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== History ==
The first known example of an opinion poll was a tallies of voter preferences reported by the ''Raleigh Star and North Carolina State Gazette'' and the ''Wilmington American Watchman and Delaware Advertiser'' prior to the [[1824 United States presidential election|1824 presidential election]],<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Tankard|first=James W.|date=1972|title=Public Opinion Polling by Newspapers in the Presidential Election Campaign of 1824|journal=Journalism Quarterly|language=en-US|volume=49|issue=2|pages=361–365|doi=10.1177/107769907204900219|s2cid=144801377|issn=0022-5533|quote=The earliest forerunners of the modern public opinion poll appear to be tallies of voter preferences reported by the Raleigh ''Star and North Carolina State Gazette'' and the Wilmington ''American Watchman and Delaware Advertiser'' prior to the presidential election of 1824. A study of the background of the election shows these polling efforts were a natural outgrowth of a campaign involving the voters’ first real choice of a president and four colorful candidates. Some researchers have attributed the origins of polling to other papers and other historical periods. Some have credited the ''Harrisburg Pennsylvanian'' and the ''Raleigh Star'', or the ''Pennsylvanian'' alone, with reporting the first public opinion poll. Others give much later dates for the first poll, mentioning a ''Chicago Record'' survey during the 1896 presidential campaign and the ''New York Herald'' election forecasts prior to 1900. '''It now appears that the ''Pennsylvanian'' merely was reporting the results of the ''American Watchman'' poll, so that credit for the first polls should go to the ''Watchman'' and the ''Star''.'''}}</ref> showing [[Andrew Jackson]] leading [[John Quincy Adams]] by 335 votes to 169 in the contest for the [[United States Presidency]]. Since Jackson won the popular vote in that state and the whole country, such straw votes gradually became more popular, but they remained local, usually citywide phenomena. In 1916, ''[[The Literary Digest]]'' embarked on a national survey (partly as a circulation-raising exercise) and correctly predicted [[Woodrow Wilson]]'s election as president. Mailing out millions of [[postcard]]s and simply counting the returns, ''The Literary Digest'' correctly predicted the victories of [[Warren Harding]] in 1920, [[Calvin Coolidge]] in 1924, [[Herbert Hoover]] in 1928, and [[Franklin Roosevelt]] in 1932.
Then, in [[1936 United States presidential election|1936]], its survey of 2.3 million voters suggested that [[Alf Landon]] would win the presidential election, but Roosevelt was instead re-elected by a landslide. [[George Gallup]]'s research found that the error was mainly caused by [[participation bias]]; those who favored Landon were more enthusiastic about returning their postcards. Furthermore, the postcards were sent to a target audience who were more affluent than the American population as a whole, and therefore more likely to have [[United States Republican Party|Republican]] sympathies.<ref name="squire">{{Cite web|last=Squire|first=Peverill|date=1988|title=Why the 1936 Literary Digest Poll Failed|url=https://issuu.com/chilesoc/docs/why-the-1936-literary-digest-poll|access-date=2020-11-15|work=Public Opinion Quarterly|language=en|archive-date=2022-01-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220104053033/https://issuu.com/chilesoc/docs/why-the-1936-literary-digest-poll|url-status=live}}</ref> At the same time, Gallup, [[Archibald Crossley]] and [[Elmo Roper]] conducted surveys that were far smaller but more scientifically based, and all three managed to correctly predict the result.<ref name=":0">{{Citation|last=Dietrich|first=Bryce J.|title=Crossley, Archibald (1896–1985)|date=2008|url=http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/survey/n118.xml|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods|pages=170–171|place=Thousand Oaks|publisher=SAGE Publications, Inc.|doi=10.4135/9781412963947|isbn=9781412918084|access-date=2021-05-22|archive-date=2021-05-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210523020215/http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/survey/n118.xml|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="cantril">{{cite web |last1=Cantril |first1=Hadley |first2=Mildred |last2=Strunk |year=1951 |url=https://www.questia.com/read/98754561?title=Public%20Opinion%2c%201935-1946 |title=Public Opinion, 1935–1946 |publisher=Princeton University Press |page=vii |access-date=2017-09-07 |archive-date=2009-06-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090629104413/http://www.questia.com/read/98754561?title=Public%20Opinion%2C%201935-1946 |url-status=live }}</ref> ''The Literary Digest'' soon went out of business, while polling started to take off.<ref name=":0"/> Roper went on to correctly predict the two subsequent reelections of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. [[Louis Harris]] had been in the field of public opinion since 1947 when he joined the Elmo Roper firm, then later became partner.
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