[3][4] Lubell was born the youngest of nine children in a village on the Russian-German border in what is now Poland in November 1911.
[6][1] In a turning point for Lubell's career, the Saturday Evening Post asked him to analyze the 1948 US presidential election, in which Harry S. Truman defeated Thomas E. Dewey despite contrary predictions by pollsters George Gallup, Elmo Roper, and Archibald Crossley.
Lubell combined innovative public opinion analysis with historical and political analysis, leading to his influential books The Future of American Politics (1952) and The Revolt of the Moderates (1956) and a syndicated political column called “The People Speak.” Using door-to-door voter interviews, polling data, and demographic data, he examined key precincts to predict election outcomes and illustrate national shifts.
[4] This methodology enabled him to predict the 1952 US presidential election correctly by examining polls from three precincts in Richmond, Virginia.
[4] Lubell's papers are held at the University of Connecticut Archives and Special Collections at the Dodd Center for Human Rights.