How to read a poll result properly
Five habits that separate a useful reading of a poll from a misleading one.
Every poll result is a small argument about the world. Reading it well takes a few habits.
1. Start with the question, not the chart
Wording shapes answers more than almost anything else. A question that offers two options will always look more decisive than one that offers five.
2. Check the size of the gap
A twenty-point gap is a story. A two-point gap is a coin flip with extra steps.
3. Ask who was in the room
An audience that self-selects into a poll is not the general public. That does not make the result useless — it makes it a measurement of that audience.
4. Watch movement over time
One result is a photograph. A series of results is a film, and the film is almost always more informative.
5. Resist the headline instinct
The most quotable reading of a result is rarely the most accurate one. If a number surprises you, the first question should be "what else would explain this?"
Apply these five and you will read almost any poll — ours included — more accurately than most commentary does.