Why Did the Polls Get it Wrong in 1992? Opinion polls play a major role in politics, they can be used by the Government to decide when to call and election, and, among other things, how their pre- election campaigns are run. Throughout the history of opinion polling, from the time when polling began to be widely used before an election, in 1945, until 1987, the last general election before 1992, the polls have on average been correct to within 1.3% of the vote share between the three leading parties, and the 'other' category (Crewe, 1992, p. 478). This puts all the previous opinion polls well within the +/-3% margin of error. Because