The recent elections in the United States have highlighted several questions about well entrenched principles in election campaign management. One such election tool being criticized is the opinion poll or survey. Most political polls for the 2024 elections showed a close race for the presidential race and most even saw at least a popular-vote victory for Democrat Kamala Harris. Contrary to the predictions of the said polls, Trump won both the electoral college and the popular vote by more than 3 million votes. Many commentators, talk show hosts, and amateur analysts quickly vilified the entire polling community and called to question the reliability and relevance or polls and surveys in general. In our country, many dime store political pundits have now also begun questioning surveys in general again. Did the polls really get it totally wrong? Are surveys and polls still reliable in general and more especially are polls still okay for the Philippine setting? With the 2025 elections coming up in our country, this question is quite both germane and relevant.
First of all, there is always a margin of error in polls and surveys. Though Trump convincingly won in the US elections, the result was still within the polls’ margin of error which is 2.2 percent. What is a margin of error? It is the statistical probability of error in the polls. As such, in surveys if you are behind or ahead by your opponent but within the margin error then there is a probability that it could go either way. The larger the margin of error means the larger probability that the survey results are wrong. Based on the margin of error, then the US polls were technically not incorrect. It is actually the fault of the user of the said polls when they categorically predicted a victory when the margin of error clearly showed that victory was clearly not assured.
Second, there is a theory that is somewhat supported by some data. The theory is that some voters in the US who are alleged to be Trump voters do not in general engage actively in polling while people who are inclined to vote for Democrats are more engaged or more likely to participate in polls. As such, it is posited that Trump supporters were underrepresented in the polls. In the Philippines, there is no engagement hesitation similar to the US.
Third, polls in the US are mostly done through landline phone calls, cellphones, or online. In the Philippines, surveys are still generally done face to face. Poll specialists in general consider fact to face surveys more accurate than alternative methods.
In fine, many experts still believe that polls and surveys are still reliable tools for the next Philippine elections. Surveys are still the best way to scientifically gauge voter preference in both national and local elections. I personally would recommend that candidates for the local and national elections next year should still use baseline and monitoring surveys to guide their campaigns.
