Opinion polling has a long history in American politics. On July 24, 1824, a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania newspaper reported on a "straw" poll taken "without discrimination of parties" which indicated that Andrew Jackson was the popular choice for U.S. President over John Quincy Adams. As it turned out, Jackson did receive the most electoral votes. However, Jackson did not have at least 50 percent of the electoral votes, so the election was decided by the U.S. House of Representatives. The methods used by the Harrisburg newspaper to take the poll are not known. Modern statistical theories on opinion polling had not yet been invented.

Scientific methods for measuring public opinion had to wait for advances in the mathematical topics of probability theory and statistics, and the technique of sampling. These advances came in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Random Sampling

In 1935, George Gallup founded the...