Statistics as Evidence: Measuring Presidential Approval – Polling Methods and Accuracy

Statistics as Evidence: Measuring Presidential Approval – Polling Methods and Accuracy

You are to take your own political poll to measure President Trump’s Approval Rating. Your target population is domestic undergraduate Saint Louis University students. Your sample size will be 20. Your assignment is to design a sampling method that is unbiased and representative. Remember that as an interviewer you need to be a neutral “tape recorder” for your subjects, no matter what your personal political views are. Here is the exact wording of the question that you need to ask:

“Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as President?”

Visit the Gallup Presidential Approval Center to provide context for your estimate of Presidential Obama’s approval rating. Look at the tab entitled Historical Trend. How does Obama compare to the other Presidents? Write 200 words. (Change to next one)
“Visit the Gallup Presidential Approval Center to provide context for your estimate of President Obama’s approval rating. Look at the tab entitled Historical Trend. How does Obama compare to the other Presidents? Write 200 words.”

1. Substitute President Trump for President Obama. We’re not analyzing President Obama.
2. There is no tab entitled Historical Trend anymore. Just look at the graphs at the bottom of the page.
http://www.gallup.com/interactives/185273/presidential-job-approval-center.aspx
Read the following article entitled “The Real Story of 2016” by Nate Silver who runs the data journalism site fivethirtyeight. His methods are based on his work with baseball Sabermetrics. (He also has an excellent book called – The Signal and the Noise – if you are looking for a good read.)

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-real-story-of-2016/

Summarize Silver’s article about what went wrong in a 300 word analysis. Do you agree with his analysis? If so why? If not why not? Support your position with credible evidence.

In addition, visit the website RealClearPolitics and investigate their methods. They are a poll aggregator or averager. The person who runs this website is a “conservative.”

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/?state=nwa

Write a 200 word analysis summarizing their methods. You may have to dig further.

Do you think we can trust 538 since Silver is sometimes portrayed as “liberal”? Why or why not? Can you trust Realclearpolitics since it is run by a “conservative?” Why or why not? Construct an argument (See the University of Chicago website on the difference between High School and College writing for further guidance.) about the trustworthiness of these two entities. (Compare and contrast.) Write a 200 word analysis.