Strength in Numbers: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them

by G. Elliott Morris

Public opinion polling is the ultimate democratic process; it gives every person an equal voice in letting elected leaders know what they need and want. But in the eyes of the public, polls today are tarnished. Recent election forecasts have routinely missed the mark and media coverage of polls has focused solely on predicting winners and losers. In Strength in Numbers, data journalist G. Elliott Morris argues that the larger purpose of political polls is to improve democracy, not just predict elections. Whether used by interest groups, the press, or politicians, polling serves as a pipeline from the governed to the government, giving citizens influence they would otherwise lack. No one who believes in democracy can afford to give up on polls; they should commit, instead, to understanding them better. Morris takes listeners from the first semblance of data-gathering in the ancient world through to the development of modern-day scientific polling. He explains how the internet and "big data" have solved many challenges in polling--and created others. He covers the rise of polling aggregation and methods of election forecasting, reveals how data can be distorted and misrepresented, and demystifies the uncertainty of polling. Acknowledging where polls have gone wrong in the past, Morris charts a path for the industry's future.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Science, Sociology, Political Science

1 pages, Audio CD

Published July 12, 2022

Reviews

[Josh Goodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book was really thoughtful about the tension between the crucial role played by public opinion polling and the problems that polling faces, both historical and recent. The history of polling that it laid out was fascinating — for example, I was completely unfamiliar with the (hilarious in retrospect) 1936 Literary Digest presidential poll and didn't know the full backstory of the famous "Dewey defeats Truman" photo. I also think the last couple chapters' analysis of what happened in 2016 and 2020 should be required reading for all political journalists who write about polling and elections. But in my mind the most important argument the book makes is about the necessity of opinion polling as a way to communicate the public will to elected officials and help advance true democracy.

[Julius Lehtinen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Written exclusively from the perspective of United States – with all its resulting implications on question layout and treating polarising majoritarian first-past-the-post election system as given – but nevertheless offers a rather solid overview in the actual (rather than intended) scope of the book, historical development of opinion polling in the US.

The introduction promises much more than the book delivers, especially on democratic importance of polling in transparency and restricting the government – which are left rather underdeveloped. The themes are briefly and abruptly brought up again in conclusion chapter.

It feels like the whole 180 page historical review was a prelude and background for the main argument which ultimately never arrives. The author seems to have ideas based on new things surfacing in the conclusion (which is a bad practice!) but never really expands on them.

[Max D'onofrio · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, but I think it is mistitled. It is more about both when polls work and when they don't. Most of it is a history lesson in how we have consistently thought polls worked and then needed to update our modelling or sampling techniques to meet new challenges. I think that is a valuable and interesting lesson.

[Michael Dean Edwards · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strength in Numbers: How polls work and why we need them offers readers, or for audiobooks, listeners, an introduction to the history and progress of public opinion sampling.

G. Elliott Morris cites many of the innovators and leaders, although Fred Harris lacks mention or so little he was lost, despite being one of the top two pollsters in the 60s through the 80s. Morris offers good descriptions of methodology, terms, practitioners, and models, but his pace often leaves the reader feeling rushed. I recommend he include a summary at the end of each chapter, or perhaps for all or most sections, to engage his readers. It would help to slow down the impact of his fast-flowing information that his otherwise great contribution to popular understanding of how polls work provides. I do recommend the book, particularly for journalists or political-campaign workers. It does a good job of introducing us to the current challenges and the value of polling in the twenty-first century for democracy in the USA.
A strong 3 Stars *** with room for improvement in a revised and updated edition…please!

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the idea of this book. Something happened to polling over the last decade. Readers want to understand how polling works, what happened that broke some of the polling, and how to fix it. But I think that's the key part of the book and it really only gets going in Chapter 6.

The first chapter of this book goes all the way back to ancient Greece and tries to spend a few chapters doing a history of polling. At best, I think this is a boring tangent on the main point of the book, at worst filler material. I question the editing of this book as the author makes clear in his introduction and acknowledgements that this was not the original idea. I like history books, but this book is painfully dull in the first chapters, a huge error.

Much better would have been if the book started with many examples of polling in modern times, how polling can answer interesting questions, what questions it can't answer well, and how it failed. That would have moved well into the later chapters which talk about the bad polling and bad use of polling in the US in 2016 and 2020, then how to fix it for 2024.

It's too bad. I love the topic. I like this writer and his work for The Economist. But this book seems to have been badly served by whoever made the choice to make the first few chapters a tangential and quite boring history of polling. Most worthwhile is the Introduction and Chapter 6 as well as some parts of Chapter 7 and the Conclusion.

[Everett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is for the wonks, the nerds, and the geeks. Morris does not write in a style that is particularly engaging. The content on the other hand and Morris's command over it is phenomenal if you are at all interested in polling or the methodology behind it. The overall conclusion about the ability of polls to change the world and history of polling were the most engaging sections and are worth reading even if you do not dive deep into the geekiest nerdiest polling methodology sections which I struggled to get through.

I am very excited to read Nate Silver's works and see how another pollster tackles writing.

There truly is "Strength in Numbers" this book lands almost as well as it could for its target audience.

[Popup-ch · Rating 3 out of 5]

A history of political polling, from early days of mostly informal straw polls among e.g. conscripts or ilitia, via Gallup to modern computer models.

Recent American (and some European) election polls have had pretty poor results, such as failing to predict Trump's rise to power, or the Brexit referendum. Morris claims that the polls were actually not that far off, and that in any case, polling has advanced from simply trying to predict elections, to providing instant feedback to politicians on specific issues. The main consumers of polls are no longer the media or general public, but instead the proverbial boiler rooms rooms full of spin-doctors and statisticians.

There are some huge lacunae, though. The book focuses almost exclusively on the American history, though, and modern advances, such as the whole Cambridge Analytica scandal is mentioned only in passing.

[Sakura-Chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I won this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway, and this is my honest opinion.

I signed up for this giveaway since I thought the premise for this book sounded interesting. I tried to read the first few chapters and I couldn't really get into this book. I think it's because I'm not that interested in politics to a point where this book would properly appeal to me. Although this book didn't resonate with me personally, I'm convinced that individuals with interests in political science would find this book to be extremely interesting!

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good non-technical overview of the history and mechanics of opinion polling, as well as an argument for the importance of polling. I learned a fair amount of interesting details about the early history, as well as some of the things that were going wrong with survey data in the 90s and 00s when I wasn't particularly aware of them; I do wish the book went deeper at times into some of the case studies.

[Lilly Ruiter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for my Public Opinion politics class, reading the summary provided by goodreads I decided that I truly wanted to read/buy the book. In the end it turned out to be really good! I was very glad that it wasn’t another boring politics book that just throws out a bunch of statistics or facts. Overall I really enjoyed the book and glad that i decided to read the whole thing :)

[Austin Barselau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhat of a rehabilitation of political polling in an era when it has been highly denigrated, as well as a nice jaunt through the history of the industry and recommendations to modernize polling methodologies to minimize error and biases

[Ron Nurmi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A look at the history of polling with an emphasis on the U.S. He discusses the problematic national polls of 2016 & 2020 and how and why they were not as accurate as possible. He then discusses the future of polling and its importance in a successful democracy.

[Deena B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative

[Luke Wiest · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author gives a history of polling. The topic is interesting to me but I'm not so sure I buy the author's premise that polling influences political leaders and the decisions they make.

[Ronell Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book makes polling and statistics meaningful, if not interesting. You'll learn how polling goes awry but why it remains necessary for politics and beyond.

[Raymond Simms · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read this book before and after the 2024 elections and I will say that this book is spot on with polling. We use to count on polls way back when the pollsters thought they had a consensus on who will an election; as this book will point out we have a long way to go and even with the 2024 elections, there is still work to be done with polls. This book is not a bad read if you're really interested in a detail history of polling from its beginnings to now.