Campaign Remedies: Polling and Handicapping the Horse Race

By: When E&P published its "10 Mistakes The Press Makes Every Election Year" in July, the top penalty was falling in love with polls. As 2004 was among the closest races in history, such a romance might seem excusable, especially since most of the surveys, in their stubborn refusal to show Kerry with a lead, turned out quite right. But many believe the daily updates that usually showed little significant change were overkill.

"It wouldn't be a bad idea to stop polling altogether," declares Adam Nagourney, political reporter for The New York Times. "We always do [that] too much because it is the easiest kind of story to write." Mark Silva, a Washington, D.C., correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, also slams that infatuation. "We saw the biggest proliferation of bad polling that we have seen in a long time," he says. "So much discussion was about poll results that were portrayed as a shift when they weren't."

But two of Washington, D.C.'s most influential opinion writers, Broder and Tony Blankley, give polling more due. Broder, considered the dean of political columnists, says polling worked well this year. "I think in terms of a horse race it was good," he tells E&P. "We identified the battleground states and Ohio turned out to be the right place to focus." Blankley also looks at the voter surveys as necessary. "It's like complaining that we have to eat or go to the bathroom," he says. "You have to cover it, that is what people care about ? who is winning, and who is losing."

But Blankley stresses that too many newspapers will tout their own polls even if they do not offer anything newsy, simply because they paid for them. Instead, he advocates, they should look at the average of many reliable polls. "Otherwise, it is a bit of salesmanship," he says. The horse race, in a way, also led to expectations that a tight outcome would lead to the litigation and recounts of four years ago, according to some. "Everyone was so intent on [a possible] repeat of 2000, you read a lot about it," says Silva. "The expectation that we would be facing ballot disputes was not real."