Polls, The Media And Who Will Win In 2008

Are polls worth watching? Do they measure or do they make public opinion? Are the polls we read in the papers or on the net good indicators of whether it will be Obama or McCain who will win in November?

The one thing they never seem to attempt to measure is whether it will be everybody who wins or loses this fall…

August 27, 2008 – about 7 minutes

Barry Kay on the accuracy of polling and the presidential elections

Dr. Barry Kay teaches a seminar on voting behavior, as well as courses on U.S. Government and Public Policy in the Political Science Dept., at Wilfrid Laurier University. His research tends to be in the area of elections and public opinion. He is a past member of the Canadian National Election Study team, and recent publications pertain to electoral systems, public opinion polling, and the impact of single-issue interest groups. He has developed a model for projecting parliamentary seat distributions from popular vote or opinion polls, that is posted on the LISPOP page of the Laurier website. He is also a political analyst with Global Television, for their national election coverage.