The Voter's Guide to Election Polls

Right up to election day many polls showed Kerry leading Bush by a significant margin, and early exit polling confirmed this misapprehension. Why were the polls so wrong and what does it mean to "be ahead" in the polls? How ephemeral are these leads at different stages of the campaign?

What about these polls anyway? Who sponsors them? How are they conducted? What do they mean? For the third presidential election running, Michael Traugott and Paul Lavrakas give voters everything they need to know about election polls and why it matters that we understand them. If statistics are worse than lies, just think what misreading the polls can do!

Michael W. Traugott is professor and chair of the Department of Communication Studies and senior research scientist in the Center for Political Studies at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Paul J. Lavrakas is former professor of journalism and communication at Northwestern University and Ohio State University and was the founding director of the survey centers at each institution. He currently is senior research methodologist at Nielsen Media Research.