The Making of the Silent Majority: Nixon, Polling, and Constituency Building.

In 1969-70, the Nixon administration classified, tracked, and targeted a group of Americans who identified with the concept "silent majority" as part of its drive to create a new center-right electoral coalition. Using public opinion polling to capture a specific group of voters opened a new era in constituency politics. It marked the first time a presidential administration had used survey research to disaggregate the electorate for the purpose of coalition building. The silent majority represented the first poll-defined voting group in American history. Unlike traditional voting groups, whose members shared certain social or economic characteristics, the silent majority's members shared a common set of political attitudes. This paper uses primary sources to examine the Nixon administration's use of polling to shape and capture the silent majority ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]