Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T07:28:01.493Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“President” Landon and the 1936 Literary Digest Poll

Were Automobile and Telephone Owners to Blame?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Dominic Lusinchi
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The disastrous prediction of an Alf Landon victory in the 1936 presidential election by the Literary Digest poll is a landmark event in the history of American survey research in general and polling in particular. It marks both the demise of the straw poll, of which the Digest was the most conspicuous and well-regarded example, and the rise to prominence of the self-proclaimed “scientific” poll. Why did the Digest poll fail so miserably? One view has come to prevail over the years: because the Digest selected its sample primarily from telephone books and car registration lists and since these contained, at the time, mostly well-to-do folks who would vote Republican, it is no wonder the magazine mistakenly predicted a Republican win. This “conventional explanation” has found its way into countless publications (scholarly and in the press) and college courses. It has been used to illustrate the disastrous effects of a poorly designed poll. But is it correct? Empirical evidence, in the form of a 1937 Gallup poll, shows that this “conventional explanation” is wrong, because voters with telephones and cars backed Franklin D. Roosevelt and because it was those who failed to participate in the poll (overwhelmingly supporters of Roosevelt) who were mainly responsible for the faulty prediction.

Type
Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , Spring 2012 , pp. 23 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2012 

References

Alpern, SaraDale, Baum (1985) “Female ballots: The impact of the Nineteenth Amendment.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 16 (1): 43–67.Google Scholar
American Institute of Public Opinion (1938) The New Science of Public Opinion Measurement. Princeton, NJ: American Institute of Public Opinion.Google Scholar
Andersen, Kristi (1979) The Creation of a Democratic Majority, 1928–1936. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Babbie, Earl (1990) Survey Research Methods, 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Baum, Matthew A.Kernell, Samuel (2001) “Economic class and popular support for Franklin Roosevelt in war and peace.” Public Opinion Quarterly 65 (2): 198–229.Google Scholar
Berinsky, Adam J. (2006) “American public opinion in the 1930s and 1940s: The analysis of quota-controlled sample survey data.” Public Opinion Quarterly 70 (4): 499–529.Google Scholar
Bernstein, StephenRuth, Bernstein (1999) Elements of Statistics I: Descriptive Statistics and Probability. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Blondiaux, Loïc (1998) La fabrique de l’opinion. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Bradburn, Norman M.Sudman, Seymour (1988) Polls and Surveys: Understanding What They Tell Us. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Bryson, Maurice C. (1976) “The Literary Digest poll: Making of a statistical myth.” American Statistician 30 (4): 184–85.Google Scholar
Bryson, Maurice C. (1977) “Reply.” American Statistician 31 (4): 181.Google Scholar
Burner, DavidRoss, Rosenfield (2003) “Polling,” in Kutler, Stanley I. (ed.) Dictionary of American History, 3rd ed., vol. 6. New York: Scribner: 409.Google Scholar
Burnham, Walter D. (1987) “The turnout problem,” in Reichley, A. J. (ed.) Elections American Style. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution: 97–133.Google Scholar
Cahalan, Don (1989) “The Digest poll rides again!” Public Opinion Quarterly 53 (1): 129–33.Google Scholar
Cahalan, DonMeier, Norman C. (1939) “The validity of mail-ballot polls.” Psychological Record 3 (1): 3–11.Google Scholar
Converse, Jean M. (1987) Survey Research in the United States: Roots and Emergence, 1890–1960. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Converse, Jean M. (2009) Survey Research in the United States: Roots and Emergence, 1890–1960. Repr. with new introduction. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.Google Scholar
Crossley, Archibald M. (1937) “Straw polls in 1936.” Public Opinion Quarterly 1 (1): 24–35.Google Scholar
Deming, W. Edwards (1964 [1943]) Statistical Adjustment of Data. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Deming, W. EdwardsStephan, Frederick F. (1940) “On a least squares adjustment of a sampled frequency table when the expected marginal totals are known.” Annals of Mathematical Statistics 11 (4): 427–44.Google Scholar
Desrosières, Alain (1998) The Politics of Large Numbers: A History of Statistical Reasoning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S. (1976) “The relationship between public opinion and state policy: A new look based on some forgotten data.” American Journal of Political Science 20 (1): 25–36.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S.Tedin, Kent L. (1981) “The 1928–1936 partisan realignment: The case for the conversion hypothesis.” American Political Science Review 75 (4): 951–62.Google Scholar
Fallacy Files (n.d.) “Fallacy watch: How to read a poll; Scientific versus self-selected,” www.fallacyfiles.org/readpoll.html (accessed April 29, 2009).Google Scholar
Field, Mervin D. (1983) “Political opinion polling in the United States of America,” in Worcester, Robert M. (ed.) Political Opinion Polling: An International Review. London: Macmillan: 198–222.Google Scholar
Fischer, Claude S. (1992) America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Gallup, George H. (1938) “Government and the sampling referendum.” Journal of the American Statistical Association (201): 131–42.Google Scholar
Gallup, George H. (1972a) “Opinion polling in a democracy,” in Tanur, Judith M. (ed.) Statistics: A Guide to the Unknown. San Francisco: Holden-Day: 146–49.Google Scholar
Gallup, George H. (1972b) The Sophisticated Poll Watcher’s Guide. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Opinion Press.Google Scholar
Gallup, George H.Rae, Saul F. (1940) The Pulse of Democracy: The Public-Opinion Poll and How It Works. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Gallup, George H.Robinson, Claude E. (1938) “American Institute of Public Opinion—Surveys, 1935–38.” Public Opinion Quarterly 2 (3): 373–98.Google Scholar
Gidengil, Elisabeth (1992) “Canada votes: A quarter century of Canadian national election studies.” Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique 25 (2): 219–48.Google Scholar
Grier, David Alan (2002) “Predicting the unpredictable election.” Chance 15 (2): 30–35.Google Scholar
Herbst, Susan (1993) Numbered Voices: How Opinion Polling Has Shaped American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Higgins, Sean (2010) “George Gallup’s visionary grip on American wins and whims.” Investors.com, www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=526858 (accessed March 11, 2010).Google Scholar
Hofstadter, RichardMiller, WilliamAaron, Daniel (1959) The American Republic. Vol. 2, Since 1865. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Huff, Darrell (1954) How to Lie with Statistics. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Igo, Sarah E. (2006) “‘A gold mine and a tool for democracy’: George Gallup, Elmo Roper, and the business of scientific polling, 1935–1955.” Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences 42 (2): 109–34.Google Scholar
Kalton, GrahamFlores-Cervantes, Ismael (2003) “Weighting methods.” Journal of Official Statistics 19 (2): 81–97.Google Scholar
Katz, DanielHadley, Cantril (1937) “Public opinion polls.” Sociometry 1 (1–2): 155–79.Google Scholar
Kircher, Steve (2007) “Pigs, pols, and polls.” St. Petersburg Times, www.sptimes.com, www.sptimes.com/2007/12/09/Opinion/Pigs_pols_and_polls.shtml (accessed December 9, 2007).Google Scholar
Kitchens, Larry J. (1987) Exploring Statistics: A Modern Introduction to Data Analysis and Inference. St. Paul, MN: West.Google Scholar
Kleppner, Paul (1982) “Were women to blame? Female suffrage and voter turnout.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 12 (4): 621–43.Google Scholar
Kruskal, WilliamFrederick, Mosteller (1979a) “Representative sampling, I: Non-scientific literature.” International Statistical Review 47 (1): 13–24.Google Scholar
Kruskal, WilliamFrederick, Mosteller (1979b) “Representative sampling, II: Scientific literature, excluding statistics.” International Statistical Review 47 (2): 111–27.Google Scholar
Kruskal, WilliamFrederick, Mosteller (1979C) “Representative sampling, III: The current statistical literature.” International Statistical Review 47 (3): 169–95.Google Scholar
Kruskal, WilliamFrederick, Mosteller (1980) “Representative sampling, IV: The history of the concept in statistics, 1895–1939.” International Statistical Review 48 (2): 245–65.Google Scholar
Ladd, Everett Carll (1985) The American Polity: The People and Their Government. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Ladd, Everett Carll Jr.Hadley, Charles D. (1975) Transformations of the American Party System. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Lee, Sunghee (2006) “Propensity score adjustment as a weighting scheme for volunteer panel web surveys.” Journal of Official Statistics 22 (2): 329–49.Google Scholar
Leonard, William R. (1961) “Walter F. Willcox: Statist.” American Statistician 15 (1): 16–19.Google Scholar
Literary Digest (1928) November 3.Google Scholar
Literary Digest; (1936a) August 22.Google Scholar
Literary Digest; (1936b) August 29.Google Scholar
Literary Digest; (1936c) October 31.Google Scholar
Literary Digest; (1936d) November 14.Google Scholar
Moon, Nick (1999) Opinion Polls: History, Theory, and Practice. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
New York Times (1936) “Digest to seek reason for failure of poll.” November 4.Google Scholar
News-Week (1936) “Poll: Dr. Gallup closes a gap between people and government.” November 14.Google Scholar
Oberschall, Anthony (2008) “The historical roots of public opinion research,” in Donsbach, WolfgangTraugott, Michael W. (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Public Opinion Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage: 83–92.Google Scholar
Ogburn, William F.Goltra, Inez (1919) “How women vote.” Political Science Quarterly 34 (3): 413–33.Google Scholar
Ohmer, Susan (2006) Gallup in Hollywood. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Ozouf, Jacques (1963) “L’enquête d’opinion en histoire. Un exemple: L’instituteur français, 1900–1914.” Le mouvement social 44: 3–22.Google Scholar
Raj, Des (1972) The Design of Sample Surveys. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Robinson, Claude E. (1932) Straw Votes: A Study of Political Prediction. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, Claude E. (1937) “Recent developments in the straw-poll field.” Public Opinion Quarterly 1 (1): 45–56.Google Scholar
Robinson, Claude E. (1939) “Measuring public opinion.” Savings Bank Journal 20 (4): 2–4.Google Scholar
Robinson, Daniel J. (1999) The Measure of Democracy: Polling, Market Research, and Public Life, 1930–1945. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Roper, Elmo (1940) “Sampling public opinion.” Journal of the American Statistical Association (210, pt. 1): 325–34.Google Scholar
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research (2003a) Gallup Poll no. 83.Google Scholar
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research (2003b) USAIPO1937-0083.Google Scholar
Rossi, Peter H.Wright, James D.Anderson, Andy B., eds. (1983) Handbook of Survey Research. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Rugg, Donald (1947) “How representative are ‘representative samples’?,” in Cantril, Hadley (ed.) Gauging Public Opinion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 143–49.Google Scholar
Rusciano, Frank Louis (2007) “Book Reviews: Susan Ohmer; George Gallup in Hollywood.” Public Opinion Quarterly 71 (2): 314–18. Google Scholar
Saxon, Wolfgang (2000) “Seymour Sudman, 71, expert in survey design.” New York Times, May 8.Google Scholar
Shively, W. Phillips (1972) “A reinterpretation of the New Deal realignment.” Public Opinion Quarterly 35 (4): 621–24.Google Scholar
Smith, Charles W. Jr. (1952) “Measurement of voter attitude.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (283): 148–55.Google Scholar
Squire, Peverill (1988) “Why the 1936 Literary Digest poll failed.” Public Opinion Quarterly 52 (1): 125–33.Google Scholar
Stephan, Frederick F. (1939) “Representative sampling in large-scale surveys.” Journal of the American Statistical Association (206): 343–52.Google Scholar
Stephan, Frederick F.(1942) “An iterative method of adjusting sample frequency tables when expected marginal totals are known.” Annals of Mathematical Statistics 13 (2): 166–78. Google Scholar
US Bureau of the Census (1931) Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1931. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
US Bureau of the Census (1943) Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1942. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
US Bureau of the Census (1970) Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1970. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
US Bureau of the Census (1997) Historical Statistics of the United States on CD-ROM: From Colonial Times to 1970, ed. Carter, Susan B.. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Weiner, Sanford L. (1976–77) “The competition for certainty: The polls and the press in Britain.” Political Science Quarterly 91 (4): 673–96.Google Scholar
Weisberg, Herbert F.Krosnick, Jon A.Bowen, Bruce D. (1998) An Introduction to Survey Research, Polling, and Data Analysis, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Wilks, Samuel S. (1940) “Representative sampling and poll reliability.” Public Opinion Quarterly 4 (2): 261–69.Google Scholar
Willcox, Walter F. (1931) “An attempt to measure public opinion about repealing the Eighteenth Amendment.” Journal of the American Statistical Association, n.s. (175): 243–61.Google Scholar
Wright, Gerald C. (1993) “Errors in measuring vote choice in the national election studies, 1952–88.” American Journal of Political Science 37 (1): 291–316.Google Scholar
Zeisel, Hans (1985) Say It with Figures, 6th ed. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Zunz, Oliver (1998) Why the American Century? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar