It's really hard to see how the new stars in the novel's firmament are inculcated with such deep theoretical issues, particularly as few, if any, were science majors. They have understood the political application of the 'uncertainty principle' explained by physicist Werner Heisenberg.
Polls are snapshots in time.
Public opinion can change and does change when politicians enter the arena and alter the existing dynamic. Amid such scrutiny, it is virtually impossible for anyone to interact with the candidate in a natural, spontaneous way. Were patience a virtue, one could keep on and digging up examples from Nexis, and adding anecdotes from book tours, conferences and lectures. Heisenberg has infiltrated journalistic thinking about journalism to an astonishing degree as an all-purpose, handy metaphor for the rather mundane point that sometimes the presence of an observer can influence those being observed. I spend so much time with my subjects that I'm bound to have an effect on anything I observe.