Opinion polling and vote

Opinion polls are central to the study of electoral politics. With modern election polling dating back to the 1936 US presidential election, and proto-straw polls going back as far as the 1824 presidential election, polls have long been employed to gauge the popularity of different political competitors and, for as long as they have been available, researchers have used them to make predictions about future election results (Smith, 1990; Bean, 1948). Research on the links between opinion polls and election outcomes took off in the 1970s and early 1980s, as a cluster of (mostly) American researchers analysed these relationships, primarily in the context of US presidential elections (Campbell, 2008). The field has evolved rapidly since then, as polls have proliferated and analysis tools have grown ever more sophisticated. Opinion poll-based election analysis and forecasting is now a global enterprise, and often one with an unusually high public profile – poll analysis and election forecasts by academics and data journalists are now widely reported and discussed in election campaigns. This chapter reviews research on the relationships between opinion polls and election outcomes, and some of the election forecasting techniques built on this relationship