PERPLEXING POLLS
October 31, 2000

After this background report, Terence Smith talks with four experts about what polls mean in this presidential campaign. The NewsHour Media Unit is funded by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

 

Online Special: Media Watch Election 2000 Oct. 30, 2000: A look at campaign advertising. Sept. 21, 2000: Political ads are on the increase. Sept. 12, 2000: George W. Bush's "rats" ad draws Democratic fire Sept. 4, 2000: Debating the debates. Jan. 20, 2000: The GOP tax debate Jan. 12, 2000: Special interest ads Dec. 15, 1999: The GOP air war Dec. 7, 1999: The Democratic air war Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the media     The Brookings Institution's Hess Report	DAN RATHER: A brand new CBS News/New York Times poll out tonight indicates Gore may have a four-point lead among likely Florida voters. BERNARD SHAW: And Bush felt the need to swing through Florida, where his brother is governor and where a new poll shows he's leading Gore by five points. TOM BROKAW: But another poll by the American Research Group shows Gore up by four points in Florida. TERENCE SMITH: That's all in a day's reporting of polling. RON BROWNSTEIN: It has been a little hard to keep track of this as it moves up and down. Today is the fifth lead change in the Gallup polling after Labor Day between Gore and Bush. TERENCE SMITH: In this dead-heat presidential year, polls are more confusing and conflicted than ever. But a study by the Brookings Institution has found, nonetheless, that two-thirds of the political coverage on the network evening news broadcast this year has been predicated on polls. BILL CLINTON: We have to compete so that we can win in the world economy. TERENCE SMITH: In previous election years such as 1992, the campaigns centered on a single, galvanizing issue, like the economy. But this year, partly because of the closeness of the race, the story of the race has become the race itself. Polling, of course, is not new in presidential campaigns. Polls were first employed by the Gallup organization 64 years ago in the Roosevelt/Landon race. The commercial broadcast networks relied on the campaigns and external polling until 1972, when they began their own polling operations. Today with the Internet and the proliferation of 24-hour cable channels, news organizations want to be first in touting their own polls, as well as those done by outside and partisan polling groups. SPOKESMAN: And now for the first opening statement by Senator John F. Kennedy.
	Instant winners and losers
	TERENCE SMITH: During the 1960 Kennedy/Nixon debates, it took Gallup two weeks to tell people who won. Now, networks offer instant winners and losers, sometimes within minutes. SAM DONALDSON: We had the debate and the polls say that Al Gore won it. TERENCE SMITH: But that purported snap poll victory proved elusive. PETER JENNINGS: A week is a long time in politics, and since their first encounter, Mr. Bush has improved his position with voters. Virtually all of the polls, including ours, find Mr. Bush slightly ahead of Mr. Gore. TERENCE SMITH: But even pollsters concede that tracking polls -- daily surveys based on smaller samples -- often fail to make it clear just who and what is being measured. They also leave journalists little time to interpret the data. TOM BROKAW: According to today's MSNBC/Reuters tracking poll, Gore is hanging onto a two-point lead over Bush for the second day in a row. But all these polls, it's important to point out, are within a margin of error that could flip the results. What they're really telling us is that this race appears to be a dead heat. JUDY WOODRUFF: George W. Bush now leads Al Gore by five points in our daily tracking poll. Gore was up by one point in yesterday's CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey. As always, it is too early to know if a one-day fluctuation is a sign of a trend. TERENCE SMITH: The lowest on the polling totem poll, telephone call-in polls and Internet samples, which are by their nature unscientific but are frequent fare on cable and local news. Not even Election Day will bring an end to the plethora of polls. Pollster Steve Rasmussen has already announced plans for a tracking poll that will report the new president's approval rating, day-by-day.

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