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A Ruby wrapper for the Pollster API which provides access to political opinion polling data and trend estimates from The Huffington Post.

The Pollster gem has been tested under Ruby 1.8.7, 1.9.2 and 1.9.3.

Installation

gem install pollster

Getting Started

require 'pollster'
include Pollster

See the current estimate of the president's job approval

Chart.find('obama-job-approval').estimates

List charts about 2012 senate races

Chart.where(:topic => '2012-senate')

List charts about Wisconsin

Chart.where(:state => 'WI')

Calculate the margin between Obama and Romney from a recent general election poll

poll = Poll.where(:chart => '2012-general-election-romney-vs-obama').first
responses = poll.questions.detect { |question| question.chart == '2012-general-election-romney-vs-obama' }.responses
obama = responses.detect { |response| response[:choice] == "Obama" }
romney = responses.detect { |response| response[:choice] == "Romney" }
obama[:value] - romney[:value]

See the methodology used in recent polls about the Affordable Care Act

chart = Chart.find 'us-health-bill'
chart.polls.map { |poll| [poll.pollster, poll.method] }

Usage

Pollster provides three classes:

Pollster::Chart

represents the current estimates for a Pollster chart (e.g. Romney vs. Obama).

Pollster::Poll

represents a specific poll conducted by a polling firm.

Pollster::Question

represents a question asked as part of a poll.

Accessing data

List all the charts available from Pollster:

>> Pollster::Chart.all
=> [<Pollster::Chart: 2012 Iowa GOP Primary>,
    <Pollster::Chart: 2012 New Hampshire GOP Primary>,
    <Pollster::Chart: 2012 South Carolina GOP Primary>,
    <Pollster::Chart: 2012 Florida GOP Primary>,
    <Pollster::Chart: 2012 Nevada GOP Primary>,
    ...]

This response is not paginated; all charts will be returned.

A specific chart may be accessed using Pollster::Chart#find, giving the chart's slug as an argument:

>> Pollster::Chart.find('2012-iowa-gop-primary')
=> <Pollster::Chart: 2012 Iowa GOP Primary>

All the charts for a topic or state may be accessed using Pollster::Chart#where:

>> Pollster::Chart.where(:state => 'MD')
=> [<Pollster::Chart: 2012 Maryland GOP Primary>,
    <Pollster::Chart: 2012 Maryland House: 6th District>,
    <Pollster::Chart: 2012 Maryland President: Romney vs. Obama>]

>> Pollster::Chart.where(:topic => '2012-senate')
=> [<Pollster::Chart: 2012 Massachusetts Senate: Brown vs Warren>,
    <Pollster::Chart: 2012 Ohio Senate: Brown vs Mandel>,
    <Pollster::Chart: 2012 Arizona Senate: Flake vs. Carmona>,
    <Pollster::Chart: 2012 Florida Senate: Mack vs. Nelson>,
    ...]

>> Pollster::Chart.where(:topic => '2012-senate', :state => 'MA')
=> [<Pollster::Chart: 2012 Massachusetts Senate: Brown vs Warren>]

List the polls that were used to create the estimate for a specific chart:

>> chart = Pollster::Chart.find('2012-iowa-gop-primary')
>> chart.polls
=> [#<Pollster::Poll:...
    @start_date=#<Date: 2012-01-01 (4911855/2,0,2299161)>>,
    @end_date=#<Date: 2012-01-01 (4911855/2,0,2299161)>,
    @id=12385,
    @method="Automated Phone",
    @pollster="InsiderAdvantage",
    @questions=
     [{:name=>"2012 Iowa GOP Primary",
       :chart=>"2012-iowa-gop-primary",
       :topic=>"2012-gop-primary",
       :state=>"IA",
       :subpopulations=>
        [{:name=>"Likely Voters",
          :observations=>729,
          :margin_of_error=>nil,
          :responses=>
           [{:choice=>"Romney", :value=>23},
            {:choice=>"Bachmann", :value=>6},
            {:choice=>"Gingrich", :value=>16},
            {:choice=>"Huntsman", :value=>2},
            {:choice=>"Paul", :value=>22},
            {:choice=>"Perry", :value=>10},
            {:choice=>"Santorum", :value=>18},
            {:choice=>"Other", :value=>1},
            {:choice=>"Undecided", :value=>2}]}]}],
    @source= "http://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2012/InsiderAdvantage_Iowa_0102.pdf",
    ...]

You may also list all polls available through Pollster:

>> Pollster::Poll.all

This response is paginated, with 10 polls per page. To access subsequent pages, provide a page argument:

>> Pollster::Poll.all(:page => 5)

Authors

Copyright © 2012 The Huffington Post. See LICENSE for details.