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Polls, Wallets and Ballots

By Alex - Jul 7th, 2007 at 12:16 pm EDT

Also listed in: Scholars for Obama

So I've been trying to understand why the bigger general news media is convinced that the statistics from polls (Gallup, CNN, MSN, ABC, you name it) mean more than the sum of invested supporters in any given campaign. By invested supporters I mean people who actually open their wallets and donate to one or several campaigns.

Ever since the Obama campaign announced its second quarter fundraising numbers, I have not heard or read one news report that does not compare the trends in the polls with the numbers, usually to say that Obama may have attracted alot of contributors, but the polls still show him trailing other candidates.

This phenomenon shines a light on an important issue of sampling and raises a couple of curious questions:

Regarding sampling: The people responding to polls either a) are not necessarily contributing to the campaigns or b) are saying one thing to pollsters while shelling out their hard-earned money to a candidate other than the one they say they support. Option (b) then suggests that the average citizen is a very wiley creature schooled in the subtle art of misdirection - to purposes yet to be clarified.

So here are the questions:
- Are people so sneaky as to fake out pollsters, and if they are, does that mean that we cannot trust the polls numbers that come out everyday?
- Or are people so sneaky as to fake out the campaigns by giving to a candidate other than the one they really support, and if so, does thsi mean that we should not assume that just because you contribute to a campaign that means that you are going to vote for that candidate?
- And finally, does the proportion of those who contribute to campaigns reflect the proportion of how people - non contributors included - would vote?

I think it's safe to say that only the well to do can afford to hedge their bets by spreading their support around and contributing to several candidates: Spielberg did it. I'm guessing that the average income supporter would most likely give to only one candidate, that being the one for whom they intend to cast their vote.

Which brings us back to our starting point: why should there be such a disparity between the number of people who SAY over the phone that they support a candidate and the number who actually DO support the candidate by funding their campaign?

Just asking...

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