Morris argues that the larger purpose of political polls is to improved democracy, not just predict persuasively, argued and deeply Research Strength numbers is an essential guide to. Understanding and embracing one of the most important, overlooked Democratic Institute actions in the united states. And the author is a data journalist for the economist, where he writes about american and elections based here in washington, dc and moderating this evening. Were lucky have jamelle bouie, a columnist, the New York Times and political for cbs news. Bouie covers campaigns, Elections National affairs and culture. Previously, the chief political correspondent, slate magazine and a staff writer at the daily beast and held at the american prospect, the nation magazine. Please me in giving a very warm puppy to Elliott Morris and jamelle bouie, thank you both. Hello. Thank is just on. Yeah, i think it is sounds on the air. Okay, great. Thank you for coming. Hello, elliot, for being here. Oh, my pleasure. Nice to meet you in person. Lets get started, because this is a very interesting book and i was sort of riveted while reading it. And i think theres a lot of interesting stuff to check it out. So im to start and sure, youve been asked this question already. Why did you write book . Why did you write what is . Both a defense of polling. A history of polling, but also sort of an affirmative argument for polling place in democratic. Well, i guess it kind of sounds crazy in hindsight to write a book about polls after 2016 and 2020. But im, you know, im not a pollster. Common misconception, but i read, i guess almost, all the polls that are germane to what im covering and an election forecaster. So all the polls are entering those processes of my work. So after the most recent two elections, when are these, you know, catastrophic of how bad polls performed . You know, my research and polling says well, you should, you know, just expect some of these errors x percent of the time or whatever we can get into how those are made later. And so i wanted to write this book, you originally like 2019 about you people are wrong about about the polls heres science and the art of surveys and the forecasts. And so, you know, doing a bunch of reading from the archives of the American Political Science Association and American Society for Public Opinion research, the Academic Research journals for this stuff and what comes across is not like the statistical take about, oh, polls are going to be wrong this percent of the time. Dont trust them. Every single every single poll you read a real deep connection between or a commitment from the pollsters and the polling academics to democracy. And that is what seemed missing from the broader conversation about polls in the media, least serious, especially from where i was sitting as a data journalist. And you know that thats the thread that i pull on throughout the book that is seemed much more interesting to me. And so thats thats what the book became that ill say that that thats the part of the book thats been that was most interesting to me were reading it sort of not just and internet the details of polling and of sort of what various things meant was interesting kind of from the start. I mean, the book opened with a discussion of ancient athens and athenian democracy and of it opens begins with not just a discussion of polling, but a discussion of Public Opinion and what Public Opinion is and sort of the emergence of Public Opinion as a recognized viable part of political life. And i think that there is i like to hear you talk about that as because i think in a modern and modern america and like modern democratic life, we take for granted that there is a thing in the world called Public Opinion, aggregate views of everyone. But this is this is the thing that this is an idea that had to be developed. And you trace its development which i thought was just a fascinating thing to see. Someone actually put out, you know, chronologically. Yes. I mean, like all this seems so connected. How i first learned about polls and Public Opinion was, you know, in my undergraduate government classes or whatever, which also that long ago and, you know and so when im approaching, you know, how am i going to the question of how am i going to explain polls to regular people or, to very sophisticated consumers of polls, both in a new way and in a way that makes a contribution . The democracy angle seems the natural place to start. So if youre only ever consuming polls as predictions, i guess, of an election far in the future, or even as pollsters like to say snapshots in current time, then youre not thinking the broader implication of what youre doing, which is i mean on a fundamental level, like a microcosm of the democratic process, like every time a pollster takes a poll, at least a fair and a fair poll where theyre doing is democracy at level. So theres you know, there are some old quotes. The president of the American Political Science Association in 1995 who says polls are the most rigorous and egalitarian democratic process there is, again, if theyre, you know, being conducted correctly, because they give every Single Person an equal voice in participating in that sort of micro cosmic democratic process. So that begs the question, like, what . What is the democracy . Were all were all fascinated with or participating in in multiple stages. So so thats where the ancient greek History Lesson comes in. And arguably, you could start a history of polling earlier some early parts of the book talk about the first censuses which might go back as far like the babylonian era or maybe even further back than that in china and. You know, there you have the original counting of people, the original enumerations of populations. You know, its a couple ten tens of thousands of years after that before you have the original all democratic societies and you know, the book doesnt get into the whole, you know maybe there are other democracies in greece we dont really about but well leave those the greek historians. And thats thats the start of any philosophizing about government should match the people want it do even though you know they dont have a particularly egalitarian definition of people what have you. You those like versions of democracy very different than the ones we have now. Right. Theres this saying in american politics right now, especially the right, that were not a republic or a democracy or a republic, whatever are they were direct democracies where indirect ones. But, you know, if you have at the time, right. Aristotle even writing that if the people making up a do not feel represented by their government then its evident its going to collapse into a tyranny or in of itself in the chaos. I dont think were close to chaos in america today, although some people might want that. We might arguably closer toward the other end of that. But if youre looking for something deeper in polls, i think thats a thats a good place to start is the real normative meaning there the real democratic process. Right. Sort of the to go back to the behaviors, the about sense a sense sort of even the the mere act of counting lots of people in that way, trying to figure who exist in the community is constituting that community in a way it is helping create and bring that community into being in in the same way the process of polling sort of like the existence of singular Political Community whose goal you want to represent and part of the book, especially in the earlier chapters, is, is working through this question of should the general will even really be represented because this is sort of the this is the recurring question dilemma of American Government like to what extent should the government should general will should the Public Opinion actually represented in the operation of government and theres there is a portion in the midpoint where you quote rogers is is his name Lindsay RogersLindsay Rogers who makes the argument that you know polling is actually quite dangerous because it undermines some of the some of the the deliberate action that the american system is trying to. And so what what i this is a long way of asking have what is your you know what your case for making Public Opinion such an integral part of democratic life like isnt it that we may not we maybe we are a republican democracy but whatever we are deliberations pretty part of the process. So what is what is the relationship of polling and Public Opinion to deliberation so what what ill say is in reading some of the original pollsters George Gallup is a name well all know, but theres others elmo roper, crossley, etc. All of whom you know, are characters in this story of, polling in the book, in reading their work. Lindsay rogers i, i think gives them a you know, misconstrues them pretty heavily. The original pollsters are not saying that the government should do everything that a poll says they are saying in world words that polls should be an advisory referendum and you could think about using them polls as inputs into democratic process. So im a data journalist so think about it and like a model actor where the output is some policy or whatever the inputs are, i guess the quality of certain decisions and the political scientists also say, right, theres this matrix where Interest Groups and activists and Public Opinion and the right decision are all sort of acting in this input into into the into the formula of democracy or government, lets say. And so thats a long way of saying their own. Theyre only one input. Thats thats the position of the first pollsters. And i think the position in my reading and interviewing of pollsters today so you you you know, im certainly not arguing for, again, what sidney verbal would call a government by the survey or by surveys. I thats a horrible idea. Ill put up know that up front the book does not make does not make that case either because that would be particularly to have no deliberation in the process to make decisions based off of what the polls are doing is. Also sucking up a lot of other information. Thats not just what they want or not and not whats good for them. So, right, sometimes arent going to have informed your opinions on things. Sometimes they will have the wrong opinions for them, but other thing that i think we forget polling does is it also gives the government an idea like what policy areas the people need addressing right now so that the questions get are not only, you know, do you support welfare, but are you are you incumbent . Can you afford food . Can you know, does your family have like public transport, get where it needs to go or are you like relying on a broken down car to get places which know would be bad for your quality of life . Do you you need Affordable Health care . If you know, what do you need . So you know, i guess that just raises another question, another point that polls are also not always binary. I mean, the pollsters have what are called open ended responses where people can just, you know, write as much as they want. Thats one of the benefits of modern online polling. And so, you know, all way saying, i think of polls as informative tools that, you know, government leaders could use to better the democratic process in certain ways. But surely rogers has some points that are right, that if you have a government by survey, theres also a lot of danger that comes from that. But i dont think any pollster im certainly not arguing for that. Theres this interesting problem with, the american political system as it currently is, you know, we have only one interest. Theres only one interesting problem. There are there are many interesting problems in china. Interesting. The right word for that. But there are number of problems. And one of them, i think, relates to this, which is that, you know, the u. S. System, the house has been the same size for almost 100 years. The senate has obviously 100 members and population. The us is 330 million plus people. And so its sort of inherent difficult for even the most attentive representatives to really get a good sense of whats going on in their district, whats going on in their state, and certainly for whats going on with the country in the polling can obviously serve this purpose of supplementing for but then you do still get question of how to decide once you have the information and im just sort of are your thoughts about sort of how how unbalances Public Opinion against these other concerns in the interest have an anecdote in the book about lincoln would convene groups of ordinary people in the white house during the civil war to kind of get their idea a vibe check right with with the common man but his Public Opinion backs right yeah i always as a sort of i like all lincoln stories like that because it seems like you seemed like a really dude. Honestly. But thats to say that lincoln would take in this information, but then hed also have to balance whole host of concerns, political concerns, concerns about sort of what he actually are as president are, and then come to a decision to what, you know, im just curious in terms of the actual making process, once you have the polling information. Yeah, well, it might help to think over the counterfactual modern where we dont have polls. So and maybe on a certain policy so to take like gun control right Public Opinion polls today say you know 80 or 90 of the public support universal background checks. And, you know we can have a whole debate about whether or not the polls are representing referendum results or whatever. I think that theyre representing something properly. And 60 or so of the of the country, maybe 5 , depending on how you ask the question again. Right. Its how you do a good pose a thorny subject support banning assault weapons without polling all we really know is that theres never been a proper vote since 2013 on universal background checks and neither a majority or minority in the senate or the house has taken up an assault weapons ban. As you know, full throated supported position since 2004 when the assault weapons ban expired. And so youre left a picture of Public Opinion as informed through the outputs policy that theres no reasonable level of support for these. Two things. Polling tells us that there is so you know. However, legislators are using that information as inputs into their processes are. We can determine that by whatever differences we observe in policy now that counterfactual, i guess, is thats thats one way to think about it. And that would tell us that, um, you know, some are listening to Public Opinion now, i guess, you know, to go back to rogerss criticism and verbose quotes, but we wouldnt expect politician, say, a house member from a district to represent their constituents on every decision, especially if an issue 50. 1 or whatever. Assuming polls can be that precise, which they cant support for back for background checks. But we would would want them to take the publics opinion into account without polls. Guess they can have Public Opinion backs but you cant. Whats the average size of a constituency now . Almost 700,000 people cant have all of them in your office in congress. Right . Rayburns already small enough and. Youre going to get Interest Groups calling your activists, giving you skewed perceptions also. So this is admittedly a hard question to answer. How are leaders actually about this information . But thats because its not its not the only input. So one other anecdote, one of the first examples we have and that the book tells a story of is the 1960 president ial campaign, when John F Kennedy contracts with the first example of a microtargeting here, which is like company that can tell you how different groups are going to vote based on studying Public Opinion data, the actual interviews that they used is by, you know, funny, funny stories that they come from Gallup Survey data that, you know, collects like 20 years earlier. And they do a bunch statistical math that, like, makes conclusions suspect in certain ways and the book tells you why you wouldnt to do that and they are contracted by kennedy and the dnc to come up with this to answer this question which if John F Kennedy makes a speech embracing a some of Civil Rights Act will do better with voters in the northeast black voters and. So they have to, you know, conduct these simulations. They have to semiautomatics being they thats the corporation thats contracted to do the microtargeting they have to take their information from gallup and run it through early computer so theyre like programing every single americans vote and feeling on civil rights on like fortran cards on index cards that you would feed into a computer you dont just type on your laptop back then those computers would fill this whole room and extracting an answer and they tell John F Kennedy yes you should embrace a civil rights in some sort of speech for electoral purposes and you know, at the same time, hes getting canceled every which way from, you know, his brother from other political actors and from his pollster, lou harris, who disagrees. Samuel maddox so even there, what is the Public Opinion at, the time for John F Kennedy on civil rights polls are already sort of offering a muddied signal. So thats a long winded way of saying, you know, we dont we dont expect even right now people to m