This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by LEVY, M. R. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Polling and the Presidential Election

The role and influence of political pollsters in presidential politics have grown enormously in recent years. Once little more than behind-the-scenes technicians, presidential pollsters are now highly visible campaign decision makers and strategists. Surprisingly, there is only a handful of presidential pollsters, Republican and Democratic survey takers with recent experience in all phases of presidential campaigning. Still, despite their small number, these latter-day oracles often have considerable campaign clout. Based on survey data and political judgment, presidential pollsters identify strategic campaign themes and concepts, determine key campaign issues, and help target groups of voters. Using sophisticated polling techniques and other tools of political communication research and analysis, campaign pollsters provide the numbers that in large part determine how and where candidates will campaign, where campaign resources will be spent, and how candidates will conduct themselves for critical events such as conventions and debates.

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 472, No. 1, 85-96 (1984)
DOI: 10.1177/0002716284472001008


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?