Polling was never a neutral force in American politics
Gallup, Inc., perhaps the world’s best-known polling firm, having achieved a kind of Band-Aid level association with the product it produces, last week announced that it will no longer track US presidential approval or the favourability of any political figure. It lands as a dark development, yet another example of institutions rewriting reality for the benefit of the increasingly authoritarian second administration of Donald Trump.
The notion of regular polling on the level of approval apparently enjoyed by politicians, their parties and policies is now so core to how we consume politics that it’s easy to forget that the art is less than 100 years old.
