Choosing a Pollster
Thursday
May 14, 2009
Updated: June 9, 2010
A poll isn’t an absolute necessity for a campaign, but it is a high priority. If you are going to spend a significant amount of money on your campaign, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to plan your advertising without testing whether or not your strategy is likely to work.
With the exception of very small cities or districts where you can talk directly with a high percentage of the voters and very low budget campaigns, a poll should be part of your campaign plan. Unfortunately a good public opinion poll is expensive. Ideally, you want a pollster who has extensive political experience, excellent analytical skills and access to very competent people to make the phone calls. Experience in polling in your area is also a major plus.
You should talk to the pollster’s previous clients and check newspaper archives for articles where he is quoted. If there are major donors or political action committees who may want to contribute to your campaign, you should check with them to make sure the pollster you are considering has their respect. Portions of your poll results may be shown to sympathetic donors to prove that you have a good chance of winning. You want to be sure that you have a pollster who has credibility with those donors.
Rating the Political Polls
Fivethirtyeight.com has a regular feature that tracks the effectiveness of political campaign polls. This is one of the few places that pollsters are held accountable. Most of them simply slip off unnoticed after a bad series of calls in an election year and re-emerge in the next election cycle to sell their wares to new customers. While there are many good pollsters who aren’t high profile enough to be included in these ratings, this will give you a good idea of whose numbers are trustworthy. Check out Fivethirtyeight.com’s Pollster Ratings. While you’re there, you should give the whole site a look. It has some very worthwhile information for number crunchers.
