Iowa Politics with Jeff Stein -- Mon. Oct. 26, 2026

Not what George Gallup intended.

I'm Jeff Stein with today's Iowa Politics Report.

When George Horace Gallup was born in Jefferson, Iowa in November of 1901, mass media was limited to newspapers and magazines.

Radio was nearly two decades in the future.

Gallup wound up being on the front lines of the evolving media landscape, including advertising and public relations.

But in order to shape public opinion, you had to know how the public felt.

George Gallup first got involved with polling in 1932 when his mother-in-law was running for Secretary of State in Iowa.

She won as part of the 1932 Democrat landslide and soon after Gallup formed his first polling company, the American Institute of Public Opinion.

It ultimately became known as the Gallup Organization with its signature product, the Gallup Poll.

George Gallup had figured out a way to more scientifically study people.

His work, correctly predicting the 1936 presidential election, was based on surveying 50,000 selectively chosen respondents.

And it turned out to be more accurate than a magazine that used two million more random questionnaires submitted by the public.

But that was a very different time.

Polling today has gotten a bad rap, much of it deserved.

With any poll before looking at the results, in my mind you need to read the fine print to determine things.

For example, who is conducting the poll?

Do they work for one party's candidates exclusively?

You also need to know how long a time period was used because polling over a long period of time and numerous news cycles is less accurate.

How many people were surveyed helps determine the margin of error and anything above 3% is suspect.

The method to get answers is important, landline phone, cell phone, online, or a mix.

And finally, how are the questions phrased?

It's been said that a good pollster can generate whatever results a client wants simply by how the questions are asked.

The polling industry was respected when Gallup was in his prime in the pre-Watergate era.

Not so much these days, and I'd say largely because how this is being handled is not what George Gallup intended.

And that's the Iowa Politics Report for Monday, October 26th on Twitter, Instagram, Gitter, Threads and Truth Social at Iowa Politics.

I'm Jeff Stein on News Talk 1540, KXEL.