How did market research techniques become tools for studying political opinions?

Opinion research evolved directly from market research, which originally utilized small population samples to gauge consumer preferences regarding goods, media consumption, and advertising. Around 1930, commercial researchers and scholars began experimenting with these established sampling techniques to measure public sentiment on political and social issues.1

The transition to political polling gained significant momentum in 1935 when statistician George Gallup founded the American Institute of Public Opinion. By applying systematic survey methods to political questions—such as federal spending—pollsters demonstrated that they could quantify the views of the electorate. The credibility of these tools was further bolstered in 1936 when Gallup and other researchers accurately predicted the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. Following this success, the use of polls expanded rapidly, becoming a standard feature of political campaigns, academic research, and government policy analysis during and after World War II.12