unit 4 chapter 13 — public opinion

benchmark polls

initial poll on a candidate and issues on which campaign strategy is based and against which later polls are compared

public opinion polls

interviews or surveys with samples of citizens that are used to estimate the feelings and beliefs of the entire population — gauge attitudes on issues or support for candidates in election in a cross section of the population

push polling

a polling technique in which the questions are designed to shape the respondent's opinion — controversial and deceptive way to influence potential voters, "push" certain views on people

random sample

a sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion

bandwagon effect

a shift in electoral support to the candidate whom public opinion polls report as the front-runner — the more likely increasing numbers of people will "hop on the bandwagon" and add their support. direct link between a candidates rank in national polls and the ability to raise campaign funds

random digit dialing

A technique used by pollsters to place telephone calls randomly to both listed and unlisted numbers when conducting a survey — done in a given area until enough people responded to establish a representative sample

social desirability bias

A tendency to give socially approved answers to questions about oneself — tell pollsters what they think the pollster wants to hear which affects the predictions of voter turnouts

non-response bias

Bias introduced into survey results because individuals refuse to participate

Sampling Techniques

The method used to select people from the population — random and fair representation

approval ratings

The percentage of survey respondents who say that they "approve" or "strongly approve" of the way the president is doing his job

Non-attitudes

a lack of opinion on an issue, or an opinion so weakly held that it does not enter into a person's calculations about voting or taking some other political action, even though the person may express an opinion to a pollster

margin of error

a measure of the accuracy of a public opinion poll — inverse relationship, as the sample gets larger the margin of error decreases

weighting

adjustments to surveys during analysis so that selected demographic groups reflect their values in the population, usually as measured by the census — manipulating the sample to compensate

entrance/exit polls

conducted outside polling place on election day to publicly predict the outcome of the election after the polls close.

tracking polls

continuous surveys that enable a campaign or news organization to chart a candidate's daily rise or fall in support — ask people to measure how prospective voters feels about an issue and how they may vote on election day. used during an election to "track" voters

3 branches of the government tend to respond to public opinion polling

legislative: responsive to public opinion polls, especially the house where lawmakers face reelection every 2 years executive: has been influenced by public opinion and at other times has tried to use the power of the "bully pulpit" to shift public opinion judicial: influenced by the general lord of the nation

Stratification

making sure demographic groups are properly represented in a sample. same as weighting

horse race journalism

news coverage that focuses on who is ahead rather than on the issues

representative sample

randomly selected sample of subjects from a larger population of subjects — known as the universe!

focus group

small group of citizens (10-40 people) who are gathered to hold conversations about issues or candidates

human bias

subjective bias by researcher opinion, judgement, favoritism — how an interviewer contacts and interacts with the respondent and the respondents views can impact a poll

Bradley Effect

the difference between a poll result and an election result in which voters gave a socially desirable poll response rather than a true response that might be perceived as racist — falsely claim that they would vote for mayor bradley but then they vote for the white candidate.

sampling error

the difference between the results of random samples taken at the same time

candidate error

the percentage point difference in the polls estimate and the candidates actual share of the vote after the election

Polling

the recording of votes of a body of people — this is the most reliable way to assess public opinion. one must pose well developed, objective questions to a small, random group in order to see what the larger may think

framing the question

topics responses may be altered due to the way the question is asked. may be found surrounding topics of abortion, same sex marriage, etc. this would frame a question to pose it in a way that would emphasize a certain perspective