The History of Polling
From straw polls and the Literary Digest disaster to modern scientific polling, how measuring public opinion became a profession.
Before Science: Straw Polls
Attempts to measure public opinion before elections are as old as democracy itself. Newspapers in the early 1800s conducted informal 'straw polls,' asking people on the street or at public gatherings how they intended to vote. These had no scientific basis but created a tradition of pre-election prediction.
The most famous straw poll was conducted by The Literary Digest, a popular magazine that mailed millions of postcards to automobile and telephone owners before each presidential election. From 1920 to 1932, the Digest correctly predicted every winner. Then came 1936. The Digest mailed 10 million postcards, received 2.4 million responses, and predicted a landslide for Republican Alf Landon over Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt won 46 of 48 states. The Digest's sample was biased: automobile and telephone owners in 1936 were disproportionately wealthy and Republican. Size did not compensate for bias.