The general election of 2004: Opinion polls and the eventual results

Abstract

The earliest political polls took place in America in 1824 in an attempt to assess the outcome of the forthcoming presidential election in which John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson were the candidates. These first attempts to quantify electors' intentions were an unscientific extension of normal journalistic soundings. No attempts were made to ensure that a representative sample was taken, but they provoked interest and caught the eye of politicians.

By the end of the nineteenth century, polling methods were more refined and, no doubt, under the influence of social enquiries of a more academic nature, consideration was given to the representativeness of the sample.