Nonpartisan research firm Gravis Marketing
conducted a national poll on October 20 for One America News Network (OANN), a
conservative cable news television channel.
Bias in the Numbers
Analysts should proceed
with caution when using this data. FiveThirtyEight’s
pollster ratings of historical accuracy, statistical bias, and methodology of
research found that Gravis has a bias towards Republican candidates, in line
with sponsor OANN’s political bias. In the poll, 40 percent of voters said they
represented the Democratic party, 33 percent represented the Republican party,
and 27 percent represented the Independent party.
Methodology Considerations
Gravis used automated
telephone calls to reach about 2,100 registered voters. Pollsters try for
randomly selected samples, but older Americans
tend to respond better to automated calls. More older Americans use landline
phones, which are easier to use for responding to surveys. Older voters were
prevalent in the recent poll.
Other concerns include
losing a younger audience that will not listen to an automated recording. In an
effort to combat this potential skew in the results, Gravis weights the polling
participants by anticipated voting demographics. Also, automated recordings get
more declines overall, and this is hard to account for with weighting.
There are some benefits to
automated polling, though.
The absence of an
interviewer also has its perks. The questions asked will remain consistent
across interviews. In addition, research shows that people will even respond
more honestly when they do not have to share their answers with a person
directly.
by Katrine Ryan
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