David Flaherty on Polling 101: Part 2
Aug 26, 2015Republican Pollster and President of Magellan Strategies presents great insight into how to plan your polling, get the best results for your campaign’s strategy, and the challenges facing pollsters in the 2016 GOP Primary
This week we continue our conversation with Republican pollster, David Flaherty, in Part 2 of our Polling 101 series.
In Part 2, we go further in depth on polling and survey research and how it can help you win your election. We discuss what a good polling plan looks like and the important work that is required of the campaign in order to get the best results from your benchmark poll. We then go into the 2016 Presidential Election and specifically the challenges facing pollsters trying to measure support for 16 different candidates. David then gives his advice on how people should evaluate and how the media should report on the public polls in the presidential election.
If you haven’t already, please check out Part 1, where David lays out everything you could possibly want to know about how polls are conducted, how to effectively use them, and what can be done to meet the challenges facing pollsters over the next decade.
If you’ve listened to Part 1, you know that David Flaherty has years of experience working with data and voter files and is known as an expert in mapping technology and redistricting. As a pollster, this deep background in demographics and data helps Magellan Strategies get more accurate results in their research.
David spent 14 years in Washington, DC working for the Republican National Committee, the US House of Representatives and Americans for Prosperity. In 2006, David moved to Colorado where he started Magellan Strategies.
Between Part 1 and Part 2, campaign managers, political consultants and candidates alike will learn how to effectively use polling to help them make better decisions and win their elections.
Show Notes:
Check out David Flaherty’s Full Bio [Here].
Check out the Magellan Strategies [Here].
Check out some articles by David Flaherty:
Download the accompanying Polling 101 Presentation [Here]. We roughly follow this through our conversation.
PART 2
In this episode, we discuss:
- What strategic information should campaigns be looking at in the results
- Image Rating
- Job Approval
- Ballot Test
- Verbatim Questions
- Answers across demographics in the crosstabs
- Primary vs General election voters
- Oklahoma Medicaid Expansion Case Study
- Get unbiased opinions first
- Then read targeted questions or objective statements
- Informed Ballot Questions need to be:
- Accurate
- Fair
- Avoid push polling
- Test positives and negatives
- What does a typical survey plan look like for a campaign?
- Do benchmark survey first
- Image Test
- Ballot Test
- Issues
- Make sure you’re talking about what voters care about
- Strengths and Weaknesses
- You
- Opponents
- Abbreviated Benchmark
- Around Labor Day
- Track Movement
- See who’s undecided
- See changes in your message
- Helps campaigns be fluid
- Helps drive advertising
- Tests the how and why of support
- Tracking
- Depends on budget
- Usually 100 surveys a night for 5 nights
- Post-Election
- In a perfect world, you find out what you did right or wrong
- What makes a good benchmark poll
- Preparation
- Research
- Self-Research
- Opposition Research
- How should the public evaluate the current batch of public polls in the 2016 Presidential race
- Look at whether they surveyed registered or likely voters
- Look at modes they used
- Landline only
- Automated only
- Online only
- Or what mix of modes they used
- Why do some survey results not match the party registration numbers?
- Some pollsters ask party affiliation questions different and don’t weigh results based on actual affiliation numbers
- Public poll results are released to most people through the media. What do you wish they would do as part of their reporting?
- Methodology
- Registered/Likely Voter
- Demographics
- Say whether crosstabs were provided
- In the 2016 Republican Presidential Primary, how does having 16 different candidates in the race affect polling?
- Makes it difficult
- Unique and new Challenges
- Can’t do an automated survey
- Limited to nine answers
- Check methodology of the many polls coming out
- Focus on likely voters
- What separates Magellan Strategies from other firms?
- Data-driven approaches to survey research
- Allows candidates to focus on the sub-groups that need the most attention to achieve victory
- No other firm has as much data at their fingertips
- Great mix of data and expertise
- Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research
- Quantitative is a numbered survey (typical polls)
- Qualitative is focus groups (online or in-person)
- Who are the best Democrat pollsters?
- Mark Mellman
- Prominent Clients
- John Kerry
- Harry Reid
- Joel Benenson
- Prominent Clients
- Obama
Dave lives in the liberal, though beautiful, bastion of Boulder County, Colorado. We asked him the best place to visit and he suggested the majestic Chautauqua State Park to see the Flatiron Rock Formations that forge over Boulder. It was the view that convinced this Republican to move his family westward from Washington, DC.
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