Polls, Politics and Public Relations

1. Polls, Politicsand Public Relations The Good, the Bad and the Ugly* *With apologies to Clint Eastwood

2. Presenter: • Paul N. Lee, Ph.D.: • Associate professor of communication • Program Director of Communication Program • Maryville University of Saint Louis

4. Quotable: • Related to “public opinion”: • “Public opinion is the best judge of who’s right and wrong.” – Chinese proverb

5. Quotable: • Related to “public opinion”: • “Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather dictates, his fate.” – Henry David Thoreau

6. Quotable: • Related to “public opinion”: • “American public opinion is like an ocean – it cannot be stirred by a teaspoon.” – Hubert H. Humphrey

7. Quotable: • Related to “polling”: • “Polling is merely an instrument for gauging public opinion. When a president or other leader pays attention to poll results, he is, in effect, paying attention to the views of the public. Any other interpretation is nonsense.” – George Horace Gallup

8. Quotable: • Related to “polling”: • “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” – Benjamin Disraeli Quoted by Mark Twain in his autobiography

9. Quotable: • Related to “politics”: • “Politics is the art of the possible.” – Otto Von Bismarck

10. Quotable: • Related to “politics”: • “If politics is the art of the possible, research is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical minded.” – Peter B. Medawar

11. Quotable: • Related to “politics”: • “Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.” – John Kenneth Galbraith

12. Quotable: • Related to “public relations”: • “I work hard in social work, public relations, and raising the Grimaldi heirs.” – Princess Grace

13. Literary Digest poll: • History of the poll: • Literary Digest began summarizing contemporary opinion in 1890. • Literary Digest correctly predicted the election of Harding in 1920, Coolidge in 1924, Hoover in 1928, and Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 (less than .75 percent error).

14. Literary Digest 1936 poll: • History of the poll: • Literary Digest’s sample was selected from telephone books, automobile registration records, voter registration records, and subscribers. • In 1936, Literary Digest sent out 10 million “ballots” via postcards. • In 1936, 2.3 million “ballots” were returned.

15. Literary Digest 1936 poll: • History of the poll: • On August 22, Literary Digest announced that the poll had been started. • Poll results started appearing in the September 5 issue of the weekly Literary Digest and continued to October 31, 1936.

23. Literary Digest 1936 poll: • What the “ballots” said: • The Literary Digest poll showed 1,293,669 “votes” for Kansas Gov. Alfred M. (Alf) Landon compared to 972,897 for incumbent FDR. • It predicted that Landon would win with 57 percent. • Itpredicted that Landon would win 370 electoral votes.

24. Literary Digest 1936 poll: • What the voters said: • The voters re-elected FDR with 61 percent of the vote. • FDR also won an electoral landslide with 523 electoral votes compared to 8 for Landon. • Roosevelt carried every state except Maine and Vermont.

25. Literary Digest 1936 poll: • What the Literary Digest said: • Hundreds of “second-guessers” told the magazine what went wrong. • The magazine said the “have-nots” did not re-elect Roosevelt. • The cities selected for the poll were fine; the respondents failed to respond.

26. Literary Digest 1936 poll: • What the Literary Digest said: • The magazine said the sample has always had too many “Hoover voters.” • The editors relied on the statisticians. • The editors trusted the sample in 1932, so why not trust it in 1936.

27. Literary Digest 1936 poll: • What the Literary Digest said: • The editors said the sample was not too large. • As to the future of the poll, the editors said, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

28. Literary Digest 1936 poll: • The fate of Literary Digest: • Subscriptions declined rapidly. • The magazine was in decline prior to the poll, losing circulation to the new magazines of the day. • The magazine was sold to Time in 1937. • Literary Digest died in 1938.

29. Literary Digest 1936 poll: • The Gallup Poll: • George Gallup started a weekly column, “America Speaks,” in 1935. • His sample totaled only 50,000 people. • He predicted FDR would win in 1936 with 54 percent of the popular vote and 315 electoral votes. • Gallup became “America’s oracle.”

30. Why is this man smiling? He was re-elected president!

31. 1948 polling debacle: • The major candidates: • Incumbent President Harry S. Truman (Democrat) • N.Y. Gov. Thomas E. Dewey (Republican) • S.C. Gov. Strom Thurmond (States’ Rights Democrat/“Dixiecrat”) • Former Vice President Henry A. Wallace (Progressive)

32. 1948 polling debacle: • Harry S. Truman: • Truman assumed the presidency upon the death of FDR in April 1945. • While he related to ordinary citizens, he scored low in the three major polls: Gallup, Roper, and Crossley. • Based on the polls, few radio journalists and newspaper reporters and editors felt he had a chance, and that entered into their reporting.

33. 1948 polling debacle: • Thomas E. Dewey: • Dewey had run against FDR in 1944, creating FDR’s lowest election margin (54 percent). • Sensing an easy victory in 1948, the Republicans nominated Dewey again. • While Truman was personable and feisty, Dewey appeared stuffy; Dewey made mistakes.

34. 1948 polling debacle: • Strom Thurmond: • Opposing the Democrats position on civil rights, Thurmond bolted from the Democratic Party. • He ran on the States’ Rights Democratic Party (“Dixiecrats”). • He divided the once solid South on which the Democratic Party had depended on in previous elections.

35. 1948 polling debacle: • Henry A. Wallace: • Wallace served in as Secretary of Agriculture in FDR’s cabinet from 1933 to 1940. • He served as vice president during FDR’s third term (1941-1945.) • He failed to win re-nomination in 1944, being replaced by Truman. • He served as Truman’s Secretary of Commerce from 1945 to 1946.

36. 1948 polling debacle: • The Gallup Poll: • On the eve of the election, Gallup predicted Dewey would defeat Truman 50 percent to 45 percent. • Gallup had been using quota sampling, a non-random selection methodology. • “America’s oracle” was discredited, as was polling in general.

37. 1948 polling debacle: • The Gallup Poll: • Gallup’s final polling dated to mid-October. • His poll missed the late surge to Truman.

38. 1948 polling debacle: • The Roper Poll: • So sure of Dewey’s victory, Roper stopped sampling in August and predicted Truman’s defeat in September. • In his September 9 column, Roper predicted Dewey would get 44 percent of the vote to Truman’s 31 percent.

39. 1948 polling debacle: • The Crossley Poll: • Crossley’s final forecast was derived from a combination of state surveys. • The state surveys dated to mid-August, mid-September, and mid-October.

40. 1948 polling debacle: • What went wrong: • Gallup, Roper, and Crossley stopped polling too early. • Some of the polls dated to mid-October or before. • The pollsters used quota sampling, which doesn’t use random selection of the sample.

41. 1948 polling debacle: • What the voters said: • Truman was elected president in his own right with just under 50 percent of the vote. • Dewey received 45 percent of the vote. • Thurmond and Wallace each received less than 2.5 percent of the vote.

42. 1948 polling debacle: • The close vote: • Truman received 303 electoral votes, compared to 189 for Dewey and 39 for Thurmond. • Truman narrowly carried Ohio, California, and Illinois. • Truman lost four large industrial states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

43. 1948 polling debacle: • “Dewey Defeats Truman”: • The infamous headline appeared in the Chicago (Daily) Tribune. • The Tribune’s publisher, Colonel Robert McCormick, didn’t much care for Dewey, but he hated Truman. • The Tribune published 11 editions of the newspaper with seven different headlines.

44. 1948 polling debacle: • The Tribune’s headlines: • “Governor Dewey Claims Victory” • “Dewey Defeats Truman” • “GOP Wins White House” • “Early Dewey Lead Narrows” • “Dewey Holds Narrow Lead” • “Dewey Ahead! Race Close” • “It’s Truman by 150,000”

45. 1948 polling debacle: • The Tribune’s headache: • Like most major dailies, the Tribune printed in three formats: city editions, 40-mile circulation editions, and mail editions. • Early editions contained the infamous headline. • The newspaper staff tried to gather up the copies with the blunder, but they were not entirely successful.

47. Why is this man smiling? He won the presidency!

48. Carter-Reagan in 1980: • Polling failures: • The national polls were widely criticized for not predicting the magnitude of Reagan’s victory. • Most polls showed a very tight race. • Once again, polling did not continue right through the end of the campaign.

49. Carter-Reagan in 1980: • Polling failures: • Gallup’s final survey gave Reagan 47 percent, Carter 44 percent, and Anderson (I) 8 percent. • Reagan got 51 percent of the vote to 41 percent for Carter and 7 percent for Anderson. • Reagan received an electoral landslide with 489 electoral votes to 49 for Carter.

50. Why is this man smiling? He just defeated Carter!