Public Opinion: The People's Influence on Policy

What is public opinion?
- The aggregate beliefs and attitudes of some portion of adults (ex.
  all voters, white voters, swing voters, suburban voters)
    - Pretty much a political science metric
- Expressed opinion differs from "real opinion"
    - People lie about their preferenc
    - Sometimes people don't even know until the day of!
- The first poll was 1824
    - "Straw polls" - unscientific and unrepresentative
        - Pretty private, but only tells you the average belief of
          whomever took the poll; ex. twitter polls
        - Literary Digest 1916-1916
            - 100% accurate up until 1936, when predicted Alf Landon
                - Big selection bias: the only people who could buy the
                  mag were rich and Republican.
    - Each election, pollsters modify polls on possible selection bias.

- We are measuring "Political Socialization"
    - Socialization: the process by which individuals acquire beliefs
      and attitudes
Sources of Socialization
1) Family
- Most significant influence because you're "trapped" here as a kid
    - By five years old, kids have political leanings
    - People share opinions
    - Children imitate their parents
    - Personality
        - Not necessarily specific policy, but values and norms
    - You inherit social and economic networks from your parents
    - Positive perception -> more imitation. Worse home environment ->
      less inheritance of ideas
    - Your ideas are not immutable of your parents
2) Education
    - Your first influence outside the home
    - Promote patriotic rituals
        - Pledge of allegiance
        - School clubs and democracy (ex Illinois had students choose
          state bird)
        - Textbooks promote the status quo ("neutral")
    - Academia's Liberal (anti-status quo) Influence
        - This is only higher education, after you have been exposed to
          the status quo, and it's largely overblown
    - Students reflect popular opinion
    - Still some parental control, like private school
3) Peers and peer groups
    - Who is "like you"
    - Dr Rich, ex, has his local peer group, his work peer group, which
      doesn't care much about student debt because that doesn't affect
      his peers.
    - Reinforces existing beliefs, making it harder to leave
4) Religious influences
    - Less influential at large, but those with these beliefs are super
      impacted by this
    - Political scientists measure religiosity in terms of church
      attendance frequency
5) Economic status/occupation
    - Political analysis, national security, ex. have a right-center
      bias
    - Taxes are supported by government employees, disliked by other ppl
    - More money typically -> more conservative
6) Political Events
    - Sep 11 and the War on Terror
    - Maybe support for popular vote
7) Leaders
    - Formal leaders have a (small) impact, like press releases or news
        - Rich's college roommate had a poster of Reagan.
        - Trump's got a big positive/negative impact
    - Informal (mostly community) leaders have a bigger impact: trust,
      commitment, proximity
8) Media
    - The more sources, the less bias
    - We stick with the stuff we like
    - Low on this list because it is very low impact.
9) Demographic traits
    - Minor impact
    - However, it is a pretty good metric for communities that have
      similar beliefs and bigger analysis
10) Gender gap
    - Women are more left-leaning
    - Possibly a bit biological
    - But there's a lot of socialized ideological differences that are
      largely captured by other social variables

- George Gallop, early scientific political pollster
    - 4 or 5 percentage points off an election prediction
    - Believed polling enhances the democratic process
    - Brings people back into the process
        1 Year-round, even outside of election years (for politicians)
        2 Polling weakens the power of interest groups
        3 Indicates broad preferences, which initiate policies
            - Like George W Bush proposing to privatize Social Security
        4 Feedback on policy choices