How George Gallup changed political polling forever

David Ogilvy once worked for the man who created the Gallup Poll

In 1938, when Ogilvy came to the United States, he started working for George Gallup’s Audience Research Institute in New Jersey. He took his learnings with him through the rest of his career, including during World War II, when Ogilvy worked with the Intelligence Service at the British Embassy in Washington.

Here are some tips from Pew Research to help you distinguish between a good poll and an unreliable one.

The worst election polling fails in US history

Presidential pollsters in the US have had some embarrassing failures. Here’s a catalog of those miscalls, from the scholar who literally wrote the book on them.

The idea that the median estimate of a group can be more accurate than individual expert estimates is called the 'wisdom of the crowd,' and dates back to the early 1900s.

Travel in time to how people felt about major US events

Pollsters track more than just politics: From civil rights to war declarations, go back and see how people felt about major events in the US with this timeline.

Hear how gerrymandering is like 'Moneyball applied to politics'

In a 2016 interview, journalist David Daley explained how Republicans used data-driven targeting after the 2010 census to lock in durable advantages, comparing modern gerrymandering strategies to the analytics revolution in baseball.

Modern prediction markets—the platforms where people can trade bets that pay out depending on certain event outcomes—started in Iowa in 1988.

How political campaigns use your data

What do campaigns know about US voters, and how do they use that information to shape their strategies during elections? US political campaigns base their strategies and tactics on data collected from more than 200 million voting-age Americans. This visualization by Reuters breaks down how data firms create national databases of voter files, collecting information from a variety of sources to create detailed voter profiles and how political campaigns use that data.

Joseph Pulitzer created modern journalism

Long before there was cable news, there were newspapers, and Joseph Pulitzer was their king. A Hungarian immigrant, Pulitzer began his career as a reporter himself before buying a newspaper that he could shape with his editorial vision. Pulitzer's papers were bold, provocative, and visually striking, setting a new standard for newspapers nationwide as they moved into the 20th century.

See the results of all 59 presidential elections from 1789 to 2024

This interactive tool lets users explore the outcomes of every US presidential election from George Washington's uncontested 1789 victory through 2024, showing how electoral votes, state results, and shifting coalitions shaped each race.

How Americans have voted throughout history

From shouting candidates’ names, to hanging chads to electronic scanning, the nature of voting has a long, sometimes bumpy history in the United States. See descriptions and images in chronological order with this digestible timeline.

Joseph Pulitzer mainstreamed yellow journalism

One way Joseph Pulitzer revolutionized the newspaper industry was by developing an approach to reporting that relied on sensationalism and could be a little loose with the facts. Pulitzer and rival William Randolph Hearst pushed that sensationalism to the next level in their competition to attract readers.

The 2024 US presidential election was a breakthrough moment for prediction markets

Founded in 2018 by MIT graduates, Kalshi won a federal appeals court ruling in October 2024 that allowed it to offer election contracts in the US. When prediction markets predicted President Donald Trump's win (more accurately than most polls), prediction markets were thrust into the public eye.

Google Search trends reveal truths about society that traditional surveys miss

Studies of human behavior show that survey respondents may lie to present themselves more favorably. By studying anonymous search data, researchers have uncovered hidden racism, mental health struggles, and interest in taboo or stigmatized topics.

Latest polls on the 2024 Presidential election

The latest polls for the 2024 Presidential Election. Updated daily, includes state and national polls for every matchup, including Biden, Harris, Trump, and DeSantis.

Jules Feiffer revolutionized the political cartoon

Feiffer’s drawings for various newspapers functioned less as entertainment and more as editorial, skewering popular beliefs and accepted dogmas. In 1986, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his work.

Nixon's landslide in the 1972 presidential election

Despite the Watergate break-in becoming public in June 1972, voters largely shrugged it off. On Nov. 7, 1972, Richard Nixon still achieved a historic landslide—winning 520 out of 538 electoral votes, carrying 49 states—making it one of the largest Electoral College victories in US history.

Understand the US electorate demographics

Ever wonder how much of each group make up the American voting bloc? Find raw data from the '16 and '18 elections broken out by a variety of factors (click on "validated voters database" link).

Striking demographic trends from 2022

This article lists the 15 most striking research findings by Pew Research Center in 2022. The topics highlighted represent a sample of the Center’s research, compiled through surveys. Findings examine public opinion around the biggest news events...

Phil Spector's 'wall of sound' revolutionized girl groups—and pop music

The method captured a room of live musicians and transmitted the sound into a basement outfitted with more speakers and microphones. That sound was then sent into the central control room, producing a massive recording that sounded unlike anything else in pop music.

Explore a comprehensive archive of US presidential election data

This University of California, Santa Barbara archive compiles presidential election data from 1789 to the present, including popular vote totals, turnout figures, and contextual resources that explain how the electoral process and political landscape have evolved.

The 2020 and 2024 elections ranked among the highest-turnout contests in over a century

Voter turnout reached 66% in 2020—the highest since 1908—and 64% in 2024, tied for second-highest with 1960. In 2024, Trump benefited from higher turnout among his prior voters and new voters.

Some novel ideas to improve presidential debates

The first televised presidential debates of 1960 were seemingly so consequential, candidates opted not to participate in one for 16 years. In the last 60 years, debate format has changed frequently as the political parties and news outlets vie for rules to either protect candidates or increase TV ratings. In this brief video, one expert suggests five interesting innovations to the debate format to make them more informative for the average US voter.

The rise of the campaign speech

What compels an audience shifts over time, meaning yesterday's popular speeches might not go over the same way if delivered today. However, impactful campaign speeches across time share some qualities, including taking the audience seriously, inviting listeners to engage with or respond to presented materials, and using everyday, informal language. Additionally, US political candidates typically promote themselves in their speeches, an approach initially considered vulgar in Australia and Britain.

Stand-up comedy podcasts have realigned political campaigns

Some of the world’s most popular podcasts, like “The Joe Rogan Experience” and “This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von,” are hosted by stand-up comedians. They also now play a role in American politics, with representatives, senators, and even presidents taking part in their freewheeling conversations

Before the BCS and Playoff systems, polls often sparked controversy over college football champions

For decades, national titles were awarded by polls like the AP and Coaches’ rankings—leading to split championships, heated debates, and disputed claims whenever top teams finished with identical records.

The first algorithmic random number generator was developed in 1946

Although previous methods of randomness involved physical tools with limited outcomes, such as dice, or relied on chaotic variables for number generation, such as electronic noise, John Von Neumann's middle-square method turned the problem into a mathematical computation. It has since been replaced by methods that generate numbers from unique initial values, such as the time on a clock.

Visualize every time Congress has mentioned the word 'democracy' since 1880, and why

This Pudding interactive analyzes every mention of "democracy" in the Congressional Record over 145 years, charting how the word shifted from a partisan label to a concept, and tracking when lawmakers warned the system itself was under threat.

William James laid the foundation for psychology as a scientific discipline in the US

Though initially trained in painting, James would help establish Harvard's psychology department as a distinct science rather than an extension of philosophy. He taught one of the first psychology courses in America and is credited as one of the founders of American Pragmatism.

Donald Trump redefined presidential communication in the social media age

Trump used platforms like Twitter (now X) to bypass traditional media, announce policy, and confront opponents directly. His online presence reshaped political messaging, blurred the line between official and personal communication, and transformed how presidents engage the public.

How demographics influence voter turnout and elections

This article breaks down demographic data to show what it means for American elections. According to the latest US Census, the US is growing increasingly diverse. As the population becomes more diverse, so does the electorate. Analyzing the...

Modern presidential primaries now span months before conventions formalize nominees

In 2020, the major parties selected nominees through 64 primary and caucus contests held over 22 days. Until the 1960s, most nominees were chosen by party leaders at conventions rather than through widespread primaries.

A 1930s card game birthed modern fantasy sports

"National Pastime" used the statistics of real Major League Baseball players to determine a winner, creating the template for the modern fantasy sports model.

Winning Pulitzers doesn't attract readers to newspapers.

Red and blue election maps are a modern media invention

The red–blue color scheme used on election night maps emerged in the 20th century as television networks adopted color graphics to make results easier to follow. The association of red with Republicans and blue with Democrats later became standardized.

Thomas Hofeller was the GOP strategist known as the 'master of gerrymandering'

Republican consultant Thomas Hofeller quietly shaped US politics for decades by engineering partisan maps nationwide. His files, released after his death, revealed strategies to maximize GOP advantage and diminish Democratic influence.

How March Madness bracketology became a national obsession

An estimated 60 million people fill out March Madness brackets yearly, despite a one in 9.2 quintillion chance of filling it out perfectly. This Smithsonian magazine article explores how UCLA's dominance in the 1960s and '70s made brackets boring and predictable, and how the expansion to 64 teams and putting games on TV played a huge role in popularizing March Madness brackets.

In the wake of the Great Depression, a Russian-American economist named Simon Kuznets popularized the formula for gross domestic product to summarize the health of the economy and provide the American government with a metric to track growth.

Test your gerrymandering skills with this interactive game

This simulation demonstrates how packing and cracking alter election outcomes. See how shifting district lines can change representation—regardless of the overall makeup of the electorate.

Voting rights expanded from 6% of Americans in 1789 to nearly all adult citizens today.

A technological breakthrough altered how Billboard determined what was popular.

Watergate led to the prosecution of nearly 50 individuals

Watergate ushered in sweeping changes. Agencies were required to release information openly; officials had to disclose finances transparently; and new laws limited conflicts of interest, established independent ethics oversight, and safeguarded presidential records—curbing abuse and boosting accountability.

Franklin D. Roosevelt used radio to connect directly with Americans through his 'Fireside Chats'

Beginning in 1933, FDR harnessed the new medium of radio to explain policies and reassure the public during the Great Depression and World War II. His conversational fireside chats revolutionized presidential communication.

George Washington was an expert in maps and cartography

Trained as a surveyor, Washington routinely studied, annotated, and drew maps throughout his life. He relied on cartography to navigate frontier lands, plan military campaigns across vast distances, and make strategic decisions on borders, settlement, and governance.

Walter Camp revolutionized American Football

When Walter Camp was introduced to the game of football in the late 1800s, the rules weren’t set, the field wasn’t uniform, and the game was brutal. Camp joined early rules committees and was instrumental in shaping the modern game. Read this deep dive into Camp’s early life and influences, and find out how he established the line of scrimmage and the series of downs.

Exciting US primary debate moments from history

Presidential debates in the US are highly-touted events viewed as the capstone of a campaign, but their impact on the overall polling is often undetectable. Nonetheless, the televised events can be really entertaining as candidates sweat under the pressure of a live mass audience, and most morning after news round-ups contain some of the event's notable—or cringey—moments. Here's a quick, three-minute video of highlights of some of the more fascinating moments from US primaries.

Will Rogers' political humor was an early predecessor to stand-up

Rogers got his start spinning ropes for circus shows and broke through his association with Florence Zeigfeld's Follies and Frolic. It was his humorous political commentary, though, that would solidify his celebrity status. His goodhearted ribbing of society's "big men" predated the common notion of stand-up comedians as truth-telling jesters.

The life of Edward Lorenz, who originally used a seagull in his 'butterfly effect' metaphor

By accidentally finding that rounding one variable to its third decimal place and re-running a weather simulation produced a drastically different two-month forecast, the American mathematician established the field of chaos theory. His paper—"Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set off a Tornado in Texas?"—introduced the well-known metaphor for the behavior of chaotic systems. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

The breakthrough that changed our perception of the universe

In the 1920s, the Hooker Telescope helped Edwin Hubble make a discovery that forever changed how we see the universe. Building on the work of astronomers like Henrietta Leavitt and Harlow Shapley, Hubble used the telescope to prove that galaxies exist beyond the Milky Way—revealing a vast and expanding universe.

The attacks prompted a quick jump in American public support for war

In a Gallup poll taken days after the attack, an extraordinary 97% of Americans approved Congress declaring war on Japan—reflecting overwhelming national unity in the wake of the strike.