Are political polls biased?
If any given poll is biased, the hard question to answer is whether or not it is due to ideology or methodology. Every expert on polling says that variables such as the way a question is worded; who the respondents are; the order of questions; even what time of day/week a poll is taken can create a bias. (Many polling organizations do not make their methodology public.) As the following demonstrates, an argument can be made either way for these California recall polls: • Yes/No: The polls tended to over-estimate the strength of the Yes vote, with 12 of 20 results (60%) over the actual election outcome. The opposite is the case for No, with a whopping 18 of 20 (90%) giving results that underestimated actual. If this odd disparity was due to an ideological bias, why would polling firms want to consistently under-estimate the strength of the No on recall vote? • Candidates: Here’s where a comparison of poll results to the actual election is especially shocking. When one looks at the resul
