Word: gallup
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...nation's major pollsters have been in contact with one another since last June, when they formed the National Committee on Published Polls to publicize standards for their opinion surveys. Last week, when their contradictory reports appeared, Harris called George Gallup Jr., whose famous father was traveling in Europe, and persuaded him to join in an unprecedented joint public statement. After consulting Crossley, they issued a complicated collective verdict. If their three polls were "plotted out sequentially, as though they were conducted by a single organization, using the same sampling techniques and the same question-asking techniques," they concluded...
Error Margin. To justify the apparent turnabout, Gallup suggested that the timing of the poll taking was crucial. Gallup's sampling was made between July 19 and 21, just after Dwight Eisenhower endorsed Nixon. Ike's announcement may have swung some sentiment to his former Vice President...
...three percentage points is routinely assumed as a hazard of the pollster's trade-but that could hardly account for the startling discrepancies in last week's results. All three pollsters used basically the same techniques, although they often differ in their philosophies of interpretation. Gallup, for example, believes that "our job begins and ends with the reporting of facts." Harris argues that survey results are meaningful only if they are digested and interpreted. Each pollster has his own methods. Harris likes to reinterview some one he has already talked with, figuring that he can thus detect changes...
Sheer Volatility. Most pollsters agree that a sampling of something like 1,500 people yields a fairly comprehensive picture of national trends and opinions. For last week's sampling, Gallup used 1,156 interviews gathered from throughout the country, Harris 1,346 and Crossley 1,976. All but 219 of Harris' samplings were reinterviews...
...plethora of candidates, no established party tickets, and moiling confusion in both parties over the issues. Despite the pollsters' fatiloquent accuracy in past years, they have stumbled often in the past six months. Almost all, for example, have consistently underestimated Eugene McCarthy's considerable strength. Harris and Gallup have frequently differed in their preference surveys, though never so widely as in the preconvention week...