- Poll dancing - 23rd January 2026
- Paper thinner - 22nd January 2026
- Jobs for the boys and girls - 21st January 2026
During 23 years with BBC Cymru Wales (BBC CW), and 42 years in journalism (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), polling figures have always loomed large because they show how popular or otherwise is a controversial policy, and today’s Greenland saga is a prime example of this.
They get a bad press, but don’t underestimate them.
Polling figures are a pretty true indication of the way people feel about things.
The companies behind them have refined their methods hugely since the debacle of the 1992 exit poll which showed Neil Kinnock holding power.
Today they are massively scientific, with the two main characteristics of surveys being that they have a) respondents chosen by the research company, and b) that sufficient information is collected about these people to ensure that the data in the published results match the profile of the group being surveyed.
For example, if the population being sampled contains 52 per cent who are women and 30 per cent who are over 55, then a typical opinion poll will ensure that its published data contains these proportions of women and older respondents.
The choice of respondents is done using two main methods. The first is ‘random’ sampling, the second ‘quota sampling‘.
With random sampling, a polling company either uses a list of randomly-drawn phone numbers or email addresses (for telephone or some Internet polls); or holds face-to-face visits using randomly-drawn addresses, as well as names pulled from a list such as an electoral register (for some surveys). The polling company then contacts people on those telephone numbers or at those addresses, and asks them to take part in the survey.
‘Quota sampling’ involves setting quotas (such as age or gender), and then seeking out different people in each location who, together, match those characteristics. ‘Quota sampling’ is often used in face-to-face surveys.
In addition, some Internet polls employ quota samples to select representative samples from a database of people who have already provided such information about themselves.
Well-conducted random and quota samples provide a broad approximation to the public, but there are all kinds of reasons why they might contain slightly too many of some groups of people, and slightly too few of others.
What normally happens is that polling companies also ask respondents not only about their views, but about themselves too, and this information is then used to compare the sample with, for example, census statistics about the population.
The raw numbers from the poll are then adjusted slightly, up or down, to match the profile of the population being surveyed.
So if, for example, a poll finds that, when its survey-work is complete, that it has 100 members of a particular demographic group, but should have 110 of them (in a poll of, say, 1,000 or 2,000), then it will ‘weight’ the answers of that group so that each of those 100 respondents counts as 1.1 people.
This way, the published percentages should reflect the population as a whole.
Therefore it is right that Donald Trump should feel concerned about the polling numbers in relation to his Greenland venture.
In a poll of more than 1,500 Americans conducted by YouGov between January 16 and 19, just 29 per cent of respondents approved of buying Greenland.
Only 38 per cent of all respondents polled earlier in January said the island was “very” or “somewhat important” to American security.
Support for acquisition through a full-scale invasion is even lower – at around four per cent.
The prospect of a nominal ally also using economic pressure through tariffs, to seize another NATO member’s sovereign territory has left European leaders frantically seeking a coherent response.
Mr Trump’s special envoy to Greenland has said a deal for Washington to own the island “should and will be made”, but there has also been a US congressional delegation which visited Copenhagen in a show of support for Denmark and Greenland.
Jeff Landry declared that he planned to visit Greenland in March, and the US president “is serious” about acquiring it.
Katie Miller, wife to the President’s influential adviser Stephen Miller, posted a map of Greenland overlaid with the star-spangled banner and a caption reading: ‘SOON’, and a day later, Mr Miller himself also weighed in.
During an interview with CNN Mr Miller said that “For the United States to secure the Arctic region, to protect and defend NATO and NATO interests, obviously Greenland should be part of the United States”.
The security concern may, on the face of it, appear plausible because Greenland is on the way to Russia and China (if you go in one direction), but is in fact WRONG and this is perhaps reflected in the polling numbers.
Under the terms of an agreement signed with Denmark in 1951, America may in effect station as many troops as it likes on the island.
After the cold war America shrank what had been a substantial deployment to what is now fewer than 200 troops at a single base on the island’s north-west, used for space surveillance and early-warning radar, these paltry numbers, though, could easily be ramped up.
Broader security worries seem overdone, too, because Greenland (a self-governing part of Denmark) also sits under NATO’s security umbrella.
“There’s not really a security case for a NATO (of which America is a member) mission in Greenlandic waters”, says Andreas Østhagen, an Arctic specialist at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute (FNI) in Oslo.
Evidence is scant, as well, supporting Mr Trump’s contentious announcement that the island’s seas are “covered with Russian and Chinese ships”, and the Danes have largely seen off Chinese interest in investing in Greenland.
Experts say the more pressing Arctic issues actually lie elsewhere, especially around Alaska – which is, of course, part of America so wouldn’t need to be invaded at all!
Even with a supposed ‘deal’ over Greenland being announced yesterday, these factors remain vitally important!
It is difficult to use the words ‘sense’ and ‘Trump’ in the same paragraph, but if the US President has any, then maybe he should look at the polls…
Phil’s memories of his extraordinary award-winning career in journalism (including political, as well as polling stories like these) as he was gripped by the incurable disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Next week – during that career, Phil has always been struck by incredible historical parallels and how slim, or non-existent, majorities can lead to significant change, and nowhere is this emphasised better than what is today coming out of Mr Trump’s America.
