Final answer:
Unscientific polls used to gauge public opinion trends in political races are called straw polls. They are informal and non-random, unlike scientific polls which seek to accurately represent the population's views with random and representative sampling.
Step-by-step explanation:
Unscientific polls that are often conducted by newspapers and politicians to determine who is ahead in a political race are called straw polls. These polls informally collect opinions from a non-random population or group, providing a general idea of what a specific readership or audience thinks about an event or politics.
Newspapers, social media, and online platforms may offer these informal polls, which are not scientifically structured and have a much higher margin of error compared to scientific polls, to gauge public opinion.Scientific polls, in contrast, attempt to create a representative and random sample to ensure the responses reflect what the actual population believes.
These polls employ statisticians and methodologists and take into account factors such as timing and social pressure to better predict true public opinion. Tracking polls, for example, measure shifts in public opinion, while push polls aim to influence perception by using leading questions.