Trust in Electoral Polls: A Motivated Reasoning Approach

Rosario Aguilar
Associate Professor of Political Science
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE)

A number of factors can affect the accuracy and credibility of electoral polls, some of which are more under the control of pollsters than others. Aguilar, basing her talk on a paper she co-authored with Michael Traugott and Alejandro Moreno, will discuss the results of a survey experiment run during the State of Mexico (Estado de México) gubernatorial election in 2017, which featured the incumbent party’s candidate, Alfredo Del Mazo, running against left-wing opposition candidate Delfina Gómez. Aguilar, Traugott, and Moreno explored the effect of motivated reasoning among citizens who were randomly assigned to view simulated polling results. They also looked at a potential spiral of silence effect, exploring whether respondents who thought their preference was not shared by most voters in their district tended to respond differently from those who thought they shared the majority’s preference.

Cosponsored with Notre Dame International