As we closer to the primary, we get more and more polls. In the absence of actually voting, polls claim to offer a view into what the public is thinking and most voters find it hard not to give them some weight.
A blog post about polling in Exeter led New Hampshire Public Radio’s Jon Greenberg to talk to voters in the town that’s been the focus of our Primary Place series. In his latest story, he explores the complicated relationship between people and polls.
Every poll that’s been done in the past six months shows Hillary Clinton with a commanding lead on the Democratic side. And that puzzles Carol Aten.
CUT: I just don’t see it.
For Carol the gap between her experience and the polls is large. She personally knows only one person who is firmly committed to Clinton. She says statistically, she ought to have run into at least four more.
CUT: Unless there are folks I know that are just not talking about this all together. But I’ve had this discussion with people in my book club, with friends at dinner. I’ve had this discussion at church.// Well, maybe that’s just your circle of friends?// I don’t know. Because I work on a community project, I connect with a lot of people that are beyond my own circle of friends.
Now, obviously, Carol is not a walking breathing randomized sample of voters in Exeter. But her sense of the disconnect between what she sees for herself and what she reads in the polls touches on what we think about polls and what polls do to us.
At some level, polls can rub us the wrong way. Trolling for opinions at the Loaf and Ladle restaurant in Exeter, and of course, I have to note that this is an unscientific sample, I found Mary Brock. Mary calls polls useless noise.
CUT: I don’t want to see people really vote for who they think is popular. I want to see them vote for who they actually want to be in office.
Mary’s feelings go to the essence of democracy. We don’t stand in the voting booth with a pack of friends. We stand there alone.
Her criticism is, polls seem to short circuit the process that leads up to that – putting popular preferences out there before people are done figuring out who they really like.
But one person’s useless noise is another person’s useful tool. Jennifer Anderson was eating at the Loaf and Ladle with her 8-week-old son and a friend. Earlier in the primary, she was looking at a long roster of candidates. But now, due in part to the polls, Jennifer has focused on the front-runners. So I asked her this question.
CUT: We’re you looking forward to that point where it sort of narrowed itself down?// I think so. Yes, honestly I was. And I felt pretty good that I didn’t have to be part of that process. So yes, I guess I did view that as a positive thing that it would narrow itself out without me being involved.
There’s not much doubt that part of the reason we pay attention to polls is they speak to our inner strategist. They play to the mind, not the heart. Barry Lenson is interested in Democrat John Edwards but the polls keep him in check.
CUT: I have thought that if John Edwards were more at the top of the polls, I would be more inclined to shift to hoping that he would be the candidate. But the fact that he is in third position or so now makes me think that rather than rather than committing myself, I would hold off and see. Because you sort of want to bet on the horse that’s going to win in a sense.
Many people know that this is how polls affect their thinking. But it’s one thing to know it and another to think about it. As Barry and I talk, he begins to throw out different ideas. Polls represent the opinions of a group and Barry says …
CUT: People in groups do crazy things. And believe crazy things.
The conversation turns philosophical.
CUT: The one biggest influence on my thinking has been Ralph Waldo Emerson. You know, “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”
And by the end of our talk, Barry has reconsidered his thinking about the primary.
CUT: Having spoken with you, I think I’m going to be less concerned with what I said before. About how I would be more inclined to support Edwards if he were farther ahead in the polls. I mean, what kind of sense does that make?
Polls generally get our attention. And maybe that’s what voters need to pay attention to most.
For NHPR News, I’m Jon Greenberg
