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2 - The Story of Polling in 21/2 Fiascos

from Part I - Polling in Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 February 2024

Michael A. Bailey
Michael A. Bailey
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary

This chapter uses history of polling to explain how pollsters have dealt with challenges of nonresponse. It tells the tale of three polling paradigms: large-scale polling, quota sampling, and random sampling. The first two paradigms came crashing down after pollsters made poor predictions for presidential elections. The third paradigm remains vibrant intellectually, but is increasingly difficult to implement. We do not yet know if the bad polling predictions in 2016 and 2020 will push the field to a new paradigm, but certainly they raised doubts about the current state of the field.

Keywords

history of pollingnonresponse biasLiterary Digestquota samplingrandom sampling
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Chapter
Information
Polling at a Crossroads
Rethinking Modern Survey Research
 , pp. 23 - 46
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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