Gallup, who had pursued a PhD in psychology and worked in ad research, thought straw polls were nonsense. Really, you were just surveying the type of people who read the newspaper, cut something out and mailed it. In her memoir “Personal History,” Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham wrote about her father, then-publisher Eugene Meyer, taking interest in his new polling method. His political polls were carried in more than 100 newspapers, and he had spawned competitors, primarily pollsters Elmo Roper and Archibald Crossley. … We should all get together now and make a country in which everybody can eat turkey whenever he pleases.”

Source: Washington Post November 05, 2020 12:22 UTC