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Public Opinion Quarterly 2005 69(5):635-641; doi:10.1093/poq/nfi068
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Introduction

Polling Politics, Media, and Election Campaigns

Lawrence R. Jacobs and Robert Y. Shapiro

LAWRENCE R. JACOBS is the Walter F. and Joan Mondale Chair for Political Studies and the director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute, and Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota. ROBERT Y. SHAPIRO is a professor in the Department of Political Science and a researcher at the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, Columbia University.

Address correspondence to Lawrence R. Jacobs; e-mail: ljacobs@polisci.umn.edu.

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The bedrock of representative democracy is the ability of voters to hold elected officials accountable. Polls can play an important role in democratic accountability by identifying the greatest concerns of voters that candidates should address and the policies that voters most want candidates to support. Polling can also contribute to democratic responsiveness between elections by helping incumbents to anticipate what voters expect.

Dr. George Gallup, Sr., was among the most optimistic about the contributions of scientific polling to creating and sustaining a responsive democracy (Gallup and Rae 1940Go). Scientific survey research, it was hoped, would establish the consent of the governed.

This optimistic portrayal of the contribution of polling to election campaigns and democratic government has faced a steady barrage of criticism. Polls are blamed because elected officials overuse them. Responsible leadership, it is charged, should rely on independent judgment instead of following the public’s preferences as divined in . . . [Full Text of this Article]


   Polling: Accurate and Under Fire
 

   The Media Filter: Distracting Voters, Misreading Results, and Capitulating to Campaign Consultants
 

   Democratic Distortions: Polling, Election Strategy, and the Threat to Responsive Representation
 

   Restoring the Promise of Polling
 


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