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Scientific polling organizations have grown in scope and size since their introduction in the 1930's with the well known Gallup, Roper, Harris polls and others. The sites included in this guide focus heavily on those concerning general public polls, especially those whose formats are easily accessible. Because they are generally considered biased and unscientific, specifically omitted from this guide are web and blog polls.

Articles and Databases

  • iPOLL (Roper Center for Public Opinion Research)

Poll Basics

  • A Media Guide to Survey Research (World Association for Public Opinion Research)
    • Provides an introduction to public opinion research
    • Key elements to consider when evaluating polls
  • Public Agenda
    • Offers information on the field of opinion research gathered from a variety of sources and commentators
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Pennsylvania Polls

  • The Keystone Poll
    • Franklin and Marshall College Center for Opinion Research
    • Provides Pennsylvania-specific public opinion polls in .PDF format
  • Quinnipiac University
    • Provides survey results from residents in Connecticut, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and nationwide
    • Includes political races, state and national elections, and issues of public concern, such as schools, taxes, transportation, municipal services and the environment

News Organization Polls

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Poll Aggregator Websites

  • Pollster
    • Tracks, aggregates, and analyzes political polls (including presidential, congressional, and gubnatorial races)
    • Provides links to other polling and survey research groups and resources, and has a very helpful FAQ page that explains how political polling is done. [College & Research Library News, 69 (1), p.20]
  • PollingReport.com
    • An independent, non-partisan resource on trends in American public opinion

Polling Organizations

  • Gallup
    • Data-driven news
    • Relevant, timely and visionary research on what people around the world think
  • Harris Interactive
    • Searchable by keyword or date
    • Supplies results in the form of news releases, analysis articles, and individual questions with responses
  • Kaiser Family Foundation
    • Free access to questions with responses in .PDF format to surveys about health and health-care issues back to 1994
  • National Opinion Research Center
    • Current major research areas include economics, population education, child developmen, health survey, program, and policy research,substance abuse, mental health, criminal justice, statistics and methodology
    • Depending on the study, users can view questionnaires, datasets, frequencies, and analyses
  • Pew Research Center
    • A gateway for other "project" websites being conducted by Pew Research
    • Use tabs at the top of the page to access different kinds of reports and analyses
        • Searchable database that provides basic results
        • Search tips provided
      • Pew Daily Number
        • Highlights important trends or findings
        • Information is drawn from surveys
        • Updated every weekday and lists the past 30 days
  • Public Agenda (Free registration required for some data)
    • Provides citizen awareness of policy issues from a nonpartisan perspective
    • Use "Issue Guides" to find facts, view differing opinions, look at common misperceptions, and locate lists of key pollsters for the issues
    • Click on "Research data" for other data
  • Survey Research Center (Registration required for some data)
    • Current projects include the Survey of Consumer Attitudes, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Monitoring the Future study of high school youth, and the Health and retirement study
    • Tables, charts and reports are included
  • Zogby (Registration required to review survey results)
    • Provides current news releases and articles from third-party sources that feature data from Zogby polls
    • "Trends Over Time," time-series data relating to current topics in the media
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Polling Data Archives

  • Inter-university Consortium for Political Social Research
    • Create a Mydata account to download dataset (PSU access only)
    • Considered the principal scholarly social science data archive
    • Contains commercial public opinion polls, archives of the Eurobarometer series and the ISSP
    • Polling organizations represented include: ABC News, CBS News, New York Times, Washington Post

Multinational / Foreign Polls

  • Asiabarometer
    • Results available from the Interuniversity Consortium for Social and Political Research; coverage from 2003 - 2007
  • European Public Opinion Analysis
    • Provides current and past summaries and full reports from the Eurobarometer general and topical survey series, as well as links to other European polls
  • Japanese Data Archive (JPOLL) (Free registration required)
    • Contains more than 10,000 public opinion questions and responses from Japan's major survey research sources
    • Coverage from 1980-1998
  • UK Data Archive-Major Studies
    • Includes the largest collection of digital data in the social sciences and humanities
    • Lists major surveys of British and European public opinion surveys conducted by governmental agencies and social organizations
  • Latin American Databank (LAD) (Data access limited to Roper Express registrants)
    • Holds nearly 1200 studies from 16 countries, with largest contributions coming from Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela
  • Latinobarometro
    • An annual survey of public opinion in 18 countries in Latin America; coverage from 1995-2008
    • PDF summaries of survey results are available under the "Reports" pull-down menu
  • Mansfield Asian Opinion Poll Database
    • Offers opinion polls on key policy-related issues from major media organizations and other agencies in Japan and South Korea; coverage from 2004-2006
  • World Values Survey
    • Provides access to tables and graphs showing national or comparative survey results for selected countries to the four waves of the World Values Survey conducted from 1981 to 2004
Information adapted from Gary Thompson and Sean Conley's "Guide to Public Opinion Poll Web Sites" in College and Research Libraries News.
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