Insight: Do polls really reflect the truth?

During election time we see different poll results every day. This poll will lean this way this one that way. I have often asked myself who are they surveying and what questions are they asking.  While surfing the internet this weekend I ran across a headline on Yahoo that caught my eye. Above a photo of President Obama read “AP Poll: Majority harvest prejudice against blacks.”   This really sparked my curiosity and naturally I read the story.  It stated that racial attitudes have not improved in the four years since we elected our first black President. An Associated Press poll finds, a slight majority of Americans now express prejudice toward blacks whether they recognize those feelings or not and that racial prejudice has increased slightly since 2008 whether those feelings were measured using questions that explicitly asked respondents about racist attitudes, or through an experimental test that measured implicit views toward race without asking questions about that topic directly.  Well I just had to take a look at this survey. I found it quite interesting to say the least.  Here’s a link to the AP website that houses this survey.  http://surveys.ap.org   October 27: Associated Press Poll – Racial Attitudes Topline.  Check out the article. http://news.yahoo.com/ap-poll-majority-harbor-prejudice-against-blacks-073551680--election.html?nc