Why Did The Polls Get It Wrong In 1992?

Why Did the Polls Get it Wrong in 1992?

Opinion polls play a major role in politics, they can be used by the Government to decide when to call and election, and, among other things, how their pre- election campaigns are run. Throughout the history of opinion polling, from the time when polling began to be widely used before an election, in 1945, until
1987, the last general election before 1992, the polls have on average been correct to within 1.3% of the vote share between the three leading parties, and the 'other' category (Crewe, 1992, p. 478). This puts all the previous opinion polls well within the +/-3% margin of error. Because of the past accuracy of opinion polling, the system has had great credibility and has always been trusted, both by the public, and political parties. The way polling forecasts can affect the way people vote is very dramatic, this is because they can be a
'self fulfilling prophecy', in that some voters like to back the 'winning team', and others only vote for a party they feel has a real chance. This was demonstrated in 1983, when the Alliance, frustrated with the media concentrating only on their position in the polls, leaked their own private polls to the press, resulting in a late surge of support (Crewe, 1992, p.478).

Britain generally has a much greater number of opinion polls carried out than in other countries, this is due to the large number of national newspapers, and the amount of current affairs programming on television. The period prior to the
1992 general election saw a much greater intensity of opinion polling than ever before. During the 29 days between the date of the announcement of the actual election date, 11th March, and the election date itself, 9th April, there were a total of no less than 57 national opinion polls.

The 1992 election will always be remembered as the one the pollsters got wrong, during the lead up to the election, they almost all showed Labour ahead of the
Tories. Of the four polls carried out in the two days prior to the actual election date, all of them pointed to a hung parliament; one put the
Conservatives 0.5% ahead, one put Labour and the Tories neck and neck, the other two showed Labour ahead by a narrow margin (Crewe, 1992, p. 8). On the actual day of the election, exit polls carried out by the BBC and ITN both showed there would be a hung parliament, although both of them had the Conservatives slightly ahead. They were both not far from the actual Conservative 43%, and Labour 35%,