How is it that in the U.S.,surveys of 1,000 are accepted as representative of the entire country?

Question

I’ve noticed most U.S. polls query around 1,000 people and sometimes even less. Somehow that qualifies for headlines like “Americans say…” or “Most Americans…” How is it acceptable that 0.0002% of the population is accepted as representative?

In: Other

Answer 1

Polling – or any attempt at broad general information gathering – is a function of math and statistics. If the audience polled is a fair estimate (through extrapolation) of the population at large then you should get a reliable result.

Something that you may not be accounting for is margin or error. Most statistical analyses state a margin of error, which accounts for any/most/some issues that a small field might throw off.

If you see a poll that states, for example, “margin of error +/- 3-5%” then that’s a lot more reliable than a poll that states “margin of error +/- 10-15%” .