Sept. 08--One of the nation's leading pollsters, Andrew Kohut, who was a frequent presence on television and radio, especially during election seasons, died Tuesday at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He was 73.
He had been battling leukemia since late 2009, said his wife, Diane Colasanto.
Kohut, who was a prot駩 of George Gallup and worked for his organization, was director of the Times Mirror Center for the People the Press that became part of the Pew organization in the mid-1990s.
He was president of the Pew Research Center from 2004 until he stepped down in 2012.
Kohut said public opinion polling was important not just as a predictor of election outcomes, but because it gave voice to the masses that don't have access to media outlets or can pay for advertising.
"I think it's the best way of gauging public opinion," he said in a 2007 interview with the BigThink website, "that doesn't give just the loud voices say ... about how things are going, or doesn't give experts -- so called experts -- the notion that they know what public opinion is."
A full obituary will appear later at latimes/obituaries
