Stalemate bears out poll predictions

All polls figures included a 4% margin of error

By opinion poll expert Robert Worcester

Despite questions about the role of opinion polls in the American presidential election, one thing is for sure: They said it would be close, and it certainly was.

Polls rained down on the American public at the rate of over four a day during the two month traditional 'home stretch' of the presidential contest.

Nobody could say there was not enough data, but what did the polls actually tell us?

There were three or four so-called 'tracking polls', used to get daily reports of poll fluctuations 'on the cheap' for the media.

These combined samples were as low as 200-300 a day, but were then combined and reported as a three, four or even five-day aggregate, so as to accumulate a respectable sample size.

Gallup reported no less that 59 of these during the election and their figures were conspicuous in the early weeks for jumping about.

The media tried and failed to predict the unpredictable

This was the result of using tiny samples, and the results were only steadied in the final weeks of the campaign when their surveys were widened.

In Britain, the major pollsters have held the line on the media's inclination to buy as cheaply as they can.

British polls of fewer than 1,000 people are carried out from time to time, on issues and attitudes mostly. But voting intention figures are not released on sample sizes of less than 1,000.

Confusion

The 'don't knows' are also reallocated to bring the reported finding up to 100%. Otherwise readers and viewers are naturally confused.

I suspected Gore would just pip Bush in the popular vote from two factors, the third party squeeze on the Green's Nader, and an unusually high turnout by Afro-Americans

I caught one poll report on CNN that was given in such a rush that even I couldn't follow it.

The American pollsters look pretty silly reporting findings of 42% for Gore and 46% for Bush, as CBS did on the 5th of November, when the result two days later was 49% Gore, 48% Bush.

And in fact, the CBS figures only added up to 94%, when, believe it or not, 100% of those who voted, voted.

But when the averages of 267 national polls are taken over the campaign, they come to 48% for Bush, 47% for Gore, 4% for Nader and 1% for Buchanan.

Pretty close to the 48%, 49%, 3% and just under half a point recorded on the night.

Valuable information

The Voter News Service exit poll was as reliable as anyone could expect. Conducted nationally among 13,049 voters and in 14 key states it provided very valuable demographic, geographic and attitudinal information.

The gender gap was the greatest ever, with men favouring Bush by 9 points, while women favoured Gore by 12 points.

Nader's votes would have elected Gore, had he stood down before Election Day.

Whites favoured Bush by 53% to Gore's 43%.

Blacks voted 10 to 1 for Gore and made up 10% of the voters.

Hispanics were nearly two to one, 63% to 33% for Gore, despite Bush's fluency in Spanish.

Education, healthcare, the economy and jobs and social security all were selected as important to Gore supporters.

Tax was overwhelmingly of concern to Bush voters, 79% of whom said tax mattered most to them in deciding which candidate to support.

Fewer pundits

There will be calls to ban the publication of poll findings by congressmen who should know better.

You can't ban the publication of polls in a free society, but pollsters can and should examine their own procedures, and make their story as clear as their masters, the media, will allow.

More polls by specialists and less by pundits would be a good start.

I watched pundit after pundit on election night and afterwards misleadingly report perfectly responsible poll results.

So-called experts were also quick to castigate the pollsters for doing a perfectly reasonable job.

Of the 15 polls published at the end of the campaign, 13 were within the plus or minus three per cent margin of error and 12 within plus or minus 2 per cent for Bush.

Bob Worcester is chairman of the MORI polling organisation