I usually answer honestly, because in more situations than not, it benefits a candidate to be up in the polls.
I was once, years ago (pre-ubiquitous cell phones) but it either wasn’t a really legit poll or someone gave me them my number as a prank. They slammed the phone down once it was noted that I’m pro-choice.
Not political polling, but back in the 90s I somehow ended up in a radio focus group that would call monthly. Each call lasted about 10 minutes and consisted of them playing a snippet of a song and asking (a) are you familiar with the song (b) if yes, how much do you like on a scale from 1 to 5, 1 being lowest, 5 being higher © if yes, how tired of the song are you.
They would usually play chunks of about 10 songs. They would finish with 2 open-ended questions - Favorite current song and most disliked current song. They never identified a particular station, but the music was all what was called alternative back then (grunge, REM, Green Day, Weezer, Rancid, etc) and we had 2 of those stations in the area.
I like to think I was responsible for finally getting Tori Amos’ Cornflake Girl dropped from rotation. Good song the first few times, but damn did I get sick of it pretty fast.
I was in the survey for about 4 years. Each call would start with confirming my demographic information, and I would update my age after every birthday. One year, when asked if I was 30, I updated it to 31. “Oh, sorry, we can’t use you anymore. Thanks for your all your time”. About 8 months later, the alternative stations started playing crap like Creed and Limp Bizkit. I told my friends “Not my fault! I was a force for good. Remember how I got rid of Bush?”
I’ve been “polled” a bunch of times, but legitimately polled only twice, both 20 or more years ago. I don’t think we should count the calls that are ostensibly polls but are in reality a scam to get you to contribute to a party/candidate.
Then why not hang up without saying a word? Lying wastes even more of your time.
I was too except they didn’t drop me until I was 35. And they never asked me my favorite song. They just wanted me to rate clips of songs they were already playing, which seemed horrible after awhile. Actually, I’m not sure if they dropped me due to my age or because by the last survey I didn’t know half the songs and rated most of the others 1 or 2. They never asked me why I didn’t like the songs or what other songs I’d prefer in their place. Like you said, they preferred to play stuff like Limp Bizkit and Creed and I never had a chance to tell them that I would have preferred more indie/emo.