[NEMDF]

You make good points about polling facts and fallacies. The other factor that plays in, is that the MSM then takes the poll results and reports them or does not report them, or emphasizes their potential inaccuracy or not, depending on the slant the media outlet chooses to employ. This adds to the likelihood that what the majority of the public hears about polls and their results is further skewed to support an agenda that is not the least bit “fair and accurate”.

[Lazamataz]

Good points, about how the media plays the poll! It’s almost orchestral, how they play every instrument to create the song.

[KarlInOhio]

Or takes enough polls that some of them are going to be outside the ±3% with 95% confidence range and then focus on the outlier poll.

Which brings up a problem with calculating unemployment by polling (the Department of Labor's 60,000 household Current Population Survey specifically). That size of sample can only estimate unemployment to ±0.25% with a 95% confidence, but the press considers Obama an economic genius for a change of 0.1% in the unemployment rate.