The pollsters and pundits are at it
again. With the 2007 election almost upon
us and the 2008 presidential primaries just
around the corner, it seems one can’t open
a newspaper or turn on the television or
radio without hearing about a poll. From
“American Idol” predictions to polls about
the presidential candidates, people are fascinated
with numbers.
A month after George Bush’s re-election, surveys were being conducted
on … a theoretical presidential election between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rudy
Giuliani. |
For instance, “The day after one election,
we are into the next,” says Peter Woolley,
professor of political science and executive
director of the PublicMind™, FDU’s
independent polling institute. “In fact, the 2008
presidential election is well underway, even
though there has yet to be a single primary
vote.” As early as December 2004, only a
month after President George Bush’s re-election,
surveys were being conducted on who
would win a theoretical presidential election
between Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton,
New York’s senator, and Republican Rudy
Giuliani, former mayor of New York City.
“The reason we follow [polls] is that
we are fundamentally curious about what
other people think. It’s a kind of social
activity,” says Woolley. Election polling
was first promoted by the Literary Digest— which predicted the 1916 election of
Woodrow Wilson as president — and scientifically
refined by George Gallup, who
began polling in 1936.
Now, polling is conducted in democracies
throughout the world and has become
a part of Western culture. “People are
always interested in who is projected
to win an election,” says
Robert Mrozinski, BA’04 (M), the
PublicMind’s project director at
TMR Inc., an independent polling firm
and PublicMind’s field partner.
Elections are akin to a horserace (even
Las Vegas runs odds on the outcomes), and
people enjoy watching the showdown on
election night. One interesting contest was
the 2006 New Jersey Senate race between
Republican Tom Kean, Jr., son of the popular
former governor, and Democrat Robert
Menendez, the appointed incumbent.
Many predicted it would come down to the
wire, and many voters were anxious to see
if a minority candidate would be elected as
New Jersey’s senator for the first time
in history. Menendez actually won
the race with a comfortable lead of
eight percentage points. A week
before, PublicMind had predicted
a nine- to 10-point margin for
Menendez, contrary to the majority of
polls, which forecast a much closer race.
“What I find personally interesting,
Mrozinski says, “is that people seem to
care more about the numbers and who is
ahead than they do about the issues surrounding
the elections.”