Juanita is a campaign manager for a gubernatorial candidate in Texas. Explain the different types of polls and how they may be of use to her at different stages of the campaign. Also, briefly discuss the reliability of polls
What will be an ideal response?
Answer:
A. Different types of polling used for different stages of a campaign
1. Tracking polls
a. use before and during the campaign
b. insight of movement of among voters
c. how specific issues affect voter opinion
d. reliability problems
e. must use same polling organization asking same questions to show true evolution
f. differences shown may not be due to shift in opinion but differences in way the question is asked or if events have affected poll
2. Focus groups
a. choose random selected likely voters
b. see which issues damage or help candidate
c. intense poll with smaller sample size
3. Exit polls
a. gives insight as to what helped voters make their decisions
b. determine who voted for who and why
c. reliability problems
4. Push polling
a. technique of political attack disguised as a legitimate poll
b. distorts the results
B. Reliability of polls
1. validity of poll must use a universal sample of the population
2. confidence rate and margin of error
a. margin of error denotes accuracy of poll; national polls have +/- 3 percent margin
b. confidence rate shows how likely the poll represents the universe as a sample
c. not as narrow in state polls
3. questions in poll can affect reliability
4. newspaper polls not random samples and mirror demographic data
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