George Gallup

George Gallup was an American statistician and pollster who founded the American Institute of Public Opinion and pioneered scientific public-opinion polling.

Gallup poll: A recurring survey of public opinion conducted by Gallup organizations using sampling and standardized questions. Gallup’s name became attached to the polling system he founded.
Survey sampling: The selection of a subset of a population to estimate characteristics of the whole population. Gallup’s polls relied on samples designed to represent people who were not interviewed.
University of Iowa: A public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, where George Gallup studied and later taught journalism. Gallup’s academic training and early teaching career began there.
Public opinion polling: The systematic use of surveys to estimate the views of a population. Gallup helped establish this practice as a recognizable form of public measurement.
1936 United States presidential election: The election in which Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Alf Landon by a large margin. Gallup correctly predicted Roosevelt’s victory while a mass-circulation magazine poll failed.
Quota sampling: A nonprobability sampling method that fills preset categories to resemble a population’s composition. Gallup used quotas to balance samples across demographic groups.
Journalism: The activity of gathering, assessing, and reporting information about events and issues. Gallup’s early academic career in journalism shaped his interest in measuring public response.
Election forecasting: The use of data and models to predict the outcomes of elections. Gallup’s accurate 1936 prediction made polling a prominent tool for anticipating election results.
Literary Digest poll: A 1936 mail survey that predicted Alf Landon would defeat Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its failure highlighted the value of Gallup’s smaller, more carefully selected samples.
Probability sampling: A sampling method in which each population member has a known chance of selection. Later polling standards favored random selection over Gallup’s quota-based approach.

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