Head or Heart: The conflicts of political polling

This paper discusses some of the flaws and challenges of political polling methods in light of the UK referendum on membership of the European Union and advises on how researchers can make more accurate predictions.

Head or Heart: The conflicts of political polling

Alexander Wheatley

Predicting the future

In the world of market research there are few parties who come in for more scrutiny than the political pollsters. With so much emotion riding on a clear outcome it is understandable that people pay attention.

A large portion of market research essentially revolves around making a prediction and this is no more apparent than in political research. Given that prediction science plays such a huge part in the world of market research, it is unsurprising that as a research upon research department we have added our...

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