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

If it’s entirely random, like randomly drawn social security numbers or other things for non social security owners and enforcement to participate sorta like the census letter you get in the mail, I think it’s pretty accurate. If it’s on a website or a news channel or people in a certain, it’s not going to be accurate even if it’s randomly called landline phones that’s not an accurate representation because certain types of people don’t even have one