Presidential Polls-where Do They Come up with These Statistics?

I get called constantly and I don't like it. I've never believed in their stats or polls. Each side hires companies and such to do their work as well their own followers. Each side is tainted and gives out what they want the people to hear in hope of steering them their way. So it's best not to put any credit in any polls.

It's going to be a close race, we don't need polls to tell us that.

I wonder about polls, as well. Most of my friends don't have landlines - in both parties - so no calls for us.

they are polls - they can be random or "fixed" - looking for specific criteria (bachelors degrees or higher, income levels...etc.) and then it all depends upon who the client is and who's paying for it... :)

I got calls about twice a week for the polls in 2010......yeah..a lot I know...the live operators for Obama don't like me. Go figure!!! Right now? I get about one call a month...

As for the polls that say "Romney is done"??? in their wildest dreams...why? because it ain't over until the fat lady sings...

Romney didn't alienate ANYONE who was NOT going to vote for him...for someone to say that?? (that he alienated people) they must be truly ignorant...really...they were not going to vote for him because he wants to shrink welfare...not grow it like Obama..

all in all - they are statistics - numbers can be manipulated many ways to make them say what they want them to say...until the "fat lady sings" they are just that - statistics...numbers...

Romney's going down. Move to Canada now, and take some neo-con friends with you when you go. (Oh, wait, Canada actually HAS socialist policies already that are working...)

Actually, someone called me the other day on my cell phone (?!) for a poll, during which I stated the above. So perhaps I'm one of the 45% listed in the Rasmussen poll.

I've been called frequently, but it's also based on a variety of things - whether people voted in 2008 and 2010, where they stand on other issues, etc. So they might not ask you about Romney vs. Obama but they ask about other things and then track from there. And look at the polls you see with "MOE" at the end - that's Margin of Error.

Don't panic about "where we're going" - I've lived under Romney. He was a lot more interested in getting the job than in actually doing the job.

It's very easy to blame any one president for all the ills of the world, but it's just not realistic. Jobs are up, retailers are gearing up for their best season in years, the stock market is way up (which means that those people who incorrectly brand Obama as a "socialist" have to admit he's one lousy socialist since the market is up!), and many more indicators.

It's also very easy to be misled by the claims on both sides about how terrible the other one is - but the real issues are complex and you have to really evaluate the source of the statistics (for example, is it from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, or from a partisan newspaper such as the Wall St. Journal or the NY Times), and the ENTIRE issue needs to be looked at (not just one aspect). In my experience, very few people are willing to take the time to study the issues, and most are woefully uneducated about the way the government works. I see that on Mamapedia all the time, and from both "sides". We stopped teaching civics in our schools about 20 years ago, and it really shows.

Don't worry about the polls. Worry about getting really educated on all the issues, and not just the national ones. National politicians often come out of local and state races - that's where people get their experience, and those are the lobbyists and corporations they go to for money.

If we took all the money that's been spent on this election (counting Romney running for 6 years), and actually put it into people's jobs and pockets, into infrastructure, into education, and into mass transit (and you can name any project you want...) we'd be in much better shape!

I have been called, but it was a number of years ago.

Statistically speaking, the companies doing the polling have to actually ask less than 2000 people to come within 4% of what the nation will do.

Good luck to you and yours.

It sometimes seems like everyone calls me.
Polls are people asking questions of other people and counting up the answers.
The things is, you can VASTLY steer the results by asking people who are likely to give you the answers you want to hear.
Random sampling never is random.
Of course, I complicate things by lying through my teeth for polls because I'm evil and enjoy skewing their data.
And I'm not the only one.
So I don't trust any numbers generated from polls.

I have been called in past elections.

Google is your friend.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/31/nation/na-pollqa31
I get polled all the time -- perhaps because I'm registered independent, perhaps because I live in a swing state. Whatever the case, I usually decline answering the polls, but I get called at least 2-3 times per week.

My husband gets polling calls. The thing is...he lies because he is sick of getting them all the time. They are automated so the call he got yesterday he said he was a 60+ year old Hispanic woman who was voting for Romney.

Who knows how many people are like my husband and lie when they get the political polling calls? I think there is really no way of knowing if polls are accurate and it is just a wait and see situation.

I finally turned off my home phone so I didnt have to listen to hype.
Our times are skewed.
You have to pick the person that is closest to your own belief system.
The world is going to get really crazy pretty soon... the bible has prepared us for that.
Pick the person that you think is right for YOU.

I think I got called for this the other day, but they wanted to talk to someone in our home registered to vote in Texas. Sorry, guy. We're registered in Oklahoma. :) So I didn't have to answer!

In the past, I've been called and asked to contribute to a republican candidate's campaign fund, so somewhere along the line, I must have put down somewhere I was republican and therefore caused myself a bit of a headache.

All these polls use a sample of people who are likely to vote (determined by a series of questions). Gallup poll generally uses samples that are made up of 1,000 likely voters that are called on the phone. They can calculate through statistics that 1,000 likely voters will (95% of the time) fall within +/-3% of the percentage that you would find if you talked to ALL likely voters. So if you see that Romney has 47%, it is really more of a range of 44-50% and if Obama has 45%, it is really somewhere between 42-48%. So those ranges actually overlap one another and Obama could really have the lead in this example. However, there are extreme cases that could fall outside these ranges. It's impossible to survey everyone (and that's fraught with its own issues), so sampling and then surveying is how they get their best approximations of how the public thinks.

Think of it this way: If you asked your friends whether they liked Coke or Pepsi, how many people would you need to ask before you started to see the trend? If you ask 2 people, you might find it's 50/50. If you ask 20, you might find it's 60% Coke and 40% Pepsi. Ask 100, and it's 61% Coke and 39% Pepsi. Ask 1,000 and it's still kind of in the same general area. There are diminishing returns the more people you ask and the percentages are just not going to change that much. Statisticians can calculate exactly how many people they have to ask to be within a certain +/-. If you want +/-5%, you have to ask a lot fewer people than +/-3%.

I actually did a poll the other day and when they asked me to choose the answer that best corresponded to my likelihood to vote, the only options were "almost certain" and "50/50." I was like, that's all the options I get? Sometimes you get a bad interviewer who is too lazy to read all the responses. This is not good research. Organizations like Gallup, Rasmussen and the like are reputable research organizations.

I agree!! And I wish someone would answer your question, too.

polls are taken by asking a small cross section of people who they would vote for. They are very often accurate with a few exceptions.

I was called last week.