Pollster Joe Belden Dies

Joe Belden, who helped to modernise opinion polling, has died aged 90 - he had Parkinson's disease. Belden received a lifetime achievement award from the American Association for Public Opinion Research in 1991.

Belden graduated from the University of Texas in Austin, where he studied the scientific sampling of public opinion. He founded Belden Associates in 1940 and launched the first statewide opinion survey in Texas the same year.

In 1980, he retired and sold his interest in Belden Associates, which specialised in readership surveys for US newspapers. Daughter Nancy is blazing her own trail, as a founding partner of opinion research firm Belden Russonello & Stewart and a past AAPOR President.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.