距离美国大选日还有不到一个月的时间，两党候选人在辩论中使出各种招数突出自己、诋毁对方。据说，从上世纪90年代中期开始，美国大选过程中就开始出现一些以影响民意为目的的民调，英文叫做push poll。

Push poll is an opinion poll whose real purpose is to influence people's opinions rather than to collect information about them.

Push poll指以民调之名行影响民意之实的民意调查，这种调查的真正目的不是收集人们的意见，而是影响人们的看法，即“推手民调”。

In essence, a push poll is something approaching a smear campaign masquerading as an opinion poll. A push poll typically involves phoning very large numbers of voters and, in the guise of doing a survey to find out how certain pieces of 'information' may affect their voting preferences, feeding them false or damaging information about a particular candidate. The idea then is to 'push' them away from any rival candidate and steer them towards the candidate that the caller supports.

从本质上来看，“推手民调”更像是伪装成民意调查的“抹黑大战（smear campaign）”。这种调查通常会电话联络大量的选民，假装调查哪些“信息”会影响选民的投票决定，而在此过程中向选民灌输有关某个候选人的虚假或破坏性信息。这样做的目的是将选民从竞争对手那里“推开”，转而支持调查方这边的候选人。

The essential difference between a push poll and a valid opinion poll, is that the latter merely attempts to elicit opinions, whilst the former aims to change and influence them. In a push poll, large numbers of respondents are contacted, but little or no effort is made to collect and analyze response data because no-one is really interested in this information once the phone call is over, the main aim having been to negatively influence the targeted candidate.

“推手民调”和真正的民调之间的本质区别是，民意调查只是为了收集民意，而“推手”调查是为了改变和影响民意。在“推手”调查中，大量受访者会接到调查信息，但是并没有人做后续的信息收集和分析工作，因为在调查电话挂断以后，就没有人再对那些信息感兴趣了。“推手”调查的主要目的是对某个特定候选人产生负面影响。

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（中国日报网英语点津 Helen）

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