| Term | Definition |
|---|
| public opinion | what the public thinks about a particular issue or set of issues at any point in time |
| public opinion polls | interviews or surveys with samples of citizens that are used to estimate the feelings and beliefs of the entire population |
| straw polls | unscientific surveys used to gauge public opinion on a variety of issues and policies |
| political socialization | the process through which an individual acquires particular political orientations; the learning process by which people aquire their political beliefs and values |
| political idealogy | an individuals coherent set of values and beliefs about the purpose and scope of government |
| random sampling | a method of poll selection that gives each person in a group the same change of being selected |
| stratified sampling | a variation of random sampling; census data are used to divide a country into four sampling regions, sets of counties and standard metropolitian satistical areas are then randomly selected in proportion to the total national population |
| push polls | polls taken for the purpose of providing information on an opponent that would lead respondants to vote against that candidate |
| tracking polls | continuous surveys that enable a campaign to chart its daily rise or fall in support |
| exit polls | polls conducted at selected polling places on Election Day |
| margin of error | sampling error where a measure of the accuracy of a public opinion poll |
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