Political Polling: A Century of Getting It Wrong
Explore Rick Perlstein's deep dive into the history of polling failures in U.S. presidential elections and why polls remain an unreliable, yet addictive, part of political culture.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results; but past performance is all a pollster has to go on.
Rick Perlstein's article "The Polling Imperilment" in The American Prospect explores the consistent failures of presidential polling over the past century. He highlights how pollsters' methods often repeat the same mistakes, relying on flawed assumptions, subjective adjustments, and past performance that fails to predict future outcomes. Perlstein argues that polling has become an addictive but unreliable element of political culture, influencing public perception more than actual electoral insights.
Reminder: Pay far less attention to polls, go VOTE!
The Polling Imperilment
Presidential polls are no more reliable than they were a century ago. So why do they consume our political lives?
Rick Perlstein
