Navigate public opinion to win the presidency in online game

Entering the home stretch of what is forecasted to be an extremely close presidential election, polls estimating which candidate is ahead nationally or in swing states are making nearly daily headlines.

Campaign Weathervane, a new, publicly available educator's resource from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, invites you to try to navigate the winds of public sentiment in every U.S. presidential race since 1940. Anticipate the national mood on key issues surveyed during each cycle, and your favorability rating could boost you into the Oval Office.

The game and related curriculum materials are primarily aimed at high school students in advanced U.S. history and government classes, helping to introduce young people to the science of survey research and the importance of polling in global democracy. With support from Cornell Engineering's Cooperative Education Experience program and the Einhorn Center for Community Engagement, undergraduate and graduate students designed and promoted the website and resources as the latest initiative from the Roper Center's America's Voice Project, which seeks to expand access to its archive of high-quality public opinion research.

"Campaign Weathervane fundamentally is a tool for educators that leverages a unique asset, our archive of historical polling during presidential cycles, and gamifies it in an engaging way," said Jonathon Schuldt, professor of communication in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, and the Roper Center's executive director. "It's fun to guess what the public thought about different issues in American history. But along the way, you learn about the promise and challenges of polling as a social science."

Campaign Weathervane does not focus on "horse race" polls that are so prevalent in pre-election news coverage. Instead, the game presents about a dozen questions on a variety of issues from each election year, from the economy and environment to foreign affairs and religion.

A 1940 Gallup poll, for example, asked if respondents thought the U.S. would engage in or stay out of the war in Europe. In 1960, a Roper Organization poll asked if the next administration should keep pressing, proceed slowly or hold back on civil rights legislation. A 1980 General Electric poll asked if respondents had been able to keep up with inflation - a hot topic in 2024.

A Campaign Weathervane player ("Candidate Weathervane") starts with a favorability rating of 50% before stumping at sites including a state fair, high school and military base. Each stop links to more in-depth resources, such as poll questions and trends, on specific topics. A curriculum guide instructs students to learn about polling fundamentals including sampling and error margins, analyze survey data on civil rights, and reflect on social attitudes and policies' effectiveness.

"The game can help give students a historical framework for some of the issues we're dealing with now, and if they're eligible to vote, to make more informed decisions," said Nia Holland, a doctoral student at the University of Michigan who helped developed the curriculum as a recipient of the Roper Center's W.E.B. Du Bois Fellowship in Support of Diversity and Inclusion, launched in 2023 with the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

"Our goal was to make the data more accessible," Holland added. "Many students aren't aware that polling and survey research is a career path they can take, or a resource that's available to support their research."

Undergraduate computer science students built the Campaign Weathervane site. The outreach initiative received letters of support from two nonprofit advocates for civics education, CivXNow and Made By Us, and has been plugged by polling experts at CNN and the New York Times.

Despite concerns about polls and models that failed to accurately predict recent election outcomes, Schuldt said, survey science across a wide range of issues remains vital to holding democratic leaders accountable.

"In a representative democracy, it matters what the people think, and we should insist that our representatives care about what we think," Schuldt said. "It may never be perfect, but survey research is still one of the best tools we have for understanding the public's views."

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