Harris Faulkner Quotes

I'm a believer in the polls, by the way. Rarely do you see a poll that's very far off.

If you believe these polls, you're making a mistake.

I've learned a long time ago not to take polls too seriously.

Most public polling continues to be reported on strictly from a topline, horserace-type perspective that does nothing, or at best very little, to illuminate the news of the day.

I believe that the polling data that shows people give Obama 53% approval, I happen to think the polls are right. I just think people are not being honest with the pollster.

Outlets are turning away from phone polling, which can be problematic. For example, we did a poll for NBC around the Ebola crisis; we provided results in 24 hours. Their traditional phone poll would have taken a week to turn around. We're showing people we can do high-quality work: we've proved that with the work we do with the media.

Polls are only good for dogs.

I'd rather be underestimated by the polltakers than by the voters.

Early polls mean nothing.

The Digest's Presidential Poll Is On! The Digest's smooth-running machine moves with the swift precision of thirty years' experience to reduce guess-work to hard fact.

I don't put a lot of stock into polls.

Let me tell you the polls that count, and those are the polls a couple of weeks before the election. That's when the pollsters worry about holding onto their credibility. Those are the polls that everybody remembers.

I don't put too much stock in polls.

Poll results published with a clear byline for the research reflect a higher degree of confidence in the survey.

I know that a lot of people love to say that polls are wrong or don't matter, and from time to time they are - it depends on who they are polling.

There are so many ways and different people who show up and vote now. The way turnout works now. The abilities we have now to turn out voters. The polling can't understand that. And that's why the polling was so wrong in 2016. It was 100% wrong. Nobody got it right - not one public poll.

One should be weary of drawing too many inferences from a single poll. You can find wildly disparate results with two different polls. There is no question that American Muslims remain one of the most marginalized and demonized groups in United States. There has been a sustained propaganda campaign against Muslims for over a decade and it doesn't disappear over night. Those attitudes are hardened. But one of the things that polling often doesn't measure is the intensity of opinions.

Even though the press at times made me completely crazy as they followed me around the hall, and asked tough questions over and over again - now believe me, every politician feels this way - it is a necessary part of our life, and we must have a press that isn't cowed and won't be afraid of ratings if they get put to the back of the room at a press conference.

Ace of Spades says that this became clear to him in a revelation one night. He was watching Chris Matthews interview [Barack] Obama, and he didn't get one question! He didn't ask Obama one question about how Obamacare works. Every question was one degree or another: How do you feel about [John] Boehner opposing it? How do you feel about it? What will make you happy? Do you think you can get it? [It] was irrelevant!

The Factor concept is very simple: Watch all of those in power, including and especially the media, so they don't injure or exploit the folks, everyday Americans. Never before in the United States had a television news guy dared to criticize other journalists on a regular basis. The late Peter Jennings, a friend, told me I was crazy to do it. "These people will not allow anyone to scrutinize them," he said. "They will come after you with a vengeance." And so they have.

Journalism is kind of scary and of it we should be wary.

If anybody ever tries to do an investigative report on a journalist, much like the kind and the way a journalist would do on a public figure, have you ever seen a stuck pig? Because that's what the journalist looks like.

I don't give much credence to "The Washington Post" polls.

The media uses polls to create news stories. I think polls are just an extension of the editorial page, an excuse to get them on the front page. You can ask any question you want, get any answer you want, and then run around with that as a news story.

Like I said, you guys in the media will treat the dumbest jack**s in the entire f***ng world like they won a Pulitzer prize for journalism and will put that level of weight on it, like they're an ambassador to some country we're trying to establish trade with.