Understanding Public Opinion: Polling vs. Alternative Methods

The polls were off more than usual in the last presidential election and the polling industry is suffering from low response rates, mode changes, and unrepresentative samples. But G. Elliott Morris finds that polling has long been vital for democracy and has mostly been improving over time. Pollsters have always had to adapt to new challenges and are doing so again. Given the benefits for prediction and for the knowledge of scholars and political leaders, we have to get it as close to right as we can. That starts with acknowledging the difficulties and lowering our expectations for precision.