1948 Votes in the Making—A Preview

Abstract

This article is a preview from the findings of the 1948 Election Study, conducted by Chicago, Columbia, and Cornell Universities

Early in 1948, Paul F. Lazarfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Elmo C. Wilson, all of whom had been directly concerned with the election study conducted in Erie Country, Ohio, during the 1940 presidential campaign, decided to repeat and elaborate that study during the 1948 campaign, and to formulate plans for a continuing study of voting behavior. Accordingly, a group of interested sponsors was assembled, and a community selected for an intensive continuing analysis of the political thinking of a sample of the population during the period prior to and immediately following the presidental elections.

The failure of the national polls correctly to predict the election has added significance to the findings from this cooperative research project, some of the preliminary findings of which are presented in this article.

In addition to the three universities—Chicago, Columbia, and Cornell—which participated in this study, the sponsers include the Anti-Defamation League, Columbia Broadcasting System, Elmo Roper, Standard oil Company of New Jersey, the Elmira Star Gaxette, and Time, Inc. The field work was conducted by International Public Opinion Research, Inc.