played a massive part in political analysis in the past 20 years. It's used to make predictions as to how elections might go as well as being critical for politicians to see how popular they are with the American people. However, I think there is way too much emphasis placed on polling and I have three reasons for this belief.

1. It gives politicians a false sense of security.
Polling is a necessity for a political campaign as it gives candidates an indicator to see what demographic their platform appeals to the most. It shows candidates what states they will most likely do well in and what states they aren't doing well in. However, there's been a recent trend of politicians looking at numerous positive poll numbers and then acting like their victory is inevitable. This is an awful way to look at polls as the opinions of the voters aren't static and are constantly changing. A perfect example of this is with Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. According to the book Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, after looking at numerous projections from websites like FiveThirtyEight, Hillary Clinton was so sure that of her victory that on the day of the election she was planning which outfit she would wear for when she arrived in Washington D.C. as president elect (Semitan, 66). This anecdote displays how looking at the polls too much can make politicians think they are 100% going to win an election and they end up blindsided when they lose.

2. Sample Bias
According to the website Question Pro.com, sample bias is defined as "When members of the intended population are selected incorrectly – either because they have a lower or a higher chance of being selected" (Question Pro, paragraph 2). This problem is often done unintentionally as it's normally impossible to get an equal number of people who are in favor or against whatever topic you ask them. This is also a problem when polls are conducted in areas where the population is overwhelmingly in favor of one political party. As a hypothetical example, if a polling site like FiveThirtyEight did a poll about "Do You Approve of Donald Trump" and only surveyed people in New York City (a very progressive area) then it would most likely be overwhelmingly against Donald Trump. Obliviously, polls are never this one sided, but often polls have a slight unintentional bias that comes with getting one viewpoint overrepresented in the sample size. This just shows that polls are never 100% accurate and should be seen more as an idea of which direction the American people are thinking rather than a definitive answer as to what the American population thinks.

3. People are less willing to express their political beliefs.
The political division in America has led more people to become afraid of expressing their true beliefs on certain topics. According to a poll from NBC 54% of the college students they surveyed wouldn't date anyone who voted for the candidate they opposed in the 2020 election and 46% wouldn't even choose to live with someone who voted for the candidate they opposed (Murray, paragraph 10). While this poll only asked college students, if this is the direction that America is headed where people are afraid to express their beliefs because it might jeopardize their friendships or relationships. Then why would people even share their beliefs with pollsters out of fear they might get ridiculed or ostracized? This also relates back to the idea of sample bias as people can be afraid to answer honestly or just might not participate in these polls leading to one demographic being overrepresented.

Overall, I think polls should be taken seriously, but not as a 100% accurate prediction of what could happen. As there are many factors that can lead to a misrepresentation of what the American people actually think
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Palek SinghSeptember 5, 2022 at 3:12 PM
Polls are meant to document political communication by informing citizens and candidates what the majority of the public thinks or believes. These polls can influence the candidates to appeal more to their constituents or in general disclose the outcome of a race. Pollings can reveal the issues that voters think are the most important and which should be one of the top priorities for a candidate during their presidency. For example, in recent months the topic of abortion has resurfaced due to the Supreme Court’s decision of overturning Roe v. Wade. Latest polls show that the public believes abortion to be one of the most crucial problems the U.S is facing currently. According to Gallup News, “when Americans are asked to name the most important problem facing the U.S., 8% of the resulting mentions focus on abortion. While not high on an absolute basis, this is the highest such percentage since Gallup began tracking mentions of abortion in 1984”(Newport). National polls can also show who won the most votes before the results of the election have even come out, for example, the winner of the 2016 presidential election. Chapter 5 by Candice J. Nelson of Campaigns on the Cutting Edge states, “national polls were among the most accurate in estimating the popular vote since 1936. Collectively, they indicated that Clinton had about a 3 percentage point lead, and they were basically correct; she ultimately won the popular vote by 2 percentage points”(Semiatin). Polls were accurate in terms of Hilary Clinton receiving the majority of the popular votes however, Trump won the most electoral votes.

In my opinion, if executed in an unbiased and factual way, polls can definitely be vital to the political atmosphere by determining public opinion. However, not every poll can accurately measure what the people think or want, so I’m not sure if there should be too much emphasis on polls. The results of a poll can be influenced by age, gender, race, surroundings, etc. of a person. This notion was evident when conducting the political divide poll in our class last week. I remember that most of the students voted that they wouldn't live with a person who supported the opposing presidential candidate as the one they supported in 2020. On the other hand, a survey conducted by NBC News on a different group of students showed that 54% would probably and definitely consider rooming with a person who supported the opposing candidate as the one they supported in 2020(Murray). This depicts why polls shouldn’t be heavily relied on by the media, politicians, or the public because the outcomes can vary from the groups of people taking part in these polls. Also, if pollsters are finding it difficult to survey every individual in a community, then the polls are obviously not accurate. Chapter 5 further adds that, “with a typical [phone] response rate of only 3 to 8%, estimates are that pollsters need to call ten times the number of phones to get a sufficient sample size”(Semiatin). Therefore, I believe that the existing emphasis on pollings needs to be reduced.

Work Cited:
Semiatin, Richard J., and Candice J. Nelson. “Survey Research and Campaigns: Challenges and Opportunities .” Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc., 2021.

Newport, Frank. “Abortion Moves up on ‘Most Important Problem’ List.” Gallup.com, Gallup, 4 Aug. 2022, https://news.gallup.com/poll/395408/abortion-moves-important-problem-list.aspx.

“A New Political Divide: Nearly Half of College Students Wouldn't Room with Someone Who Votes Differently.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 18 Aug. 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read/new-political-divide-nearly-half-college-students-wouldnt-room-someone-rcna43609.
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Katie LangleySeptember 5, 2022 at 4:54 PM
Political polling has been increasingly complicated due to changing technology and unprecedented trends in popular opinion. However, this does not mean that polls can’t tell us anything. Polls are still valuable as tools to indicate political performance, voter turnout, public opinion and other indicators of trends. Pew Research Center’s Courtney Kennedy (2020) argues that polling is not only necessary, it is a danger to take it for granted; “In nations without robust polling, the head of government can simply decree citizens’ wants and needs instead” (para. 1.) However, polls must adapt to current technology, and stop relying heavily on what “history” or models tell us will happen. In addition, as a journalist, I believe that reporters need to do a better job vetting poll data and ensuring that the information they convey does not mislead their readers or communicate a bias.
One thing polls can tell us is what candidate or party is projected to win an election or come out on top of an election cycle. However, the accuracy of polling was brought into question in 2016 when most national polls predicted that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would win the presidential race over former President Donald Trump. This prediction was wrong; Clinton won the popular vote, but not the presidency (Semiatin & Nelson, 2021, pp.65-66.) However, according to Kennedy (2020), this does not necessarily mean that polling is an overall useless system. The polls in 2016 predicted the wrong result because “undecided voters ultimately broke heavily for Trump; most state polls overrepresented college graduates; and turnout was higher than expected in many rural counties but lower in urban ones” (para. 19.) In fact, the 2016 national pre-election polls were actually quite accurate, predicting that Clinton would win the popular vote by three points (she won it by two.) It was state-level polls that missed late-decision Trump voters and an overrepresentation of college-educated individuals (who are more likely to respond to polls– and vote for democrats) (Kennedy, 2018, para. 3.) So, the results of 2016 polls should not turn you off of polling as a whole– they were actually pretty accurate as far as historical standards of polling go.
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AnonymousSeptember 5, 2022 at 6:26 PM
We are nearing the bi-centennial of when public opinion polls were first used during election campaigns. Their initial use came during the 1824 presidential election cycle between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, where a primitive straw poll was conducted in Wilmington, Delaware (Museum of Australian Democracy). The poll coincidentally predicted the winner of the said election, with Jackson taking the victory in public opinion and at the voting booth.

Polls are basically seen as the gold standard when it comes to how well a politician is doing. They can be taken at face value, or used to establish trends and make comparisons or conclusions. An example is how a Yahoo News article said, “Factor in Biden’s anemic approval rating (the worst of any modern president at this stage of his first term) and astronomical inflation numbers (the highest since the early 1980s), and it looks like a recipe for Democratic disaster,” when referring to President Biden’s potential success during the 2022 midterm elections. For politicians, they want the numbers a poll shoots out to be in their favor. They want to know the public is a fan of what they’re doing.

Getting the polls done accurately can be challenging however. In Chapter Five of the book Campaigns on the Cutting Edge by Richard Semiatin, he discusses how polling can be done in many different ways in the present time, like calling your surveyees, either at home or on their cell, contacting them online, and even monitoring social media trends, among others. The sheer amount of ways to contact people for a poll in this day and age make having accurate and balanced polls more difficult by the day. However, as long as they are conducted and presented responsibly, they are an asset to the political community.

While I do believe that polling is a valuable way to gauge the political opinion of the public, I think that their value is put into the wrong place. Polling, in a sense, is only valuable to those who make their living in politics themselves. Politicians need to know where the public’s mind is during the election cycle so that they can effectively work to keep their job. Private citizens, on the other hand, have no real need for these polls. They are designed to measure their own opinions, so what need would they have to follow them? I would say they’re only needed to stay lightly informed, any obsession beyond that comes from our primal desire to find those who agree with us.

An article from the Duke Research Blog sums up how the aforementioned desire is dangerous when it comes to public polling, “‘Resistance to belief-change’ is the idea that people will stand with their original views and are unwilling to change them. This could be a result of a cognitive bias known as the ‘confirmation bias.’ The bias is that people will favor evidence that supports their claim and deny evidence that refutes their position.” In this case, the only time I see the general public discuss polls are when they state something they already agree with, and almost never discuss whether they were wrong.

Overall, polling is a useful part of the American democracy and campaign process as long as they are conducted responsibly. They receive the correct amount of emphasis from the people they are affected by most, but I think the American public should dial back on our desire to know their results down to the minute. If we can all quell our confirmation bias, then polls can be more useful than ever.
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William GavinSeptember 5, 2022 at 6:33 PM
Polls are increasingly the metric by which political campaigns measure the value voters place on certain issues, how voters think about certain individuals, and what could cost a candidate the election. This isn’t an entirely modern phenomenon, but one that has taken new avenues as modern technology becomes more and more widespread. Arguably, the answer to this question is both yes and no. Whether or not a poll will have a tangible effect on a campaign depends on a number of factors. For example, last month, the Pew Research Center reported that 56% of registered voters "say the issue of abortion will be very important in their midterm vote, up from 43% in March" before the United States Supreme Court overturned the landmark case Roe v. Wade (“Abortion Rises in Importance as a Voting Issue, Driven by Democrats”). While Pew found that Republican voters had shown almost no change in perspective, from 40% saying abortion was an important voting issue to 41%, several GOP candidates scrubbed their websites of anti-abortion language. Blake Masters, the GOP nominee for Senate in Arizona, removed pro-life rhetoric from his campaign website, as did Minnesota GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen and Ohio GOP gubernatorial candidate Christina Drazan (McCammond and Solender). Solender and McCammond further reported that Democrats in several states are pushing abortion as a mainstream issue, particularly after months of polling showing incensed voters, as well as a failed anti-abortion constitutional amendment in Kansas. On the other hand, that same Pew survey found that just 35% of voters rate "Issues around race & ethnicity" as important, yet those issues will always be part of political communication — mainly because there’s no way to avoid discussing those issues((“Abortion Rises in Importance as a Voting Issue, Driven by Democrats”). Similarly, economic issues will always be prioritized because they are the most visible aspect of politics that voters will encounter. According to ABC News, 80% of Americans said, in June, that inflation is an important factor of how they will vote in November(Demissie). Other issues, such as foreign policy, resolve around certain spikes in activity; for example, in August, Pew found that 45% of voters consider foreign policy as a very important issue, down from 59% in March, when the Russia-Ukraine War was still fresh in the minds of voters(Kennedy). This also reinforces a constant factor that campaigns must consider: voters have short memories.

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Jack SpiegelSeptember 5, 2022 at 6:39 PM
The impact that polls have on political communication is far different now than it was even just 10 years ago. In the past, campaigns and political offices relied heavily on the results of polling because of their highly reputable nature. Like illustrated in the 2016 election, polls have become far less reliable for a number of reasons, therefore turning unfavorable poll results into a major talking point for candidates on both sides of the aisle. In Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, Richard Semiatin elaborates on the sentiments that each presidential candidate were feeling on election night. “At a postelection rally in December 2016, Trump said that ‘he expected to lose the election to Democrat Hillary Clinton, based on polls showing him behind in several critical states’” (Semiatin). As we all know now, most of those polls turned out to be wildly wrong, with Donald Trump taking a sweeping Electoral College victory.
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Melina MaldonadoSeptember 5, 2022 at 6:41 PM
The purpose of polls is to show people the public opinion of those surveyed. This impacts political communication heavily because it is essentially the spread of the voter’s opinion and can sway other people’s opinions if they choose to follow the statistics. The polls can tell us what issues people believe in and who they stand with for that specific issue. For example, according to an Emerson College poll for New York, 43% of male voters stood with R. Lee Zeldin but only 26% of females stood with him. This might be because his opponent, D. Kathy Hochul, who has claimed Zeldin is far more conservative than people think. New York Times writes, “Representative Lee Zeldin, the Republican nominee for governor, said the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was a victory for family, life and the Constitution.” (Fandos) Zeldin’s thoughts on abortion rights compared to Hochul’s, who believes Roe v. Wade should not have been overturned, could be the reasoning as to why more women stand with Hochul. This also relates to what the polls tell us about the candidates and the campaigns. The polls tell us about the candidates in the lead who could potentially win the elections coming up and the numbers about the campaigns tell us which ones are actually working based on which one has the higher number of voters.
In my opinion, I believe polling is a valuable way to gauge political opinion. For example, the statistics in an article from Pew Research Center about who people would vote for based on their opinion on abortion show that “71% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters rate abortion as very important,” (Pew Research Center) and this statistic can help people form their opinion about who they should vote for. If they are pro-life, they would vote for a Republican candidate and if they are pro-choice, they would vote for a Democratic candidate if they are forming their opinion based on polling statistics. A big reason why polls are valuable is because of the trustworthy sites and the sites that have large panels. According to the book, Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, “YouGov, one of the largest and oldest online surveys, now has 1.2 million Americans who have agreed to participate in its surveys.” (Semiatin, 74) Having such a large panel can help create unbiased statistics so not everyone participating is a registered democrat or republican. These statistics can influence a lot of people on who they should vote for based on what the voters believe in and who they are voting for in order to achieve the specific goals they believe are needed for this country. Looking at it as someone who has never voted before and stands very much in the middle, these polls help me pick which candidate I should vote for based on the similar values of the people who are participating in these polls and who they are voting for. However, in order to do this effectively, the poll needs to be credible and large such as YouGov, like the book mentioned before. Overall, I believe polls benefit people by showing them the statistics of other people if they are struggling to decide on who is right for them to vote for.

References:
"Abortion Rises In Importance As A Voting Issue, Driven By Democrats". Pew Research Center - U.S. Politics & Policy, 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/08/23/abortion-rises-in-importance-as-a-voting-issue-driven-by-democrats/.
Fandos, Nicholas. "How Zeldin’s Anti-Abortion Stance May Affect The N.Y. Governor's Race". Nytimes.Com, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/29/nyregion/abortion-lee-zeldin-governor.html.
Mumford, Camille. "New York 2022: Hochul Holds 16-Point Lead Over Zeldin; Schumer With 22-Point Lead In Potential US Senate Race - Emerson Polling". Emerson Polling, 2022, https://emersoncollegepolling.com/new-york-2022-hochul-holds-16-point-lead-over-zeldin-schumer-with-22-point-lead-in-potential-us-senate-race/.
Semiatin, Richard J. Campaigns On The Cutting Edge. 4th ed., SAGE Publications, Inc., 2021, p. 74.
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Connor YoungbergSeptember 5, 2022 at 7:41 PM
Polls have a major impact on political communication. The polls can determine what candidates do before the election. Candidates that are losing the polls may choose to ramp up their campaign strategies to make a comeback in the polls. Other candidates may see they’re winning in the polls and take their foot off the gas, with Hillary Clinton being a perfect example. Clinton was so confident that she would win the 2016 election over Donald Trump, she planned outfits to wear on election night, as well as her first trip to Washington D.C. as president of the United States (Semiatin 65). As we know, Trump won the 2016 election, contrary to the polls. Although the polls were not necessarily accurate, they still played a major impact in the 2016 presidential election.

Approval polls can tell us a lot about how the public reacts to specific decisions made by politicians. For example, according to FiveThirtyEight, Biden had a 41.3 percent approval rating on August 24, the day of the student loan forgiveness. Since then, Biden’s approval rating has gone up to 42.8 percent, signaling that student loan forgiveness is a good thing, and could be the focus of a future candidate’s campaign.

In my opinion, there is way too much emphasis on the polls. I do not feel as if the polling system is a very accurate and reliable way of acquiring numbers that will be similar to the election results, especially in today’s world. The reason I have this opinion is because of the next generation of people. I do not think that many young people, who have a vote, are accurately represented in the polls, which can very easily skew the results and make them much different to what the actual results will be. “As cell phones, answering machines, and caller ID have proliferated, respondents have become increasingly difficult to reach by phone. As a result, survey research has become more expensive for campaigns, which start with, in most instances, limited resources” (Semiatin 67). I know personally, I do not answer the phone unless I have the contact saved to my phone, with the only exception being if the number looks familiar or I recognize the area code, but even then, the chances of me picking up the phone is rare. I think it is a safe assumption to assume that other people in my age bracket have a very similar approach. So those are missing votes in the polls that are very crucial to the results of the elections, especially now, where teenagers have become very politically active and extremely opinionated. In a survey conducted by NBC, members of the class of 2025 were surveyed on their ability to coexist with people in support of the opposite 2020 presidential election candidate. The results showed a massive political divide between the students. Nineteen percent of people said they could definitely not share a room with someone who supported the opposing candidate. Twenty-three percent of people said that they could definitely not go on a date with someone who supported the opposing candidate. Thirty-one percent of people could definitely not see themselves getting married to someone who supported the opposing candidate (Murray). This shows how the polls have too much emphasis, because the polls do not accurately represent every person who has a vote.

“How Popular Is Joe Biden?” FiveThirtyEight, 5 Sept. 2022, https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/.
Murray, Mark. “A New Political Divide: Nearly Half of College Students Wouldn't Room with Someone Who Votes Differently.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 18 Aug. 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read/new-political-divide-nearly-half-college-students-wouldnt-room-someone-rcna43609.
Semiatin, Richard J. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge. CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc., 2021.
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AnonymousSeptember 5, 2022 at 8:35 PM

Political Communication through polling has given the community a way to voice their opinions on certain topics anonymously. Polling allows the American people to give their insight to political candidates on how they are positively or negatively impacting global issues. When polls are taken accurately, they are a great way to view opinions on political topics.
In the textbook “Campaigns on The Cutting Edge,” polling throughout the presidential campaign describes how the cell phone age has made it much more difficult to reach potential publics to answer polls. Polls oddly enough bring the country together in a sense of asking Americans their opinions on certain political topics. “National polls were generally correct and accurate by historical standards. National polls were among the most accurate in estimating the popular vote since 1936. Collectively, they indicated that Clinton had about a 3 percentage point lead, and they were basically correct; she ultimately won the popular vote by 2 percentage points” (Semiatin). The 2016 election was a controversial topic and time for both parties, although the polls were found to be quite accurate. In my opinion, the cell phone age should make polling an easier job to do because of how connected communities are.
Polls tell us the approval ratings of certain presidential candidates, it is a cause and effect process. In one of the articles provided “Biden Approval Rating Drops to New Low of 40%, Reuters/IPSOS Poll Finds” describes how polling affected each presidential candidate during foreign conflicts, the election, as well as U.S. military issues. Analyzing the poll statistics allows for a more visual description of how each candidate did in office. “Donald Trump, received at this point in his presidency, as both stood at 40% in mid-March in their second year in office. Trump’s approval rating sank as low as 33% in December of 2017” (Sullivan). The polls affected each approval rating due to the decisions made with issues such as Ukraine or other global issues. The public’s opinion on these political aspects are truly shown through these polls and approval ratings.
The article “Polling & Public Opinion: The good, the bad, and the ugly” gave both opinions on how polling has both pros and cons. A controversial opinion that highlights the opinions of polling, “people of all kinds, activists and ordinary citizens alike, regularly cite polls, especially those that find them in the majority. But people are deeply skeptical of polls, especially when opinion moves in the “wrong” direction” (Dionne Jr., Mann). Polling can receive a more negative view when the polls move into a direction that a certain party may find controversial. Personally I would find it easier to believe these polls were realistic by knowing or seeing who was asked to answer these questions. I do believe that polls are a valuable way of understanding and a great way for the public to voice an opinion.
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Amber ManginiSeptember 6, 2022 at 12:03 AM
Polls allow politicians to get a sense of what the public wants and is feeling about running candidates. Many polls give the candidates an idea of the likely outcomes of races, however, these predictions have been off in the past. Not only do polls allow candidates to get a sense of the possible outcomes, but they also allow voters to see where popular votes are. While polls have been seen to have a great impact on predicting the outcomes of races, recent failures have forced questions about the impacts. In the article “The Politics of Polling: Why are Polls Important During Elections” by Professor Jouni Kuha, he said “Opinion polls are valuable as they guide policy development by giving decision makers impartial information about what the public wants, Professor Kuha says. But this requires pollsters to be both transparent and accurate in their statistical methodologies, something recent polling failures have called into question” (Kuha). Professor Kuha’s article discusses how poll results can greatly influence the voter’s view of candidates or vote overall. Kuha describes this as the “bandwagon effect” which stops the polls from accurately reflecting the public’s personal wishes, negatively impacting political communication.
Depending on the platform of the survey, the type of poll, and the questions being asked, polls can tell you many different things about issues, candidates, and campaigns. In the past, polls have been used to indicate who was going to win, opinions on policies, party standing, and many other important political questions. For example, in the provided article “More Americans Label Republican Party Extreme and Democratic Party as Weak”, one CBS News Poll asked if voters wanted party nominees to focus on Abortion rights. They found that 83% of Democrats want to focus on defending abortion rights, and 59% of Republicans want to focus on opposing abortion. While another CBS News Poll asked who the parties mostly fight for. They found in the democratic part 64% said for LGBTQ people, 54% for women, and 28% for men. However, they found in the Republican party 17% said for LGBTQ people, 29% for women, and 59% for men (Salvanto).
I personally believe polling is not a valuable way to gauge political opinion. In the technically advanced world we live in today, it is extremally hard for pollsters to keep polls repetitive, accurate, and honest. Poorer and older generations are not accurately represented in online and media surveys, while younger generations are less likely to have landlines or remain in the same area code. In the textbook Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, Richard Semiatin said “For example, online surveys may provide a don’t know/not sure option, but phone surveys typically do not. Longer questions with multiple responses may be easier to understand in an online survey, where the respondent has time to read and think about the question and responses, than in a phone survey. Alternatively, without an interviewer asking questions, respondents may go through an online survey quickly, without taking time to consider their responses, a practice known as speeding” (Semiatin 70) and later he added, “The Pew Research Center has found that respondents give more honest, accurate answers to sensitive questions (such as did you vote in the most recent election) when there isn’t a live person asking the questions.” (Semiatin 71). This shows that there are far too many factors that influence someone’s answers for polls to be a valuable way to gauge political opinions. A large portion of the population does not feel safe answering politically driven questions, and this greatly affects the accuracy of the results. I think if the accuracy of polls and how to make polls on different platforms similar were studied, polls could be a valuable way to gauge public opinion in the future.
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Cj BenedettiSeptember 6, 2022 at 2:37 AM
Cj Benedetti

Polls have been an integral part of political communication and campaigns for some time now. Polls can give insight into which issues are most cared about by voters, how many voters are “single-issue voters,” and what those issues that they vote on are. They can tell candidates their approval rating, popularity rating, and which issues their constituents care most about. They can tell politicians which messages are getting across to the public, where the candidate is falling behind, where a candidate may need to start campaigning more heavily, and which states the candidate can campaign in more lightly. Polls impact all of these decisions because they tell the campaign and the candidates the public’s opinions. Well, most people believe they tell the public’s opinion, but I personally feel that there is way too much emphasis put on polling and the information they collect.

The first problem is that you cannot encapsulate an entire country or state's view in polls as much as you try to. Sematin explains this in Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, saying that although the polls had been getting more and more accurate every election, in 2016, “the prediction was that Trump would get no more than 204 electoral votes and that he had little chance of winning any of the battleground states, and that even dead-red Georgia was a toss-up” (Sematin 66). As we know, Trump won that election with 304 electoral votes. Another reason I feel so strongly that there is too much emphasis on polls is that state-level polls during this election were just flat-out wrong in some states. As Sematin stated, “state-level polls underestimated Trump’s support in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin” (Sematin 66). These polls had the correct sample of callers through the state but still underestimated Trump's support. This leads to another reason I believe polls are too over-emphasized, which is who and how many people they can reach. There are specific demographics that pollsters cannot reach or those who refuse to take political polls. This demographic can create a poll bias if they tend to lean politically or ideologically towards one side. This issue is talked about in “New Polls Show Democrats Could 'Win' the 2022 Midterms. Should You Believe Them?” when they explain, “In recent cycles, pollsters have also had some problems getting enough Republicans — especially working-class Republicans in Rust Belt states — to respond to their surveys, which can make the GOP look weaker (and the Democrats stronger) than they really are” (Romano). Not only that, but polls also have trouble gauging how much people really care about an issue. As said in “Polling & Public Opinion: The good, the bad, the ugly”: “Even when people have strong views, a single polling question rarely captures those views well. Human beings are complicated, and so are their opinions.” (Dionne & Mann).

As mentioned in Dionne and Mann’s article, I feel the best use of Polls is the “trust but verify rule”. I feel you can trust some polls, and there are effective and good uses for them but do not take them as the truth. Put more work into verifying the results of the polls before putting the amount of emphasis on them that we do now. They can be helpful, but I feel they fail to properly encapsulate the public views on candidates and issues. Of course, I myself might be biased as the first election I paid close attention to and voted in, the polls were hopelessly incorrect.

Works Cited

Andrew Romano, August 20, 2022, New polls show Democrats could 'win' the 2022 midterms. Should you believe them? Yahoo, https://www.yahoo.com/news/new-polls-show-democrats-could-win-the-2022-midterms-should-you-believe-them-100037527.html

Semiatin, Richard J. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 2020.

Dionne, E.J., and Thomas E. Mann. “Polling & Public Opinion: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” Brookings, Brookings, 28 July 2016, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/polling-public-opinion-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/.

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AnonymousSeptember 6, 2022 at 3:14 AM
William Dean
The political game is one that is incredibly difficult to play. The fog of war and linear march of time prevent candidates from gauging public support for their campaign. One tool that does help the politician peek into the future is public polling. By asking members of the public their opinion on key issues and incumbent job approval, a candidate can hone their message to appeal to more voters, possibly tipping the tide of the election.
Still, there are significant flaws in the polling systems as they currently exist. For instance, polling came of age in the era of landline phones, before caller ID, answering machines and cell phones. The advent of these systems allows voters to ignore messages they wish, throwing significant roadblocks in front of pollsters. Not only do picky respondents cause issues with the survey’s size, they also cause issues with the poll’s accuracy. As Semantin notes, “cell phone ownership varies by demographic group…. 65 percent of eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds and 77 percent of twenty-five- to twenty-nine-year-olds were cell only…” (67). Furthermore, other modes of gauging the American public have serious defects and limitations. Mobile phone surveys are hampered by the fact that numbers stick with the owner even as they move, meaning that a poll of numbers beginning with 201 would not be exclusive to New York City. Online polls face the problem of participants rushing through the survey and not giving thoughtful answers. In short, polling paints with broad strokes and is constrained by the state of technology today. Though there are ways to control for these factors, my impression from the reading is that public opinion polling is incredibly limited and not always accurate.
However, there are scenarios where polling has a significant impact on political communication. Polls indicated that the American public was generally against the recent Jackson v. Dobbs decision. For instance, Senate candidate for Arizona Blake Masters recently “removed language that said, ‘I am 100% pro-life’” from his website (McCammond and Solender). This phenomenon is not limited to Arizona, as House candidates in Michigan, North Carolina and Colorado along with gubernatorial candidates in Oregon and Michigan have also scrubbed their respective websites of pro-life messaging in a hope to boost their favorability heading into election day.
Certain politicians took note of these issues with polling and have returned to more traditional campaign tactics. Notably, Robert O’Rourke’s campaign for governor of Texas is significantly less poll-oriented than others in the cycle. As a Washington Post journalist notes, O’Rourke is holding “more than 70 public events in 49 days” (Yuan). While polls show that O’Rourke is more than five points behind incumbent governor Greg Abbott, the former’s gamble might pay dividends. Engaging voters on a person-to-person level is (theoretically) better than running advertisements. The article mentions that while at one of these events, a counter protestor asks “ Doesn’t he know people need AR-15s to shoot feral hogs or to hunt deer and birds? (“Well, you know what? You must be a pretty poor shot,” Beto snaps back. Even the guys in MAGA hats laugh at that.)” (ibid.). With just over two months to the election, only time will tell if O’Rourke’s deemphasizing of polling will pay off.

Alexi McCammond, Andrew Solender. “GOP Candidates Scrub Hardline Anti-Abortion Stances from Their Campaigns.” Axios, 31 Aug. 2022, https://www.axios.com/2022/08/31/republicans-midterms.
Semiatin, Richard J. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge. CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc., 2021.
Yuan, Jada. “Beto O'Rourke's Risky Quest for Votes in Deep-Red Texas.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 22 Aug. 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/08/20/beto-orourke-rural-texas-governor-race/.
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AnonymousSeptember 6, 2022 at 9:23 AM
Caitlyn Piascik

Polls have a direct impact on political communication, as it allows politicians and candidates alike to assess the political attitudes of the American public. For example, the 2016 presidential candidates used polls to examine the ratings of political figures and estimate the popular vote. According to Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, “National polls were among the most accurate in estimating the popular vote since 1936” (Semiantin 2008). Ultimately, it gives politicians an idea of what the general public thinks about their policies and their overall chances of winning the presidential popular vote. However, polls only include the opinions of those who participate, so an increasing number of individuals are being left out of poll results as technology advances. (Semiantin 2008).

Polls can give the general public insight into what issues will be important during campaigns and election cycles. Polls challenge the public to answer the potential driving questions of that particular election and it allows candidates to see how the general public’s view aligns with their own. Ultimately, public opinion polls allow politicians to understand, “What people believe; How they feel about something; or In what way they will act” (Public Opinion Polls 2022). In addition to polls being used throughout the course of election campaigns by candidates and by the media to see which candidates are likely to emerge victorious, the results of the polls also impact how campaigns will go. “The results of these polls, in turn, largely determine where future campaign monies are to be spent and where each candidate’s efforts will be concentrated until the close of the campaign” (Public Opinion Polls 2022).

In my opinion, while I do think polls are a useful tool in measuring public opinion, I do not believe they should be relied on as a primary source of political information. Generally, those who participate in polls are those who belong in the politically active public – there are a significant number of individuals who aren’t as actively involved and won’t have their opinions or views shared in relation to the current political campaign. Especially given the advances in technology leaving both young and minority individuals out – it is not necessarily the most accurate way of gauging public opinion because a majority of the public is not being heard through this specific mechanism. I also believe that polarization and the reinforcement of specific stereotypes is common amongst certain polling questions. According to The Washington Post, there is a common theme of the media using the term “invasion” to describe unwanted activity; like the ‘invasion’ of Ukraine by Russia, for example. This rhetoric has also been used within the context of either the border or the word immigration. According to a poll conducted by Ipsos, this language is broadly accepted by Americans – and more than half of the respondents said that it was “completely” or “somewhat” true that the United States was experiencing an ‘invasion’. (Bump 2022). I believe that these types of respondents and questions help to increase the prominence of certain issues and heighten the climate amongst American political attitudes – especially about polarizing issues such as immigration. I believe that the polls should be working a bit harder to correct the misconceptions in politics and be used to educate the people and help them make informed decisions, rather than polarizing them from one party or candidate or another.
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Alessia ScaturchioSeptember 6, 2022 at 10:06 AM
Polling is a way for politicians and the public to receive updates and information about people, ideas or questions. Poll’s are a good way to gather information, and when it comes to political communication it is important to make sure that the news being gathered and spread is reliable and accurate. When working in political communications it's important to note how big of an impact polls have on politics. The reason they hold so much power is because they impact the way anyone inside or outside of politics will view certain issues or candidates. A poll used to be able to also tell politicians if they need to be doing more for their campaign and where they stand in the running. According to a Yahoo article entitled “Democrats could ‘win’ the 2022 Midterm” states that Current President Joe Biden could in fact win the Midterm and “ Prevent the bloodbath that a presidential party usually suffers in the midterms.”(Romano, Yahoo) Based on this information alone, if we always know that the party who is not in office is going to do better than the party that is, how does this help guide the public or presidential candidates? When thinking about polling for any political issue, it brings into question the idea that because we receive information so rapidly maybe people change their minds. So, if people are changing their minds how can we rely accurately on polls, and do we put too much emphasis on polls?
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AnonymousSeptember 6, 2022 at 11:09 AM
Part 1
Polls are extremely important as they provide us with a general understanding of people’s views or stances on certain political issues or topics. While this is true, we also have to consider how technology and media have changed over the years and so has the polling approach. In the textbook titled Campaigns on The Cutting Edge by Richard Semiatin, he mentions how there have been many challenges with survey research in recent years. This is because most of the country is switching towards a digital age in media. In the reading, he talks about many of the platforms these polls are being distributed on and how many people’s voices are not being heard because of this. He quotes, “there are still concerns that some populations, particularly those who are poorer or older, are still not online in large enough proportions to be represented accurately in a survey” (Semiatin 70). Overall I see this as a huge issue and something that is not talked about as much in the media. The media exaggerates and jumps to conclusions, however with these issues in the polling system, we see the media is not always right.
After reading an article titled New Polls Show Democrats Could 'Win' the 2022 Midterms. Should You Believe Them? By Andrew Romano, it was clear to see how much the media plays into these polls and how much of an effect they can have early in a campaign. In the article, he talks about polling results, but also how they can be misleading at times. He explains, “For decades now, the pattern has been clear. There have been 19 midterms since World War II. In 16 of them, the president’s party lost five or more seats in the House — the number that Republicans need to net this year to take control. Historically speaking, that means Democrats have an 84% chance of losing the House in November. Americans almost always vote against the president in midterm elections” (Romano). I think it is interesting to see how polls can give us an idea of where Americans stand at the current moment, however, these stances can change almost immediately when different issues arise. It is also fascinating to think about how polling results fluctuate over short periods.
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Ella DriscollSeptember 6, 2022 at 12:13 PM
Depending on the topic of discussion, polls can often provide significant insight into political communication. However, when looking at polls it is important to take into consideration different factors that might skew one’s interpretation of the results. Some examples include, who paid for the poll and is there a particular motive? What is the sample size? How were participants selected? Is any of the wording in the question biased? Taking these factors into consideration can help differentiate whether a news organization is simply looking to generate media traffic or actually provide astute information for the reader.
At first glance, the article “A New Political Divide: Nearly Half of College Students Wouldn’t Room with Someone Who Votes Differently” has an enticing headline and draws the reader in. However, when looking at the article on a deeper level, it seems as though the poll isn’t necessarily a valuable way to gauge political opinion. For example, some of the questions wording negatively impacts the respondent’s answers. One of the questions asked says “How concerned are you personally about the price of gasoline, rent and food?” Essentially, the question is asking three different questions, but only allowing the respondent one response. Additionally, the poll only takes into consideration the opinions of students from one school. In my opinion the data could be more valuable if students from other demographics and regions were able to participate.
There was also the debate after former President Trumps election in 2016 that polls weren’t an accurate depiction of the political race. This was because a majority of the polls predicted Hillary winning and that “Trump would get no more than 204 electoral votes, and that he had little chance of winning any battleground states”(Semiatin, 60). Later however, pollsters learned that there are outside factors that contributed to this skewed poll outcome. Some factors included non-response factors, meaning some demographics were harder to reach and have them contribute their responses. Additionally, there was the introduction of the “shy Trumpers” which is the notion that people were less willing to share that they planned to vote for Trump for fear of public scrutiny.
Although the only examples I provided show how polls aren’t really valuable ways to gauge political opinion, I do believe polls can, at times, provide insight into public opinion.
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Anna-Beth HayeSeptember 6, 2022 at 12:17 PM
The polls create a huge impact on political communication. Polls are a way for politicians and other higher positions aware of what is needed and what the people experience or want. People overlook polls and surveys that officicials may distribute however they are very important because how else will they know that needs need to be met. Polls can tell us about an issue happening in a small community that often time can be overlooked. It also can discuss where a candidate is in a race. They can touch on what the state needs or what the state should get. In my opinion I think that polling is beneficial however some neighborhoods may not have access to polling so therefore it should not be solely relied on. There are numerous low income neighborhoods where a lot of the community either have no access to computers or transportation to where they cannot get up and vote. Also in schools, there are many low income schools where voting is not taught to children. As well as them not wanting to vote because there has been no positive change to their neighborhood. Most of these communities that suffer from this are black and brown which leads me into saying that racism is a huge factor in elections. This country is immensely diverse and it is known that not every race is treated equally in every aspect, voting is one of them. Polling is something that is vital and I am not saying anything against that however I do believe that politicians need to be out in the field and see first hand what is needed in those communities with prejudice aside.
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Owen O'LearySeptember 6, 2022 at 12:25 PM
In my opinion, I believe that polling is an essential part of political communication. It is a great toll to help the public, the media and the government all know what the people are thinking about upcoming elections, legislation and people serving in office. Now while they may not always be entirely accurate, that is something that will always be attached to polls. Voters change their minds or don't partake in polling and this has to be taken into account whenever looking at a poll. An example of when polls can be wrong can be seen with the 2016 Presidential Election between Rep. Donald Trump and Dem. Hilary Clinton. According to "Campaigns on the Cutting Edge" by Richard J. Semiatin, it is stated that Clinton was expecting to win the election and that Trump was expecting to lose based on polls that they had been viewing prior to the announcement of a winner. "As we know, the pollsters, Clinton and her campaign and Trump and his campaign were all wrong in their predictions. While Clinton got almost 3 million more popular votes than Trump, she lost the Electoral College votes" (Semiatan 66). A reason for this mishap in polling is in part due to underestimating Trump support in key states, voters changing their vote and non-adjustment for overestimation of college graduates in polls. Even with this, and the 2020 Presidential Election polling cycle also not getting much better, I do believe that polling is the best source of getting public opinion. Joshua Clinton, a Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University put it perfectly in his article titled "Polling Problems and Why We Should Still Trust (Some Polls)," saying "At the end of the day, public opinion polling, done right, remains the best way of obtaining citizens' opinions. By proactively attempting to give everyone an equal chance of being heard, public opinion polls provide a way of obtaining the views of citizens who are uninterested or unable to express their political views otherwise." Many people feel the most comfortable in speaking about their political opinions through polling or with people close to them. While social media has become a hub for people to speak their minds on many topics, including and especially politics, there are still many people who may not be comfortable with telling the world about what their opinions are. Now with the 2022 Midterm elections coming up, polls are becoming a source of conversation once again, and while many elections are still up in the air, Democrats have some reason to believe they will keep the majority in the House of Representatives. In Yahoo News' Andrew Romano's article titled "New Polls show Democrats Could "win" the 2022 midterms. Should you believe them?", he states several polls that indicate good things for Democrats but the one that stuck out most to me was that the Democratic Party has taken the lead in FiveThirtyEight's generic-ballot average for the first time in nearly a year. So if you want to keep up with the upcoming midterm elections and the state of politics in America right now, I believe that a great way to do that would be to look at polls, but obviously you can do much more than just that. While I believe that polls are a great way to to gauge public opinion, not everyone has to and you can follow politics in whichever way you so please.

Romano, Andrew. “New Polls Show Democrats Could 'Win' the 2022 Midterms. Should You Believe Them?” Yahoo! News, Yahoo!, 20 Aug. 2022, https://www.yahoo.com/news/new-polls-show-democrats-could-win-the-2022-midterms-should-you-believe-them-100037527.html.

Clinton, Joshua. “Polling Problems and Why We Should Still Trust (Some) Polls.” Vanderbilt University, Vanderbilt University, 11 Jan. 2021, https://www.vanderbilt.edu/unity/2021/01/11/polling-problems-and-why-we-should-still-trust-some-polls/.

Semiatin, Richard J. “Chapter 5 Survey Research and Campaigns: Challenges and Opportunities .” Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 4th ed., CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA, 2021, pp. 65–70.
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AnonymousSeptember 6, 2022 at 12:27 PM
By Mason Glod

While I have always recognized that polls play a large role in the political communication process, I never truly understand the point. As someone who thinks based on facts and logic, I know that statistically, there is always a chance that either candidate can win; therefore, polls can only provide ineffective hope or despair. These thoughts were only confirmed by the 2016 election and similar situations. However, after learning more, a more nuanced approach is necessary. Polls have a large impact on political communication, guiding strategy and tactics for political figures. Polls can tell us an approximation of the opinion of the population at any given time, whether it's a stance on an issue, voting habits, or the effectiveness of a campaign. In my opinion, too much emphasis is placed on polls gauging voting habits. However, polls gauging the public's stance on issues are still an effective tool.

Polls describe voters' opinions and habits on an issue at any given time. This information is useful for campaigning. For instance, a poll found that the single most important issue for voters of Congress is "inflation (21%), the economy (19%), gun violence (17%) and abortion (12%)," (Demissie). Campaigns can then use this information to create talking points and better understand the needs and wants of their constituents.

Campaigns acting on poll results can be clearly seen, even in the upcoming midterm elections. For instance, in Iowa, republican candidate Zach Nunn has softened his position on abortion after 60% of adults in Iowa indicated in a poll that abolition should be legal in most or all cases (Beaumont). Nunn and his team responded directly to the poll results by changing their messaging on a key issue. The poll essentially operated as a check-in on a key issue for the campaign, allowing them to adapt their strategy to attract more voters.

However, I believe polls indicating viewing habits should not be relied on. As the most obvious example, the 2016 election shows the ineffectiveness of voting habits polls. Leading up to the election, the Clinton campaign expected a win and the Trump campaign expected a loss, especially based on polling. Since the results were different, The American Association for Public Opinion Research released a report including reasons why the predictions were inaccurate including, "voter preferences changed in the last few weeks of the election, particularly in Florida, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania" (Semiatin 66). This is a major issue. As campaigns rely on these polls to set expectations and understand the effectiveness of their strategies, they need to understand that these polls fail to understand the intricacies and nuances of the fast-paced and changing political climate. These polls may provide an indication of voting habits, but cannot be used as an end-all-be-all for campaigns.

Work Cited

Beaumont, Thomas. “GOP Candidates Soften Tone on Abortion for Midterm Election.” The Detroit News, Associated Press, 1 Sept. 2022, https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2022/09/01/gop-candidates-soften-tone-abortion-midterm-election/7962541001/.

Demissie, H. (n.d.). Economic Issues Top the Public's Agenda - POLL. ABC News. Retrieved September 6, 2022, from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/economic-issues-top-publics-agenda-poll/story?id=85183412

Semiatin, Richard J. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 2020.
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