Horse-Race Journalism: Reporting the Polls in the 1976 Presidential Election

Reporting of public opinion polls conformed to a horse-raceimage of campaign reporting during the 1976 presidential election.Journalists avoided prediction, reported segments of the sample,selectively compared results, emphasized spectacles, questionedthe validity of polling, made a few mistakes, and ignored certaindata in their reporting. All these activities reinforced theimage of elections as a sporting event.     

Private Polls and Presidential Policymaking: Reagan as a Facilitator of Change

Did the Reagan administration disregard majority will when craftingits policy initiatives? Did it cater to a narrow partisan constituencyinstead? The answers to these questions will help with an assessmentof Jacobs and Shapiro’s (2000b) hypothesis that presidentssince the late 1970s have used private White House survey researchas a tool to manipulate or assuage centrist public opinion whilemeeting the policy demands of their partisan core supporters,resulting in a decline in presidential responsiveness to majoritywill. Using the actual surveys administered by Richard Wirthlin(Reagan’s pollster) between 1981 and 1983, this articlewill demonstrate the level of consistency between majority opinionon 129 policy issues and Reagan’s behavior through 1984,and it will explore the conditions under which the presidentwas more or less likely to respond to public preferences. Thedata reveal that the Reagan administration was constrained bythe popular will in predicable ways: if the policy issues wereabout domestic concerns, highly popular, and visible in themedia, then the administration acted in line with public preferencesmore than 70 percent of the time. Further, Reagan and his adviserswere selective in responding to party activists: they championedissues drawn from their conservative ideological agenda thatfit with the current tide in public opinion, while sidesteppingother issues dear to party activists that encountered strongmajority resistance. While I do not contest Jacobs and Shapiro’s(2000b) important observation that presidents often use surveyresearch to "craft talk" in an attempt to channel the publicdebate, the evidence here highlights how the president nonethelessremains constrained by the popular will, at least on domesticissues.     

The Presidents and the Polls

Since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, presidents have used opinionpolls to aid them in being elected and as input to policy formulation.Several examples of such effective use are presented. Pollsmay also be misused by presidents simply to enhance presidentialpopularity. Such actions are generally ineffective either forincreasing presidential popularity or for making wise policydecisions.