General Info on polling

Robert Meadow- Decision Research, Founder and President.
Research and Polling.
Polls and focus groups guide many campaign decisions.
Why take a poll? To get a sense of the public's knowledge
and views. Asking your friends may give you a distorted
picture.
Public Opinion Research tells you what others think. What
issues move people? How can you get your candidate from
point A to point B? How do you match up your candidate's
positons, values, etc with those of the electorate?
A pollster can't change a candidate's view on an issue, but
the candidate may decide to emphasize or deemphasize a part
of his or her beliefs. Candidate may skip over issues and
topics not of interest to the voters.
People 30-50 years old typically have school age kids. They
are more interested in education than 65 year olds. 65
year old is interested in social security. Candidates can
emphasize different aspects of their platform with different
voter groups, without lying.
Polls help you to match the concerns and interests of the
public with the concerns and interests of your ccandidate.
Also find out the vocabulary that is used by different
segments of the voter population. Candidates must be
consistent. You can't be for vouchers here and against
vouchers there.
Polls give you empirical (quantifiable) evidence of public's
concerns.
Polls help guide the campaign's message development. Every
campaign needs a core message that resonates with the
electorate. Pollsters help craft the campaign message,
which will lead to a majority voting for you. Must use the
right vocabulary. Talking points and issues of candidate
must move people.
Use polls to identify targets. Suppose 40%D 40%R and 20%
undecided. You want to know more about the 20% persuadable
(undedcided). The issues of the undecideds may be different.
Pollsters try to identify the undecideds, the swing voters.
Find out the demographics of the swing voters. Ex. theyh
may be 50-70 yrs old females on a fixed income, etc.
Polling helps to find the swing voters.
Base + swing voters = an electoral majority.
Polling is used for message development. To find out which
messages work with different sugcategories of the
persuadable voters. Iraq, soc sec, school choice, educ,
etc. One of these issues may move various subgroups of the
electorate. Build a winning coalition this way.
Polls vs. focus groups. Polling is scientifically-designed
and implemented by professionals. Souns statistical
principles guide polling process. Zogby National Sample may
interview only 1,200 people, yet be statistically valid.
You need a strategic understanding of the voters. What
issues motivate them? Is the general mood for change or for
the status quo? Is the country on the right or wrong track?
What characteristics are the voters looking for in the
candidate's bio? (emphasize war record, voting record,
education?) Find out what kind of background information on
the candidate would be persuasive.
Find out which messages will work. Pollsters may test many
themes and messages in their interviews to find one that
resonates the best.
They ask, 'if you knew that candidate X had this view
_______, would you vote for him? More likely, somewhat
likely, no diff, less likely, much less likely, etc.
Ask 15 of these and rank them in order of responsiveness.
Persuadables may have a different #1 issue than that of the
general electorate. There are limited campaign resources so
you must locate, contact and persuade the swing voters.
Polling isn't an afterthought. It is at the core of the
campaign strategy. You might have a great idea for a funny
TV ad but the public (or the swing voters) may not be
interested in that issue. So make another ad.
Campaign team works with pollsters to design a message,
which is than communicated via the media. Campaign
strategies come from polling surveys. TV and radio and
newspaper polls are not scientific. They mostly focus on
the horse race aspect.
Poll may be held one year before the election. How do you
get your candidate from where he is now, to where you want
him to be on election day. Candidate may only be at 25%
among retired men. Winning scenario needs candidate to be
at 42% among them by election day. What messages will get
my candidate from where he is now to a win on election day?
Identify subcomponents of the electorate who will move
between now and election day.
TV and newspaper polls often don't poll the likely
electorate. They just call people out of the phone book.
Political pollsters interview the likely electorate.
The politician's friends are not representative of the
likely electorate. They have inside knowledge and special
interests in the race. They aren't the same as persuadable
voters, who might not think about politics very much. So
talk to experts for policy research, but not for polling
purposes.
Winning campaigns need to ask dozens of questions, not just
the 'horse race' question. Polling interviews are done by
professional interviewers for consistency, objectivity and
neutrality. Campaign volunteers are best used elsewhere to
persuade voters. Volunteer pollsters might try to influence
the person being interviewed, and this biases the results.
You don't want to deceive yourself.
Three main types of polls. Benchmark, Trend polls, and
tracking polls.
Benchmark poll. 17-20 minutes. For early research and
message development. Done 3 months to one year before
election. Gives you the lay of the land. Use this to plan
the campaign strategy and message.
Trend polls (10min) used to update the campaign. Things may
have changed since the benchmark poll. You might want to
subtly change your message. See the effects on new
information on the race.
Tracking polls (3-5 min). Use this to monitor the
effectiveness of the voter contact program. Find out if
your message is getting across via TV and direct mail. Are
you moving in the right direction? Are you picking up
support? It's a waste of money to do a tracking poll the
day before the election because there's no time to change
anything anyhow.
Test different issues and themes in a benchmark poll.
Interviewees get fatigue after 20 minutes of an interview.
Lose all data in a terminated interview. Politics is not
central to soccer moms. Benchmark poll is most important
poll. Do Benchmark if you can only do one poll.
3 month long media campaign. Do a trend poll after one
month. See if your message is getting across. Use tracking
polls to adjust your field voter contact program.
Where to deploy resources in final week? Can't change your
TV ads usually in the last week of campaign, but you can
redeploy your volunteers.
Sampling concepts. Two factors set the cost. Interview
length and sample size.
Error is based upon sample size, not size of the population.
1200 people in a national sample is enough. Sampling error
is +/- 3%.
1200 interviews. 600men. 600 women. Divide country in
N,S,E,W. So only 150 eastern women in the east. So only 75
female GOP in the east. Divide into 3 age categories and
there are only 25 GOP women between 20-45 in the east. It
is hard to generalize from only 25 people.
A state might have 5 media markets. May need a bigger
sample size, or you may need to over-represent a subgroup in
your poll. Need 100 people in a subgroup to be confident in
the reaction to a proposed campaign theme.
Hard to generalize from a small subgroup, so oversample that
one demographic. Ex. interview and extra 100 African
American men. Do 1,000 + 100 = 1,100 interviews.
A 1cc blood sample is representative of all of your blood,
which telly you a lot about the whole body. A vat of soup
that is well-stirred - a spoonful will tell you what it all
tastes like, as long as it has been stirred. People in the
same demographic will think similarly. So samples work and
are statistically valid. A sample size of 1,200 out of 240
million is okay. But take more samples if you divide into
subgroups. Age, religion, gender, pol party.
Do research before taking the benchmark poll. Look at the
following: Defensive and opposition research (must be
objective). You want no surprises during he campaign.
Figure out your responses beforehand. Look at press
clippings, campaign brochures, strengths and vulnerabilities
of both candidates, different issues, different potential
message carriers (endorsements). Look at voting records of
candidate and your opponent.
Want to anticipate the opponent's moves so you know which
ones to respond to, and which charges aren't going anywhere.
Ignore the one-day stories and stay on your message. Find
out ahead of time which endorsements carry the most weight
with which demographic groups.
What to ask in a poll?
Issues, priorities, hot buttons
Name recognition and favorability
Balanced arguments for/against your candidate's positions.
Trial heats/ Bio trial heats.
endorsers/ message carriers.
Get issues ranked from most important to least impt.
Candidate may talk about campaign finance reform, but no one
really cares. Persuadable voters may have their own #1
issue. Persuadables may care #1 about healthcae, but it
might be the #6 issue overall. Target healthcare info to
the persuadables.
Candidate with high unfavorables may have problems.
Sometimes city council candidates may only have 25% voter
recognition. Senators have 95%. Prez has 99%.
Identify which arguments are more likely to get you more
votes. Also test reasons to vote for or against a
candidate. You will know which attacks to ignore and which
to respond to.
People who change their opinions during the interview are
probably undecideds. So ask a few times the 'trial heat
question'. Who would you vote for right now?
Supporters say this. Opponents say that. Which do you
believe?
Message box.
What should you say about yourself?
What should you say about your opponent?
What will your opponent say about you?
What will he say about himself?
Identify persuadable voters. Typically 15-25% might be
persuadable. In small local races, up to 50% can be
persuadable.
Fielding (interviewing). Well trained. not for volunteers.
Methods are good. Calls are audited. Vary the time of day
and the days of the week that they are called. Limit 3-6
days to finish a survey, to get a snapshot. Volunteers
would take a month to do a 3 day survey.
Clients want to listen to the interviews, but this is like
watching sasusage being made. But they are paying, and
they are curious. Don't mispronounce their names! Call
during weekdays and get only seniors, homemakers,
unemployed. Usually call 5-9 weekdays and 1-9 on weekends
to get a good mix of people.
Tracking polls are used to make mid course corrections. To
identify effectiveness of media programs and ads. To
determine if more resources are needed. Use tracking polls
only when it is still possible to adjust tactics. But
often the candidate is curious. One shot tracking poll may
cost $5,000 to $10,000. Continuous tracking is expensive.
Snapshot tracking - do it once.
Waves- do one every couple of weeks.
Rolling track- 200 interviews every night in last 30 days of
the election. Drop old data and include the new data. Use
most recent 7 days.
Polling reports.
Topline- ex. 30% want to raise the soc sec age.
Cross tabulated across subgroups. Breaks aggregate data
into various demographics. Statistical modeling may help
you to find out which variables identigy supporters of a
particular candidate. Some subgroups are larger than
others.
Focus Groups. Get 8-12 people in a conference room with one
way mirror for 2 hours. Have a directed conversation. Get
qualitative info. Does not represent the electorate. You
can probe in depth. Show them ads and direct mail pieces.
Then take them away and see what they remember 5minutes
later.
Focus group could be all undecided, or all women 40-60 YO.
Show them an ad, see if they like it.
Hear real people with their real vocabulary. You get
verbal and nonverbal cues. Group dynamics - one loudmouth
can ruin the whole session. So thank him, pay him, ask him
to leave.
Groups often try to reach consensus. There is an
artificial intensity to the discussions. Also who shows up
for focus groups? they get $60 to show up.
Focus groups cost $5-10 thousand per group.
Benchmark poll costs $18-40 thousand
Tracking polls cost $5-50 thousand
Usually 5-7% of campaign budget should be for polling and
focus groups. But 80% is spent on voter contact (ads and
brochures). So polling makes sure that the ads are going
to register with the electorate.
Refusal rate- How to compensate for hangups (20-30%)?
Telemarketers get a much higher hangup rate than political
pollsters.
Make sure the distribution of people called is same as that
of likely voters. 20% of electorate is over 65. You can
overweight or underweight respondents in various demographic
candidates to arrive at the expected electorate.
Under 30- may only have cellphones. They are harder to
reach. The best predictor of your attitudes are those of
your neighbors, statistically speaking.
Good pollsters pay lots of attention to sampling. Polls
give you the intensity -- very likely, somewhat likely,
neutral, etc. Intensity is quantified.
Open ended questions are better in focus groups than in
polls. The benchmark poll is the most essential.
If a state rep race only has one TV commercial and it's
running the last week before the election, then why do a
tracking poll? You can't change anything. Tracking is for
tactical changes. Can test an ad in a focus group to see if
it will be persuasive. Focus groups are good if the
candidates have strong, distinctive personalities.
Robert Meadow was an academic who did polling and political
consulting on the side.
Pollsters come from three groups:
1. formal academics
2. Market researchers
3. Political operatives
Many states have this info on file: Date of birth, date of
registration, race (some states), party, voting history,
address. Match your sample to the official voter file. Use
census data to estimate education, income, etc. You may have
to make an educated guess.
Push polling is actually advocacy phoning. Push polls are
different from survey research. Advocacy calls can be much
shorter than survey research. Don't mix survey polling
with advocacy phoning. Use surveys to shape your message,
then use advocacy phoning later onto persuade people.
Partial interviews are still usable, if you have enough
demographic informatilon. Focus group may ask a loudmouth
to leave. Thank them, pay them, let them go home.
Opponent launches an attack on you. How to respond? If it
is a one day story, just stay on your message. You won't
have time to wait for a poll, so test the responses much
earlier.
the end.