What Are Push Polls?

Push polls are political campaigning devices invented and used predominantly in the United States. Usually conducted by telephone, sometimes by real people and sometimes by an automated system, the poll will be presented as an impartial research project. In reality it will have been designed to win support for one or other of the candidate in a forthcoming election.

The effect is achieved by presenting information, which may be truthful or untruthful, in the form of a question. For example, to use an extreme fictional example : if you knew that Tony Blair had been convicted of mass murder while aged 19 but had got off on a technicality, would that make you more or less likely to vote for him?

In the South Carolina primary election to win the Republican nomination for president, George W. Bush used push polling techniques to great effect against rival John McCain, and Bush's political adviser Karl Rove is said to be enamoured of them.