Polls

From now until election day in November, we will be inundated with polling data. The unfortunate thing is that much of that data tells us very little of significance. One of the reasons for this is that the media rarely reports the intensity of the opinion being expressed by those being polled. Remember how prior to the Iraqi invasion, there were media reports that a majority of Americans were in favor of going to war. David Moore, a former Vice President of the Gallup Organization and Managing Editor of the Gallup Poll, explains why it is not that simple while he is guest blogging at The Washington Monthly.

In a February 2003 poll, Gallup asked a standard version of the question that all the other pollsters asked, and like the other polls, found a substantial majority in favor of the war — 59 percent to 38 percent, a 21-point margin. Only 3 percent said they did not have an opinion. However, as part of a special experiment which I helped design (as a senior editor of the Gallup Poll), the standard question was followed up with another, which essentially asked if people really cared that their opinions might prevail. And the results here revealed a very different public from the one that has come to dominate conventional wisdom.

To people who said they favored the war, we asked if they would be upset if the government did not send troops to Iraq. And to people who opposed the war, we asked if they would be upset if the government did send troops. Just over half of the supposed supporters and a fifth of the opponents said they would not be upset if their opinions were ignored.

The net result: Only 29 percent of Americans supported the war and said they would be upset if it didn't come about, while 30 percent were opposed to the war and said they would be upset if it did occur. Another 38 percent, who had just expressed an opinion either for or against the proposed invasion, said they would not be upset if the government did the opposite of what they had just opined. Add to this number the 3 percent who initially expressed no opinion, and that makes 41 percent who didn't care one way or the other.

What this experiment revealed was that instead of a war-hungry public, Americans were evenly divided over whether to go to war — three in ten in favor, three in ten opposed, with a plurality willing to do whatever the political leaders thought best.

There is a similar phenomenon is the polls that are so widely reported about the election. Moore explains that almost every poll about the 2008 presidential election asks who the respondent would vote for if the election were held today. Of course, the election is not going to be held today. Many people know today who they will vote for in November, but many simply have not thought about the election very closely. They answer the pollster's question, but they don't considered themselves committed to any particular candidate. Moore talks about what the latest CBS News Poll tells us about the size of this group of voters.

The CBS poll also asks the standard polling industry's forced-choice question, who would you vote for it the election were held today, and it found 13 percent undecided. But the poll followed up the standard question by asking whether voters who had selected a candidate had made up their minds, "or is it still too early to say for sure?" The results of that question show 39 percent of voters still uncommitted, three times the original number CBS found, and almost eight times what the Gallup tracking poll reports.

If 39% of voters are still undecided, it sheds a different light on the fact that Obama has maintained about a 5% lead over McCain ever since Clinton conceded the primary.