The
Gallup Poll is the division of
Gallup that regularly conducts
public
opinion polls in more than 140
countries around the world. Gallup Polls are often referenced in
the
mass media as a reliable and
objective measure of
public opinion.
Gallup Poll results, analyses, and videos are published daily on
Gallup.com in
the form of
data-driven news.
The Gallup
Poll is named after its inventor, the American
statistician, George
Gallup. Dr. Gallup founded the American Institute of
Public Opinion, the precursor of The Gallup Organization, in
Princeton, New Jersey, in 1935. To ensure his independence and
objectivity, Dr. Gallup resolved that he would undertake no polling
that was paid for or sponsored in any way by special interest
groups such as the Republican and Democratic parties, a commitment
that Gallup upholds to this day.
Historically, the Gallup Poll has measured and tracked the public's
attitudes concerning virtually every
political,
social, and
economic issue of the day, including highly
sensitive or controversial subjects. In 2005, Gallup began its
World Poll, which continually surveys citizens
in more than 140 countries, representing 95% of the world's adult
population. General and regional-specific *
questions, developed in collaboration with the
world's leading behavioral economists, are organized into powerful
indexes and topic areas that
correlate
with real-world outcomes.
Gallup
Polls are best known for their accuracy in predicting the outcome
of the current United
States presidential election. A
notable exception is the 1948
Thomas
Dewey-
Harry S. Truman election, where
nearly all pollsters predicted a Dewey victory. This is largely
attributed to the polling methods and technology available at the
time in comparison to today. The Gallup Poll also inaccurately
projected a slim victory by
Gerald Ford
in
1976,
where he lost to
Jimmy Carter by a
small margin.
For the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Gallup was rated
17th out of 23 polling organizations in terms
of the precision of its pre-election polls relative to the final
results.
In 2008, Gallup interviewed no fewer than 1,000 U.S. adults each
day, providing the most watched
daily tracking poll of the race between
John McCain and
Barack
Obama. Gallup publishes the results of its tracking survey in a
three-day rolling average on Gallup.com.
In addition to political questions, Gallup has partnered with
Healthways to track the well-being of
U.S. residents through the surveys it conducts every day. Results
of
The
Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index will be released at the
national, statewide, and local level through events and news
articles published on
Gallup.com.
External links
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