Affected our National Politics for decades. Campbell spent 20 or centralism before becoming a professor in the Communications Studies program at American University in washington, d. C. He is also a writer, historian, be the clinic and blogger. He has solo authored seven books including getting it wrong, defunct in the greatest myths in american journalism, and 1995, the year the future began. Tonight campbell will talk about is brenda book from university of California Press, lost in a gallup. Following his opening remarks i will moderate a q a session. Those watching us live on crowd cast can submit a question by clicking ask the question at the bottom of the screen at any time during appropriate. Now i would like to welcome w. Joseph campbell to let talks. John, thank you. Great to be a period great to be back in i was a, if virtually. I spent productive period of time but two and half years ago in i was city going through the Gallup Organization papers university of iowa city special collections. It was very useful and revealing visit and i must say i had a good time in iowa city. Wish i could be there in person rather than virtually but this will have to do for now. One of the surprises, mild surprises if you will, about the gallup collection at the university was a small folder of cartoons about polling. These were cartoons that were currently fairly collected by one of george gallops sons pick the dates of some of these polling cartoons was after his death in 1984 sublease its one of one of his sons who collected these cartoons. I have a few i would like to just show at the outset of the program tonight. If we can go to the next slide, john. This is a mildly amusing cartoon that appeared in the wall street journal. Im not sure about the date but nonetheless it is kind of amusing. So was the next one, too. A woman says ive got to see doctor gallup. Ive changed my mind. Presumably a poll respondent. And then the next cartoon is one that appears in my book lost in the gallup early in the book on page nine disappears. The cartoonist richard rice came up with this amusing characterization of rogue pollsters, when good pollsters go bad to ask who cares what you think with their interactions with the poll respondent. Just a small collection of cartoons, nonetheless im using an kind of revealing. Tonight presentation will focus on a few cases although not all but a few cases of polling philly and u. S. President ial elections. We will also take up a few takeaways and reminders about election polls and i will offer a couple of suggestions about what to keep in mind and what to look for this fall. Then we would go to q a. The presentation is drawn from i just published book lost in a gallup polling failure in u. S. President ial elections. And its a book, a handsome book, that was brought up just recently by the university of California Press. A great press to work for. This talk to matt will consider just a few cases. I mention specifically those from 1948, 1980, 2012, and 2016, polling failures in those president ial elections. This is not a complete universe of polling failures but it covers some of the betterknown so well go to the next slide and that when takes up the Dewey Defeats Truman election of 1940. This was an epic poll failure and which the polls got it completely and utterly wrong. George gallup and of the pollsters forecast a certain victory the republican candidate thomas dewey. And dewey ran what i call a light path campaign. He very seldom invoked controversial points of view. He tried to just smoothly run through the fall election, the campaign, and not upset anybody or not take any controversial views or positions. Whereas harry truman ran a very aggressive campaign, and truman was recognized as being behind in the polls pick a fact one poster elmo roper, one of the early figures in Public Opinion research, announced 72 years ago today after september 9, 1948, that he was so certain that thomas do is going to win the election that he was no longer going to be reporting poll results. He would take polls but it just wouldnt report the results because he didnt think it would add too much to the understanding of the race in 1940. That was emblematic of the conference, supreme confidence pollsters had in the outcome of the naked break election. Harry truman won by 4. 5 percentage point. As election as election one of the comics said it was the first time, truman was the first candidate to lose in a gallup but when in a walk. 4. 5 percentage point victory is fairly modest but pretty clear as well. And to think although its hard to measure the shock of 1948 was probably greater than that of just four years ago in 2016 when donald trump wanted unexpectedly. The shock was just really ran deep and it was emblematic of the shock was the probation of the Chicago Tribune, one of the early editions of the day after the election that declared Dewey Defeats Truman and it is one of the most memorable, Iconic Images of american politics. Harry truman was on his way back to washington from missouri, and at a stop in st. Louis and unionization in st. Louis. Some gave him a copy of the front page of the Chicago Tribune and he held it aloft in what is a very memorable photograph. Journalists afterwards really criticize themselves having delegated the responsibilities, their legwork to the pollsters, that they relied too heavily on polls. So what went wrong in 1948 . A number of factors contributed to dewey upset victory. One of the factors was one of the thirdparty candidates, the Democratic Party next 40 by the way split into three factions. It was a mainstream democrats represented by harry truman and then there was a progressive wing that henry wallace, former Vice President under franklin roosevelts, was a leader of, and then the third split in the Democratic Party was the dixiecrat party, the states right party. States rights party was supposed to Harry Trumans civil rights measures and broke off and form a separate party led by Strom Thurmond of south carolina. During the election the support for the Progressive Party dwindled dramatically, and the beneficiary of the loss of support was harry truman and his campaign. Thats one factor. Another explanation for what went wrong in 1948 is the pollsters stop pulling pretty close to the election date, by midtolate october they were done with the polling. Elmo roper who announced in september he was not going to take polling or another polling result in a longer did conduct a poll late in october but it didnt show much in the way of changes so we it didnt reports poll at all. The pollsters figured that nothing much is going to change and it didnt continue folding right up to the end. This is a lesson that pollsters learned and relearn every so often a president ial elections. Another contributing factor probable was Republican Voters were so confident that thomas do is going to win that the polls and the pundits and the press all said he was headed for victory, that many Republican Voters decided not to turn outcome decided not to vote. That overconfidence perhaps translated into a deficit for thomas dewey. Those are some of the factors that explain the loss of dewey 1940, the loss of the pollsters as well. We can move on to the 1980 which was another surprise outcome when news organizations had entered the polling realm in large numbers, New York Times, cbs news among others without doing their own polls or commissioning their own polls, and polling by them 40 years ago was more numerous than ever. The polls indicated that president jimmy carter was locked in a very tight race with republican Ronald Reagan. The polls were consistent in saying so, and yet on election day Ronald Reagan wins in a landslide, almost ten percentage point victory in an outcome that no pollster had anticipated. Afterwards, pollsters bickered and quarreled among themselves as to what went wrong. Their dispute spilled over unusually so into the public realm, as the article from Los Angeles Times suggest, pollsters spent over why they erred so badly. So what went wrong in 19861 of the factors was the fact that the only debate between the two major party candidates, reagan carter, took place very late in the campaign, a week before the election. That seemed to have been a factor in keeping support to Ronald Reagan. The people could see that he conducted himself well on the stage with carter and that he was not really as loud indocentric as many people thought he was. That was reassuring and that probably contributed to reagans sizable victory. Another effect was the pollsters again did not pull up until the very end. To realize they ought to do that but for various reasons did not continue polling over the final weekend of the 1980 election. Also there was a thirdparty candidate that year john addison who is running as an independent, a republican running for an independent for a while in the fall of 1980 and look like use go to great a lot of votes from Ronald Reagan. As election day approached andersons support dwindled and reagan was the beneficiary. Those are some of the factors that explain this unanticipated outcome, this near landslide that no pollster anticipated 40 years ago. We can take on the next slide, john. The next case is that of 2012 when Gallup Organization was essentially alone in calling the election for estimating the election in mitt romney is vivid. Throughout the campaign the gallup polling kept signaling that mitt romney was ahead four, five, six, seven Percentage Points. At the end of the Campaign Gallup suggested it was a very tight race but romney was one point ahead, and in the end obama, president barack obama wins reelection by nearly four Percentage Points, a fivepoint miss, a real embarrassment for the Gallup Organization. It was also the year in which nate silver confirmed his status as an election oracle come if you will. In 2008 he had, through a poll based a physical model that he developed, estimates that become accurately and 49 out of 50 states. That was in 2008. In 2012 accurately forecast the outcome in all 50 states, and he was recognized as this statistics guru, is forecasting guru that help to his reputation and two signals rise of Data Journalism as a way to also interpret polls and Public Opinion. It was an embarrassment for gallup and a confirmation for nate silver. And then the 2016 election inevitably is one we remember quite clearly. It was the night that was not supposed to happen, according to the public editor of New York Times in a very memorable phrase that she used. And the shock randee. As i mentioned earlier it was probably akin to that maybe not as deep as 1948, but nonetheless shocked that night grand prix keep because Hillary Clinton was widely expected to win and perhaps fairly easily. And what happened in 2016 was key polls in battleground states, particularly in upper midwest, wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania looked as if they were headed as going to give the outcome to Hillary Clinton in those states, and had she won those three states you would have had enough electoral votes to win the election. Instead, donald trump narrowly wins wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania, and he also takes battleground state such as florida and North Carolina and ohio, and that combination of the states swept into the presidency, and Electoral College victory. It was a split second. Hillary clinton included won the popular vote but trump won the Electoral College vote. What went wrong in 2016 . An argument that are still being discussed and arguments another side are many sides are still being made but nonetheless it appears that holes in these key states either into their polling too early or failed to wait their percentages, failed to wait the results in a statistical adjustment that pollsters inevitably make. They fail to specifically adjust for college, noncollege educated voters who went to trump fairly heavily. That is one interpretation of some of these erratic polls in key midwestern states. And its also pretty clear that trump picked up undecided voters in large numbers toward the end of the race, and yet more undecided swing into him and Hillary Clinton had swinging to her. So the combination of factors was enough to probably tip the Electoral College to donald trump. Its a scenario that some people suggest could happen again, could happen again in 2016. My research into polling fairly president ial elections suggest that just doesnt know to president ial elections are like him know to polling failures are the same either. So its not likely well have a carbon copy of 2016 this year, but we will see in what, eight or nine weeks. So what do these cases tell us . What are some of the takeaways and reminders . Obviously its pretty rare for a president ial election not to be characterized by some sort of polling disputes. Holding controversies are commonplace in president ial elections, and we cant expect to see them this year. The types of polling failure, the variety of polling failures is not the same. We had seen just in this brief presentation format different types of polling failure. There is the epic failure of 1948. There is the landslides that pollsters did not foresee in 1980. There is the venerable pollster who gets it wrong, embarrassment so, they Gallup Organization in 1980. I mean, 201212. And also another type of polling failure are polls in key states that upset the national outcome, as would happen in 2016, again wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania. Its also interesting that polling to the end of the campaign right up to the last weekend before the voting, before election day anyway, is a lesson that not all pollsters have learned or that there was put into effect. You see this happen time and again. We saw happen in 1948 and was sought in a few key polls in 19 in 2016. Another take away is that polling failures often are correlated to journalistic failures, and in the sense that journalists often take their lead from polls, preelection poll. Polls are central to how journalists understand and interpret president ial campaigns. It is essential that polls are essentials to have a set and fakes and pursue the campaign narrative. So when polls messed up, journalism can falter, too. So journalistic failure is often equated to polling failure and that may not be so surprising but its something we dont always keep in mind. Finally, what might we see in 2020 . What we are likely to see this year . Polls are going to be more numerous than ever. Seems like its hard to escape the polling deluge and were only in september, still eight weeks away. Even now whole results seem to be all over the place. Real clear politics which is an enviable and very evenhanded political aggregation site just today posted several polls that show joe biden is ahead of donald trump by a range of two Percentage Points to 12 Percentage Points. So polls seem to be all over the place and some are suggesting a close race, some are suggesting something less than close. We will be seeing probably polls with some erratic swing to them. And one of the reason for that is polls are being done by a variety of methodologies anymore. Theres phones, cell phones, robocallers, internet panels, even social media platforms are being asked for insights into Public Opinion in president ial elections. There is no single old standard for polling any longer. That Gold Standard used to be random digit dialing telephone calls with a live operator, but the Response Rates to those calls, to those rated digit dialing telephone calls, Response Rates are dropping, dropped into the Single Digits so it makes it very, very difficult and very expensive for pollsters to use this method and try to get a good sample of opinion. So people in the polling business are looking intensively for the next Gold Standard, if you will, the next approach to polling where theres going to be reasonably accurate and reliable and not terribly expensive to do. Pulses been looking at this for nepotistic the first internetbased polling with the 1999 at the end of the 90s, so we are still in this period of a good deal of extreme edition and good deal of churn among pollsters trying to find what the next best standard is. Its also important to keep in mind that polls are not always wrong. They are done by people who are professionals and have a strong stake for the most part in the outcome in being accurate and reliable, in offering the public a good idea, a reasonable, a reasonably accurate clue clue as to whats going on. But pulse of wrong often enough as weve seen just in a very small tonight. Polls have been wrong often enough and they have a checkered record so that i think its really advisable and its not a bad idea to treat them warily, to be a little bit skeptical about polls and the polling numbers. And polls like the wedge is referred to, the deluge of polls showing the race between biden and trump ranging from two Percentage Points to 12 Percentage Points is further evidence we should treat these with some degree of skepticism, some degree of wariness, especially this part out. The closer we get to election day the better and more accurate polls can be expected to be. And also we dont know what they are going to be the week can expect surprise developments in the final days or weeks of the campaign. We had seen this happen often and it happens with maybe not predict a building or regularity but it happens often enough that we can expect some major developer to happen in the latter part of the campaign. We saw this in 2016 when james comey released a letter saying the fbi had reopen an investigation into Hillary Clintons private email server, and that the defects of slowing her momentum at the end of october, and may have been some analysts suggest may have been enough to tip enough votes in key states to donald trump so that he could win an Electoral College victory. We also saw in the year 2000 george w. Bush was ahead narrowly against al gore and most of the polls in the popular vote in 2000, but just a few days before the election news was reported in maine that george bush had had dui, driving under the influence arrest and conviction years before near kennebunkport, maine, where the bush family residence is. He had not disclose that dui, and the news just shook his campaign and may have been enough in a tight race to tip voters from bush to gore so that al gore won the popular vote and george bush narrowly won the Electoral College after 37 day ordeal about the outcome in florida where the election hung. Its likely that we will have some sort of late in the game election surprise. Those are a few suggestions and takeaways about what to expect, and i be happy to field questions. I would be thank you very much for that. That was a great overview of the book, and it if folks have question i would encourage them to click the ask the question tab at the bottom. They can ask a question. I did want to get started while people are submitting some questions, and one of the reasons we were excited to have you come here is because of the connection that George Gallup has to the original pilot in iowa city here. George gallup earned a a baches degree in Political Science here. He is a masters and doctorate degrees from psychologist jewish bible. He was editor of the daily i win, student, a lot of connection. You did some research at the special collections at the university of iowa libraries for the book. I was wondering if you able to glean anything about dallas personality or gain any new insights into how the man actually worked . From the collection of his papers at the university come to mind, one of them, john, is how we early in his career was a real advocate, a real evangelist for accuracy and election polling, and he would take great pains to really describe polling come his polling as having been very accurate in president ial races. We are tied by 1940, 1944, even 1952. When racist didnt really align with his polling outcomes, he was inclined to say yeah, we got this right, we had a very accurate election. So he was perhaps more important than any of the other early pollsters, and there were not many, guys like archibald crosley and elmer roper who were holding rivals and contemporaries of George Gallup but gallup or than others was inclined to try to find a way to emphasize the accuracy and reliability of polling data. One of the reasons he did then was to make the case that if the election polls were accurate or recently so, then we can expect that all of the polling to be pretty accurate as well. He called election polls the acid test of Public Opinion research. He didnt really think that election. Was all that valuable, and really put a lot of emphasis and a lot of faith in the outcomes of elections, and used them to emphasize the fact that other parts of the Opinion Research from polling field could be considered to be accurate. That was one take away from the research i did at the university there. Another take away was how gallup, he has a repetition, George Gallup had a reputation for being this avuncular guy and a very pleasant person whos calling everybody my friend, and i think theres truth to that but he also had another site to him. He was very, very inclined to criticize critics and to take them on publicly and to really challenge their arguments and their criticism of his work and Public Opinion research as well. He was an evangelist for polling and Opinion Research, and use very aggressive about doing that. And much of the public story about George Gallup doesnt get into that, doesnt get into the aggressive side of George Gallup and that was one of the takeaways i found in the research and there. Good. One followup about gallup and it looks like were starting to get some questions which is wonderful. But i was struck in reading the book, you had mentioned use on the cover of Time Magazine and i believe may of 1848, and i was just trying to think of it to the upholstered today whose name anyone other than perhaps nate silver, and just thinking it was obviously a very different time were a poster could be that prominent in the public sphere and wondering what your thoughts were about that and do you think pollsters may be hide behind their companies now because sometimes those experiences could be somewhat personally embarrassing . Interesting question. I think theres something to that. Polling does not have the same kind of singular identity as it had 70, 80 years ago when George Gallup was started out. He really did become, as admitted earlier he was a evangelist for early Public Opinion research, and although he called his company in the early days something other than the Gallup Organization, the American Institute for Public Opinion research, but nonetheless he became identified with Public Opinion polling at an early stage, and one of the reasons that happened was he was the one who was producing polls on a regular basis and had many prominent newspapers lined up as clients, subscribers come the washington post, the boston globe were among the early subscribers of his polling information. He is not polling week in and week out on election issues. He is polling at other Public Policy topics. Most of his polling was done on Public Policy issues, and only a fraction really was preelection poll. He became more readily and more quickly and more prominently than his rivals, roper and crosley, they guy was identified with polling and polls and pollsters. In 1948, youre right, Time Magazine Time Magazine in may of 1940 put them on the cover and called him the babe ruth of Opinion Research. Its interesting because six months after that cover story gallup suffered perhaps the most embarrassing setback in Election Research with the dewey defeats election truly. That upset with the one the pollsters do not see at all. An interesting character. No one has done a biography of George Gallup. Its not something i had necessarily and interested in or the time to do, but i suspect the remains to be done. I was about to say maybe thats your next project but you have the mirrored. We have a question from one of the folks in the audience who says teresa beth about a fully relative to your colleagues Alan Lichtman and his prediction success. Yeah. I dont know much about his 12 or 13 keys to the president ial election outcome. He claims he can predict how the popular vote is going to turn by a variety of what he calls keys and they include Foreign Policy issues, Economic Issues and whether theres a thirdparty candidate of whether there is an internal candidate in the president president park. Those are four of the several keys he uses and he claims Great Success for that and i dont know, ive never spent enough time to investigate. Others have and have grave doubts about his 13 keys, but i dont know independently whether or how effective they are. He claims great accuracy. Its interesting, too. He makes the prediction fairly early in the fall campaign, not like on the last weekend before the election, perhaps Early September and that strikes me as potentially premature because weve seen over the years how polling numbers and the dynamics of president ial campaigns can shift, kinship dramatically in the last several days or last several weeks. If Allan Lichtman is making predictions early in the fall, it might not be in time to get some of the changes in the shifts in the campaign dynamics. We have a couple of questions that are similar. One is asking about the impact of the proliferation and wide adoption of social media and what that is done for polling, and also looking at facebook in some news accounts appearing to take sides politically in some of the decisions whether to advertising and fact checking. How do all of those things had an impact on polling . Its hard to measure the impact of social media although its pretty clear that must be some kind of impact. All kinds of people on twitter, facebook, instagram, et cetera. Its intriguing pollsters have tried to figure out a way which they could tap some of the social media posts and try to figure out whether social media is a a leading indicator of changes in Public Opinion. And researchers are, that from a number of different directions. Theres nothing yet that is real clear or persuasive that social media, particularly twitter, is a good predictor of shifts and changes in Public Opinion, but theres a fair amount of suggestions out there or suspicion that it has to be, ought to be, ought to be an early indicator changes in the direction of Public Opinion. But so far pollsters havent really figured out a way to tap that any kind of reliable way. One of the reasons is not everybody is on twitter. There tends to be hangout for journalists, not exclusively that but often i hangout for journalists and so there may be a twitter bubble that some journalists are into that they follow people who are likeminded and just sort of getting reinforced all the time. Its not necessarily the most representative platform, but it is an intriguing option. As a state pollsters have a look at this for a number of years to try to figure okay, is a way o tap social media as a precursor in terms of change in Public Opinion. So another change to politics that someone has a question about is how well have pollsters adapted to the near give out election cycle, particularly the shift to digital . It does seem particularly here in iowa what seems like us who we elect one president , everyone starts to come calling. I dont know if thatll happen again in 2021 but certainly getting longer and longer every cycle. How has that affected polling . Interesting question at a guess and iowa you probably have a greater familiarity with that short cycle or the repeating cycle than folks in most parts of the country. It puts a burden on pollsters if thats the way to describe it, a burden in the sense we are going to have to keep polling and resume our polling. And how many candidates were there for the democratic nomination in 2020 . About 20 candidates are so . Something like that, yeah. So tried to get a sense of polling numbers in such a large field is really a daunting task and can be very expensive, and that is one of the drawbacks of preelection polling, that they can be very expensive. Pollsters are trying to forget way to make it less expensive but the former Gold Standard i mentioned earlier, random digit dial, live operator phone polling is very expensive to do that. I dont know, it seems like pollsters are not, the proliferation of pollsters is a constant. Every year we are having more and more pollsters. Nate silver at 538. Com, his prediction and polling analysis site ranks more than 400 pollsters and gives them grades from a f in terms of their reliability and track record and that is awful lot of pollsters. Its not like 400 pollsters are out there week in and week out generating numbers that were supposed to digest and reflect upon back its suggestive of this huge number of polls that are being out there as i said earlier, just today real clear politics posted maybe ten different polls with numbers all over the place. Its tough for consumers on a date in and day out basis, week in and week out basis to make sense of all these numbers. Remember, early in the election cycle in 20192020 they were candidates who seem to be really likely to do well in the polls. The early polls have been up and it didnt last. I think, harris was one of the early beneficiaries of polling numbers and the droptop and Pete Buttigieg as what was another early beneficiaries as i recall and his numbers dropped off. Again early polls way early in the cycle, they are not very revealing, they are not prophecy by any means. That brings up the question that they had. You have quoted nate silver in your book. He was saying that trumps victory in 2016 was quote, the most shocking Political Development of my lifetime. I am just wondering, you say its difficult for the layperson to parse all of these different polls. Heres someone whos entire profession is to parse those polls and to give them weight and credence, and he was surprised by the results. What hope is there for the rest of us to figure that out . Is there any tips you would suggest to go about doing that . You mentioned people need to not ignore them but also look at them with some skepticism as well. Thats right, to treat them warily and recognize polls are not always wrong but the event wrong often enough. 2016 is a classic case. If a nuanced criticism as well because many leading pollsters will point to the fact that in 2016, the polls in aggregate called the election fairly closely for Hillary Clinton. The popular vote. There may than one percentage point or two percentage point off from the outcome in aggregate, and some pollsters pointed to the say hey, thats an historically good, accurate result. It was delivered though because Hillary Clinton wiped out trump in california. She won california by popular vote margin that was overwhelming, exceeding anything that barack obama rolled up in his president ial campaigns. Her plurality in california was enough to wipe out trumps advantage, his popular vote advantage in the rest of the country, and it resulted in her winning the popular vote by a margin that was pretty close to what the polls in aggregate were saying. So its a nuanced story sometime about polls and polling failure and where the polls are wrong. As i said earlier there is not one single template that explains all polling fairly. As of right at them and we saw one of those varieties in 2016. Its interesting, thinking about that, because we again have seen polls now talking about biden being ahead of trump or the polls tightening, or as you midget so may polls that show many different things. Most of those on a National Level whats the value of those National Polls in president ial elections when we still have the Electoral College, those state races are really where it comes down to . Is there a need beyond the titillation of being able to perhaps predict the future in those National Polls . There is because a National Public you get a general sense of where things might stand, and given the conflicting numbers or the somewhat conflicting numbers that i refer to a couple of times tonight, they dont give us necessarily the most accurate snapshot. It could be a fairly blurry snapshot it a racist two Percentage Points that tells us one thing. If it is 12 it tells us another. But over all National Polls, if the margin is large enough, it is going to signal that there is a strong unlikelihood that the person, the candidate loses the popular vote is going to win the Electoral College. It has to be a fairly close race that to happen, but thats a to take place and thats what happened in 2016. Trump losers the National Popular vote by what, 2. 1 Percentage Points by the wins the Electoral College fairly easily. If trump had been defeated by clinton by seven or eight Percentage Points nationally there is probably no way he would appoint in the states to win the Electoral College, so there is an indicator built into those National Polls. But at this stage even eight weeks out we are still kind of tentative and what these polls are telling us. And taken together they may signal that biden is ahead or even comfortably ahead but weve seen paul membership dramatically enough late in the campaigns that not always but often, that we should treat these numbers with a degree of weariness, a degree of skepticism. I know there was a chart going around social media within the last couple of weeks talking about if biden would happen when the popular vote by x percentage, this is the actual realistic possibility that he will actually win the Electoral College and as the percentage went up, the possibility of winning the electoral electorae went up which is pretty much to the point you were making. Thats right. Theres relationship there and the exact numbers may vary with elections because no two elections are ever quite the same, nonetheless, a substantial National Vote victory, popular vote victory, usually translates into an Electoral College victory as well. We have an interesting question here, it candidate at the 2016 election and have numbers were so different from what people expected. The questioner asks, do you give any credence to the thought that pollsters got right for 2016 for the Election Results were manipulated. No, i dont give much credit to that at all. To do that it would be a real massive conspiracy. Keeping in mind elections, National Elections in the United States are statelevel elections typically. They are not won by the federal government. They are around the individual states and localities, so so to have that kind of manipulation to throw the election off would have taken an awful lot of work, and i just dont see any evidence for that at all. This suspicion, by the way, was raised in the aftermath of the 2014 no, 2004 election, john kerry and george w. Bush when bush won reelection. It was a very close race in ohio and there were irregularities in the fire that led many people to argue that there had to have been systemic vote stealing in that state. To my way of thinking there was never any Persuasive Evidence that pointed to that conclusion, but the suspicions were there. One of the reasons for the suspicions was the exit polling in 2004, in other words, the day of the election people telling holsters how they voted, and then they collect all those data and aggregate it. The exit polls in 2004 were signaling pretty clearly that john kerry was going to win the election maybe by three or four Percentage Points, but he was the clear winner and it wasnt till later in the night on Election Night when more data came in from individual precincts that signaled that george bush actually have won the election. So exit polls were off pretty markedly in 2004. Another example of how polling can go awry, and a really led to suspicions that the election had been stolen in ohio. Again to my with thinking theres no persuasive argument or evidence that was presented on that, and John Kerry Campaign was not really interested in pursuing such allegations. They kind of diet and weight but its emblematic of how polling and polling errors can lead to suspicions in claims and even arguments about conspiracies to steal the election. So just a reminder to folks watching you can submit questions. Weve had great ones, over the transom here. Heres another interesting one. Are there certain groups that pollsters find difficult to poll for my play significant role in the outcome of an election . And how do the pollsters that account for the opinions of those folks when they are trying to put together their data . Thats a real good question, and it speaks to what is sometimes called the shy trump phenomenon. In other words, responses to polls dont tell the pollsters who they really support, for perhaps social desirability reasons. And they may say im undecided or im going to vote for the democrat, im not going to vote for trump. But in rally they do plan to vote for trump. There have been a number of studies that have looked at the shy trump phenomenon and have come away with really inconclusive findings. Its not real solid, not real concrete, that this is a phenomenon that happens. Nonetheless, its pretty clear that trump outperform his polls in enough key states in 2016 to win the election, and not just in wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania but in florida and North Carolina and ohio and other places. He is outperforming his polling numbers and that suggests that there might be something out there akin to shy trump phenomenon, which his supporters are not saying that theyre going to be voting for him. That is a tough thing to find out, if all respondents are not telling pollsters yes, this is who i really going to vote for or if theyre claiming to be undecided when they are really not come what kenny polster do . Its a real hard thing to interpret, and pollsters really dont try to do that. They accept the responses that they get. They also apply what are called likely voter screens to the respondents. In other words, they ask asked question that are designed to determine whether the respondent is really likely to vote or not in the upcoming election, and sometimes these likely voter screens have several questions, many questions. Sometimes there are fewer questions but they are all intended to weed out those people who say im going to go vote for bush have no intention of doing so. Thats what polling becomes, sometimes has more art and science, art and science in the sense that how do know for sure you are weeding out the right people . You really dont buy you have a really good sense that these folks are probably not going to vote so we were not counted in our polls. If the likely voter screen is too tight being your weeding of people who are going to vote and thats something you dont want to do. On the other hand, if the likely voter screen is too loose and youre letting people in who say theyre going to vote but are not going to vote at all, this is a conundrum, john, that pollsters have dealt with war years come for decades and they have never really been able to figure out how to do it. Its been said, perhaps accurately so, that there are as many likely voter screens as there are pollsters out there, and it could be the case because different pollsters have different ways of trying to figure out who the electorate is going to be and its important to get close to that because if you dont, you run the risk of throwing off your results. If you figure this out you can change professions in what you are saying. Thats akin to a line that George Gallup used against one of his critics back in the 1940s. If you figure this out, it will save you a lot of headaches. You will be the guy who finally decides or figures out how to determine whos going to vote and who is not. That is a revealing comment i think in the sense of how pollsters have grappled with this conundrum for so many years and still havent solved it, and perhaps theres no way of really 100 solving it. Thats a good segue to question i wanted to ask talking about your former profession as a journalist and youre writing about pollsters. Obviously pollsters and journalists have rather symbiotic relationship. Faith youth at times when the polls get it wrong. You write in the book journalists take the lead from polls and tend to be unforgiving when polls surprised in a president ial election. Isnt that fair that if they are surprised it means the polls got it wrong, or is it Something Else in there . Well, there are a lot of factors in there, and part of it is a tradition among journalist, prominent journalists to really have suspicions about polls and whether they are going to be accurately interpreting in analyzing and presenting Public Opinion as it is. Paul bashing used to be a prominent feature of american journalism. With prominent journalist like mike royko of the Chicago Tribune and Jimmy Breslin of the New York Daily News we had dan rather, cbs news. Even edward r. Murrow the broadcasting journalism legend had suspicions about polls. And some of them, mike royko, Jimmy Breslin, Arianne Huffington hated polls. Mike royko said throughout the results and make them look bad on Election Night when results are coming in. We dont see so much of that anymore, of overt hostility, of over paul bashing. But the lowlevel suspicions about polls i think the remain. One of the recent we dont see much paul bashing anymore is the fact that nate silver Data Journalism is on the rise. He is kind of muted i think inclination that many journalists have to bash polls. Another reason is that the royko in Jimmy Breslin have moved past away and dan rather has retiredd to some of the real vehement critics in journalism have left the scene. But nonetheless there is this suspicion and theres an easy inclination to think a point among journalist to pollsters and say you got it wrong. After the 2016 election, there was an interesting dynamic. A lot of pollsters pushed back on on the argument that journalists were making that the polls got it wrong and sink no, look at the result, look at the positive though. We came very close, historically great personages. Although i think thats a bit of an exaggeration, it is nonetheless emblematic of this tension that exist between journalists and pollsters. Another factor in the decline of whole bashing among journalist is the fact that many prominent news organizations have been doing their own polls are commissioning their own polls for many years. The New York Times, cbs news, their polling goes back to the mid1970s. Cnn is another polling organization, washington post, wall street journal did own polls commissioned on polls. So prominent news organizations have a stake in polling nowadays which wasnt necessarily the case when gallup and roper at Archibald Crossley were getting going in the 30s and 40s. In your book you had a a grt quote from George Gallup towards the end of the book where he says with the same certainty we know we can do right most of the time, we know that we will be wrong some of the time. It has to be that way. You live by the law of probabilities. Well ever be a point in the public agrees with him, that that is something that you live with or do you think there will always be that push pull between pollsters and the public and journalists in there somewhere as well . I wonder if the public is done recognizes that, that polling is a pursuit that will have some degree of error into a come that it is not the solid 100 reliable operation that many people think it is. Maybe deep down people believe that, if youre going to tap Public Opinion its going to be difficult and david is going to be some measure of air. Theres always some measure of their impose any way and is often described as a margin of sampling error which is described in news articles in the fine print usually as the market sampling error in this poll is plus or minus three Percentage Points. That signals theres always going to be some measure of potential error in any Public Opinion poll. I wonder, i dont know but i wonder if perhaps the public deep down kind of realizes this is a fallible operation, its not infallible and that maybe we should recognize that. 80 im being too optimistic in saying so but i think anybody who takes even a cursory look at polling will realize that there are many variables, many factors that can set pull off and to make it a little bit wrong. Thats important to keep in mind as well. Thats a bit of Public Education that wouldnt be bad to embrace. Pollsters over the years, including George Gallup, often said we have to do a better job of educating the public about what we do. They said it often enough to make one suspect the really didnt do a very good job of educating the public about polls. You hear such comments even these days, and the second decade or third decade or whatever of the 21st century. We still hear pollsters say we had to do a better job of educating the public and we do our business, about probabilities, about margin of sampling error and so forth here is one of those returning things that pops up in history of Public Opinion research. I will assess much as people complain about the polls, as soon as the candidate is favored in the polls, they grabbed him and embrace them. It feels like will always have that push pull there. I think youre right. Toward the approach of election day and some people say this is a phenomenon called hurting in which pollsters intentionally put their thumb on the scale a little bit and bring their results in line with others so yousee a narrowing of the results of the election as they approach. Hurting is why we should find these difficult to prove and whether its our reality or not, its something cultures have debated for many years but there is a narrowing that does often happen. In 2016 you saw a bit of a narrowing although it had Hillary Clinton and had by five or six points and we had a handful, a couple maybe that should trump a head by a couple points. So even at the end of the 2016 election we had some narrowing but then a fair amount of discrepancies between the high end polls and the high and trumppolls. Those of us who find pulling fascinating are right in that they can ignite right now so thank you so much for writing this book and sharing your information tonight. We are at the top of the hour so we will go ahead and bring our meeting to a close. Id like to thank you for coming and sharing with us here in iowa city virtually. We love to get you here personally one of these days. Thanks to the iowa city public library, our partners in a talk series, thank you to the university of California Press for making this possible and thank everyone who turned out today for our event. Watch the website event at city of literature. Org for information about future events and with that i hope everyone has a pleasant evening. Thank you very much. Thank you john. Heres a look at books being published this week. In american crisis, new York Governor Andrew Cuomo offers leadership lessons he learned while responding to the pandemic. Rick gates describes his experience as Deputy Campaign chairman for the 2016 trump president ial campaign and later as a cooperating witness during the Mueller Investigation and wicked game. And in upswing, political scientist Robert Putnam recalls how america changed following the gilded age and how those lessons apply today. Also being published this week, and cultural warlords journalist tell you laban reports on online committees of white supremacists. Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer argues that president trumps first term has been successful and he should be reelected in leading america. In gambling with armageddon, Martin Sherwin provides a history of the cold war with a focus on the cuban missile crisis and in the luckiest man, mark salter coauthor with john mccain on several books remembers the late senator. Im these titles this coming week wherever books are sold and watch for many of the authors in the near future on tv on cspan2. During a Virtual Event hosted by Harvard Bookstore history professor martha jones described the efforts by black women to gain the right to vote. Heres a portion of the program. As i began to reflect on what i was finding i realized that first it was a core principle that black women had really arrived at 200 years ago at the beginning of the 19th century and had carried forward really until our own time and this was the idea that american politics should have no place for racism and sexism. And when i recognize how long black women have been championing that view, when i realized how long they had been alone in sort of carrying that forward and setting that ideal in front of us, i realized that they were indeed an intellectual and political vanguard, showing this country to its best, very best ideals. Find the best of this program on our website, book tv. Org. Search for martha jones or the title of her bookvanguard. Every year book tv asks members of congress about the books theyre reading. Joining us now on book tv is representative tom cole, a republican from oklahoma. Congressman cole, weve asked you this question before. Youve always had a large readinglist. Whats on your current reading list