Polls, Pollsters, and Public Opinion

A vast literature exists on theories of public opinion - how to measure, analyze, predict, and influence it; however, there is no synthesis of best practices for interpreting public opinion: existing knowledge is disparate and spread across many disciplines. Polls, Pollsters, and Public Opinion presents a systematic analytical approach for understanding, predicting, and engaging public opinion. It tells the story through the eyes of the pollster and draws an analytical road map for examining public opinion, both conceptually and practically. Providing a theoretical and conceptual foundation, as well as debunking popular myths, this book delves into the science of polling, offering tools analysts can use to assess the quality of polls. It also introduces methods that can be used to predict elections and other socio-political outcomes while understanding the nuances of messaging, engaging, and moving public opinion.

• Provides real-world case studies on different applications of public opinion and polling offering greater context for understanding how to analyze public opinion
• Organizes the work of the pollster into three buckets. First as the Data scientist (to ensure robust estimates); Second as Fortune teller (to predict) and the third as the spin doctor (to convince)
• Brings under one umbrella the multiple disciplines that compose the pollster work