Can you believe the polls? It depends
A veteran of survey research explains why high-quality polling matters — and warns of the proliferation of shoddy gimmicks
As the 2024 presidential election looms, many Americans are anxiously following the latest political polls — and then reminding themselves how polling went wrong in recent elections.
There are good reasons to be skeptical of opinion polls, says social psychologist Jon Krosnick of Stanford University, who has studied such surveying methods for decades. Cheaply built online surveys have proliferated since the early 2000s. The result is a flood of unreliable data, making our information ecosystem even murkier.
Yet surveying — when done correctly — is critical for understanding what people think, what prompts their future behavior, and more. Polling a random sample of the public provides a snapshot of data that can inform policy such as by capturing the unemployment rate, for example, or learning from former smokers what helped them quit. And, of course, political polling — the surveying of public opinion on candidates and related issues — can gauge how voters are leaning in competitive elections and why.
In our politically polarized times, accurate polling is more important than ever, says Krosnick. He talked to Knowable Magazine about how a proper poll is conducted and why understanding public opinion matters for democracy. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
