A
Consumers' Guide To
Getting The Most Out
Of Your Poll
By Brad Bannon
After years of
struggle, the
campaign industry
has reached a point,
I hope, where just
about everybody in
the business
understands the
necessity of
polling. But what
still is a fight is
the question of how
to use the poll
after you take the
time, trouble and
money to conduct
one.
After 25 years in
this business, it
still amazes me how
little use people
make of the polling
they do. I now use
the time I spent
trying to convince
people to poll
trying to get them
to use the poll to
make tactical and
strategic decisions
after campaigns
conduct a survey.
There are good and
bad reasons to
conduct political
surveys.
The first bad reason
to do survey
research is because
somebody from
Washington told you
to do one. Use the
survey to inform the
decisions that you
have to make during
the campaign. Both
Democratic and
Republican
operatives undergo
intensive campaign
training and from
the national party
committees and
affiliated interest
groups and during
the courses, the
budding political
stars receive
checklists of things
they should do when
they get back to
their campaigns.
High on the things
to do checklists
they receive is “do
a baseline poll”.
Obediently the
managers hire a
pollster, conduct a
baseline survey and
then file the
research away
without plugging the
data or the pollster
into the campaign
decision making
process. At his
point the thick poll
book becomes nothing
more than an
expensive doorstop.
The second bad
reason to do a poll
is to confirm what
you already think
you know. Sometimes
campaign operatives
use polls like
drunks use lampposts
for support rather
than illumination.
So if you are doing
a survey just to
prove that the
candidate is well
known and much loved
then you are
ignoring the rich
complexities of
voter psychology
that you can get
from a poll. The
first rule for
success in politics
is to know what you
don’t know. A survey
can open a whole new
world of insights
into the psyche of
the electorate. So
don’t limit your
horizons by ignoring
the data that
conflicts with your
perception of
reality.
There are three good
reasons to poll and
they are to answer
the questions about
the what, why and
how of the voter
psychology.
The answer to the
“what” question is a
simple one. Any
idiot can answer the
“what” question,
which probably
explains my
longevity in the
business. This is
simply an exercise
in determining what
voters think and
what they feel about
the personalities
and issues involved
in the campaign.
What issues do
voters worry about?
What do the voters
like and dislike
about the incumbent
or about the
challenger?
At this point, many
pollsters fell that
they have done their
job and
unfortunately many
managers let them
off the hook at this
point. But if you
want to use the
baseline survey to
help you make vital
tactical and
strategic decisions,
you need to get
under the hood, kick
the tires and find
out why voters think
the things they
think and feel the
way they feel. It is
not enough to know
what percentage of
voters like and
dislike the
candidate or what
number of voters
worries about a
particular issue.
The pollster needs
to be able to tell
his or her client
why voters like or
dislike the
incumbent and the
challenger. The best
way to get at the
answers to the why
questions is to
present voters with
batteries of pointed
statements that they
can agree or
disagree with. Then
the pollster with
sophisticated
statistical tools
can precisely
examine the
correlations between
these pointed
positive and
negative statements
and voter
preferences.
Once the pollster,
hopefully me has
been able to tell
the client,
hopefully you what
voters are thinking
and feeling and why
they are thinking
and feeling whatever
it is, they are
thinking and felling
then the real work
starts. At that
point, the
pollster’s job is to
work with you and
your other
consultants to
answer the most
important question,
which is the “how”
question. The ‘how”
question is how you
talk to voters to
move in your
direction once you
know what they know
and understand their
motivations. The
answer to the “how”
question is the
theme or message for
you campaign
communications.
Anybody who has the
capacity to print up
some business cards
can become a
pollster. But the
only pollsters who
can help you win are
the pollsters who
can answer the what,
why and how
questions of voter
psychology.
Contact