A pollster under oath

Josh Gerstein
Politico
10/2/2012

…In May, the pollster for Al Gore’s presidential bid in 2000 and John Edwards’s in 2004 and 2008, Harrison Hickman, took the stand in the federal criminal case against Edwards over alleged campaign finance violations stemming from payments to support Edwards’s mistress.

Under oath, Hickman admitted that in the final weeks of Edwards’s 2008 bid, Hickman cherry-picked public polls to make the candidate seem viable, promoted surveys that Hickman considered unreliable, and sent e-mails to campaign aides, Edwards supporters and reporters which argued that the former senator was still in the hunt —even though Hickman had already told Edwards privately that he had no real chance of winning the Democratic nomination.

“They were pounding on me for positive information. You know, where is some good news we can share with people? We were monitoring all these polls and I was sending the ones that were most favorable because [campaign aides] wanted to share them with reporters,” Hickman testified on May 14 at the trial in Greensboro, N.C. “We were not finding very much good news and I was trying to give them what I could find.”…

Read the entire article at Politico.

Related:  Gallup vs. David Axelrod: A Tale of Partisan Threats and Poll Results 

A Department of Justice lawsuit filed against Gallup Polling in August is becoming increasingly politicized as former Obama senior advisor David Axelrod has recently jumped in the fray adding partisan threats and complicating the lawsuit.

The DOJ joins former Gallup staffer, Michael Lindley, in allegations that Gallup intentionally over-billed the federal government for contract work, and this type of qui tam lawsuit empowers employees to report fraud with the incentive that they will receive some portion of the settlement…

Update: The Truth About Polling: Yes, Romney Is Probably Tied or Winning

Knowing the nuts and bolts of polling science leads to this rational conclusion.

Comments are closed.

Categories