David W. Moore, iMediaEthics’ polling director, has written frequently throughout 2016 about polling issues, polling standards and problematic polls. Given this year’s U.S. election, much of his commentary addressed high-profile polls about the campaign and the candidates. Moore, a former Gallup Vice President, is a two-time winner of the Editor & Publisher EPPY Award for Best News/Political Blog, under 1 million readers.
5. In April, Moore looked at polls about public opinion toward Appellate Judge Merrick Garland. Moore fact checked polls claiming Americans are highly favorable toward his confirmation to the Supreme Court by conducting a PollCheck to test public opinion. The PollCheck survey suggested these polls were highly misleading, that a more realistic assessment of public opinion finds most Americans unsure whether the judge should be confirmed, and that people with strong views are about evenly divided on the issue.
Read PollCheck: Do Americans Really Want Merrick Garland Confirmed to the Supreme Court?
4. Gallup’s annual Most Admired Man in the World report isn’t an accurate representation of who is most admired, Moore has written previously. Even the Gallup Poll Editor-in-Chief, Frank Newport, has acknowledged that the poll does not measure “most admired,” but rather some vague “brand awareness,” a top-of-mind recollection of a person in the news. He also admits there is a better way to measure most admired, but for tradition’s sake, he has chosen not to change. So, while the 2015 report claimed Donald Trump was tied with Pope Francis as second most admired man in the world, if you look at the numbers, only 5% of respondents listed Trump as most admired. Previous year’s results have claimed Glenn Beck is more admired than the Dalai Lama.
Read Why Gallup Poll Wrongly Shows Trump Tied With Pope as Second Most Admired Man in the World
3. In a brief post this summer, Moore called out an ABC News/Washington Post poll on Hillary Clinton’s e-mails for being misleading. Moore highlighted the poll’s biased question that prompts respondents to respond negatively and the forced choice question that required respondents to give an answer even if they didn’t know anything about the e-mails. Read The Misleading ABC/Washington Post Poll on Hillary Clinton’s Emails [PollSkeptic News Briefs]
2. In October, Pew Research Center announced it wouldn’t produce a “final projection of the popular vote” for the U.S. election, joining Gallup, which said it wouldn’t poll the general election. In this commentary, Moore criticizes the polling companies for being too afraid to test their polls against the final election results. Read First Gallup, Then Pew – Afraid of Testing Their Polls Against the Election?
1. This July piece looked at conflicting polls from USA Today and Reuters about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and where the presidential race stood. Read Clinton-Trump Matchup: Conflicting Polls from USA Today and Reuters
For more, check out iMediaEthics’ polling center and all of Moore’s articles here.