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 you have a *really* good sample selection method and can get a member of most relevant demographics in roughly the same proportion as they exist in the united states as a whole (such as, on an issue of race, a sample that’s roughly ~60% Non-Hispanic Whites, ~18% Hispanic, ~12% Black, and ~5% Asian), then you can say that 1000 people are representative of the country.

But even with decent or mediocre sampling methods, 1000 people is still enough to get you roughly in the ballpark of the right answer for your survey, which is good enough for most use-cases. 1000 people averaged together will generally mute most of the more rare, extreme opinions.