GARETH VAN ONSELEN: Ipsos and the media have turned polling into guess work
For a supposedly reputable market research company, it seems Ipsos was pulling numbers out of thin air
Market research company Ipsos has recently released a range of different figures, all reported on as authoritative by the media, on party political support for the big three parties: the ANC, DA and EFF. But the truth is, half of them were guesses, and the other half were severely limited in what they were able to tell us. Nevertheless, you would be none the wiser if you followed media reports on them. The first of these came on May 28, when Mari Harris, director of public affairs at Ipsos SA, told the Huffington Post that the ANC’s support had risen to 52%; that "the DA’s support is down to 20%"; and that the EFF was treading water, on or around the 6.3% it received in 2014. Strangely, there was no poll accompanying this figure. On enquiry, Harris said, "I based my view on the things I have seen so far this year in other studies (non-public studies)". The next set of numbers came on June 21, when Harris told Radio 702 , "Currently, it looks like the ANC support is somewhere between...
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