Most Americans do not trust public opinion polls, the Huffington Post reported Friday, pointing to results from a McClatchy/Marist poll.
"Only 37 percent of registered voters have a great deal or a good amount of trust in public opinion polling. Only seven percent say they have a great deal of trust in comparison to 22 percent of voters who don't trust polling at all and 38 percent who don't trust it very much," Huffington Post reported.
The article explained the number changed when broken down between Democrats, Republicans and Independents, as Democrats viewed polls more favorably with 47 percent stating they have "a great deal" or "a good amount" of confidence in poll results, as opposed to 26 percent among Republicans.
Independents responded with nearly 40 percent stating they had confidence in poll results.
Confidence in polls dipped following the 2016 presidential election, where results widely pointed to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton winning the election, as well as the surprising Brexit vote in the UK, the article argued.
"Critics point to Brexit polls, which mostly indicated that staying in the European Union would eke out a narrow victory in the U.K. referendum last year, and to the U.S. state-level polls that failed to indicate President Donald Trump would win in enough key states to take the Electoral College majority and win the presidency," per the Huffington Post.
Even so, the article continued that polls still remain the best way to gauge public opinion.
"Even with extra skepticism about election polls, there's no other measure that can give us a broad view of what the public thinks. Plus, most polls on public policy don't have the same issue of trying to identify who will vote, so measuring opinion in this case is much simpler."
Added to that was President Trump's apparent continued interest in polls, even while dismissing some as "phony" or "rigged."
"The fact that (Trump) looks at the data means he thinks polls are indicative of opinion. It also means that Americans have a direct avenue to getting their voices heard by the president," the article concluded.
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