by Rich Clark
Director, Castleton Polling Institute & Political Science Professor

In September 2016, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow featured the results of a Castleton Poll showing great support for Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) from both Democrats and Republicans in the Green Mountain State. When the VPR Poll, conducted by Castleton University’s Polling Institute, showed that Donald Trump led in the March 1, 2016 Vermont presidential primary, Mr. Trump tweeted our poll results. Data from the Castleton Polling Institute has been featured in the Washington Post and referenced by many major news organizations.

Why?

Because polling has an outsized role in political discussions. In fact, referencing the polls was often the opening of Mr. Trump’s stump speeches during the Republican primary race, and the other candidates are no less obsessed with polling numbers, even if they don’t make it into their daily missives. This is not new. Straw polls on presidential politics were taken as far back as Andrew Jackson’s 1828 presidential run, and scientific polling has been a staple of presidential elections since George Gallup started the American Institute for Public Opinion in 1936. By the 1950s, Gallup, Lou Harris, Elmo Roper, and others made it almost commonplace to use polls as the standard for public sentiment. They were called pollsters—which was a pejorative combining “polling” and “huckster”—and many social scientists were not immediately impressed with the burgeoning industry. However, this was to change as social scientists saw value in measuring attitudes and behavior through survey research; sampling strategies became more sophisticated, and response rates were often greater than 90 percent.

But the value in predicting elections, which is the focus among many poll watchers, is of dubious worth. After all, we find out soon enough who won an election, and the polls have little to do with the outcome. The preoccupation with polls telling us who is likely to win—what have been aptly called “horse race” polls—is akin to guessing the contents of a wrapped package through careful examination of the package characteristics; the true contents are never fully realized until the package is opened.

Still, the number of horse race polls has grown steadily over time, as have the number of issue polls that tell us what we think of our government, what policies we prefer, and how satisfied we are with our elected officials. Issue polls bring the public’s voice into policy discussions to suggest how well our democracy is functioning based on the degree of support among the public.

Yet there is a place for the horse race polls even among skeptics like myself, who would prefer that polling focus on more substantive questions: the horse race polls test the extent to which the methods of polling accurately measure something. An election will take place and there will be a victor who wins by a known margin. If our polling methods are accurate, they will approximate the election outcomes, and thus validate the methods that are used to measure phenomena that, unlike elections, do not manifest themselves in any other measurable way, such as approval of the president.

In the 1970s, when the telephone became a staple in American households, pollsters began to shift from face-to-face surveys, where interviewers were sent door to door, to telephone surveys. The cost of conducting surveys by phone was less expensive, and the availability of phone listings tied to specific geographic locations allowed for good, representative samples. There were no answering machines, caller ID, or other devices to screen calls, and the norm was to answer the phone and cooperate with pollsters; it was often seen as a civic duty. This was also a time when being called by any pollster was rare and pollsters were not competing with telemarketers for respondents.

Fast forward to today. Americans are inundated with surveys and telemarketers, and the average American has multiple means of screening calls. Add to that the loss of the norm of participation in surveys, indeed the feeling that such participation is wasteful. In many ways, the polling industry has itself to blame for this change of sentiment. The industry has overtaxed respondents’ time, produced polls of dubious quality, and not shown proper gratitude for the time taken by respondents. As a result, response rates have dropped to single digits for many polls; not only are respondents more difficult to reach, but they are also less likely to participate when we do reach them. While the best scholarly research available concludes that non-response has damaged the representativeness of surveys only marginally—and weighting techniques can correct some of the problems associated with nonresponse—if nonresponse continues to grow, the problem of representativeness will also grow.

While polling as an industry is battling to connect with the public and maintain valid procedures, the need for well-considered public opinion remains vital. American democracy has continuously expanded from the exclusive purview of white, male landowners, to include men of little means, former slaves, women, and eventually any citizen over 18 years old. As American democracy broadens, it becomes more necessary to measure the public’s perspectives on the issues central to our collective lives. While it’s relatively easy for the wealthy to make their views heard, it is not as easy for those constantly occupied by chores and the struggles of daily life. Good public opinion polls do just that. They take all citizens’ opinions equally into account and produce the best measure of our collective viewpoints: e pluribus unum. Polling allows us to explain elections and better understand the hopes of the public and the meaning behind the votes.

My enthusiasm for the science of measuring public opinion does not mean that I believe that the public is always right. Sometimes the public backs bad policy or opposes good policy. In such instances (a) public opinion helps us understand where the public is on an issue, and (b) it is the job of leaders to either educate and move the public along or accept the consequences of moving against the tide of public opinion.

In the words of Abraham Lincoln, “Public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed.” This is even truer in this age when technology allows us to communicate with one another rapidly, and today anyone with access to the Internet can reach millions of fellow citizens and precipitate a political movement. Public opinion has the power to create movements, to shape public policy, and to bring down ineffective governments. It is imperative that we take seriously the process of measuring that opinion.

Castleton President Dave Wolk created a polling center at our university in 2011. The Castleton Polling Institute is designed to meet teaching and public service objectives. Additionally, the institute contracts with other entities to work on projects that generate the revenue necessary to meet those objectives.

For most undergraduates coming into Castleton, polling data is the only social science data that they regularly encounter, and yet students know little about polling or survey research methods. Every student in the biological sciences gets the opportunity to dissect a small animal; working with real data is a valued part of the learning process. Yet, students in the social sciences are often not given the opportunity to work with real social data. The Polling Institute gives students that option, to learn data collection and to work with real, original social data.

The Polling Institute serves Vermont through public opinion polling that amplifies the public voice on important political discussions. By measuring public attitudes on the issues that concern the public or that our leaders must consider, we bring the public’s voice into the debate. Demagogues have fought political battles in the name of the public, but with public opinion data, we are able to gauge the extent to which those who claim to speak for the people really do.

Find out more about the Castleton Polling Institute, including featured news stories and their latest poll results by visiting their website.