What was the immediate impact of the result of the 1936 election [where Roosevelt beat Landon]?
GEORGE GALLUP, JR.: I would say that the 1936 election really put the so-called “scientific pollsters” on the map. My father, George Gallup, Archibald Crossley and Elmo Roper, because it was a very dramatic demonstration of the power – rather the accuracy – of scientific polling versus other kinds of surveys, that relied on sheer numbers, or samples that weren’t representative. QUESTION: What happened in the presidential election of 1948 between Dewey and Truman? GEORGE GALLUP, JR.: Well, everybody remembers the 1948 election, at least if you’re that age, and maybe eventually talk of that will die out, but it was the time that polls were really off the mark. And it’s important to bear in mind that the 1948 election didn’t mean that the polling mechanism was worthless, it wouldn’t function at all. In fact, one can pinpoint the reasons all pollsters went off the mark, actually, and that was simply that we stopped polling too soon, missed the collapse of support for other parties . . . An
