1. Why am I or my friends never included in political polls conducted for the media?
The reason is fairly simple. There are about 200 million adult or voting-age Americans. But the average poll has a sample size of 1,000 adults. This means that only one person in 200,000 will be included in any one national or state poll. To put it another way, it would take 200,000 polls with samples of 1,000 for pollsters to get around to all Americans -- and this assumes no one is called twice.
Of course, national and local media organizations conduct several polls in one year. The number of national or local media political polls you see in a single year is about 250, but can vary depending on where you live. But even 250 polls in a single year means your chance of being interviewed at least once is still small.
2. Is a larger sample always better than a smaller sample?
Larger sample are generally more precise, but sometimes not. The important rule in sampling is not how many poll respondents are selected but, instead, how they are selected. A reliable sample selects poll respondents randomly or in a manner that insures that everyone in the area being surveyed has a known chance of being selected.