Reply #10: I don't see the problem with the word "advocacy" [View All]

Journalists, university professors, employees of research firms, staff of local and statewide candidates and even U.S. representatives and senators have made statements about push polling that reflect a lack of understanding of them. The confusion usually comes from the proper use by campaigns and pollsters of survey questions designed to test negative campaign messages. This practice has been called "push questioning" by Christopher Arterton, dean of George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management, and "negative polling" by Bruce Blakeman, former vice president of The Wirthlin Group's political research division.

"Push questions" are widely used throughout the research industry, whereas push polling is not. Push questions -- as opposed to so-called "push polling" -- are recognized by all the major associations and leading political consultants as a valid and legitimate research tool for the purposes of testing ad messages and examining the collective viewpoints of electorate subgroups.

Political analyst Charlie Cook recently observed that "'Push questions' are asked containing attacks on the candidate sponsoring the poll, to test how vulnerable that candidate may be against anticipated attacks from the other party. These are not only legitimate tools of survey research, but any political pollster who did not use them would be doing their clients a real disservice."

The problem is that the questions used in push polls often sound similar to those used as push questions to test campaign messages in legitimate polls. This is done intentionally to camouflage the true nature of the push poll. As a result, many respondents who are interviewed, opponents who are attacked or journalists covering the race in question often lump push questions and "push polling" together in the same category. Today, pollsters are often accused of conducting push polling when they are, in fact, conducting legitimate research.