Technology Making Polling More Difficult

When I look back on this election, two key things will stick out in my mind: how muddy it was and how much polling was done. I cannot remember an election when we’ve ever more anxiously waited with bated breath for each new poll result, especially in the case of the United States Senate race in West Virginia.

But with each new poll there seems to be more and more inaccuracies due to sample flaws, the nature of who conducts the poll (Orion Strategies ring a bell), etc...

Recently a tweep and I were discussing inaccuracies in current polling and how technology is making the business of polling increasingly difficult. How so? Lots of people are trading their landlines for mobile devices, which by law cannot be randomly called. Because of new phone technologies like Vonage, Yahoo Phone, and Magic-Jack people are retaining older area codes, making it harder to get a scientific sample. While these problems were prevalent two years ago, they’ve significantly increased during this election cycle, and could lead to across the board inaccuracies.

This is extremely concerning to this stiletto-clad, 25-year old because it could undercount the amount of young people who turn out to vote this midterm election.

If only polling could be conducted through mobile devices... But it sort of already is.

Today’s digital culture provides a platform for debate, drawing instant feedback from blogs or Facebook chats. The culture demands transparency, along with a desire to engage in heated discussions as opposed to the stonewalling we commonly see on TV.

Social media are revolutionizing the way politicians campaign, increasing candidate and constituent relationships through conversation and providing instant feedback that cannot be achieved from traditional polling.

Is social media the next generation of polling?

Voters, November 2nd, and Manchin

It’s true that people rarely learn from elections, but there’s something brewing out there in the minds of likely voters that repudiates this statement. America has always been a solid nation, one of economic growth and stability, the land of the free and the home of the brave. But that’s not the sentiment felt across the nation right now. The longest serving senator in Delaware was replaced by a Sarah Palin prodigy, cementing the anti-establishment sentiment among voters all over America.

When did this anti-establishment feeling really begin (in the last few years)? In my opinion, it all began during the Presidential Election of 2008. Obama’s campaign strategists developed a campaign that focused its efforts on mobilizing the number one unlikely voter base: the youngsters. How’d the do it so successfully?

Here’s my shoe box-sized summation; Generation Y is an ensemble from an entirely new breed of designers, and we’re not easily understood by anyone but ourselves because we’re anything but an establishment. We’ve lived through the Oklahoma City bombings, Sesame Street, September 11th, when MTV actually played music videos, Desert Storm, globalization, and the birth of the interconnected digital world we refer to as the “Internet.” This digital development connected us youngsters not only across the nation, but across the globe. Suddenly, we’re sharing our lives via Facebook and getting jobs by posting resumes on LinkedIn. We’re constantly connected to our phones and to each other, because we like to unabashedly share our life experiences with the world. Since we share in our peers joys and sorrows, we’ve developed an acute sense of camaraderie and tenacious teamwork. One might say that all this life experience sharing with hundreds and thousands of people across the globe means we crave attention, and they’d be right. Gen Y’ers do crave attention, but it’s the right kind of attention we crave, such as feedback at work, from our beloved families, and from our peers. We crave this attention and feedback because we’re achievement-oriented. We’re a happy generation, one of hope, civic-mindedness, and we fall head over stilettos in love with the possibility of making a real difference we can see and feel.

What the Obama campaign did was take the ideals of Generation Y and base their campaign around it, and it worked. Two years later, most young folks have not altered their views of the President, but it might not necessarily have been Obama they fell in love with, moreover I strongly believe it was the chance we could actually be involved in making a difference, in the power of an active democracy.

Playing devil’s advocate for just a second, younger generations have not had nearly the experience with government that our parents and grandparents have. We don’t even come into contact with the government until we go get a driver’s license, so we’re more idealistic because we’ve yet to experience what our predecessors have. And it’s this experience that’s turned the most likely voters against the “DC establishment.” This is why the Palin prodigy won in Delaware, and since Manchin started running an attack ad against Raese, I cannot help but think his tracking polls must have been pretty close to Rasmussen’s results.

How do we Democrats capitalize on this anti-establishment sentiment among our likely voters? Where’s there’s a will, there’s a way. And when asked how well we Democrats work under pressure, I always reply, “Pressure makes diamonds.”

The Politics Behind Polling

Polling has quite a history of miscalculations. One major upset took place in 1948, when the top three pollsters, Gallup, Archibald Crossley, and Elmo Roper, all predicted that Thomas Dewey would be elected United States President. They didn’t fathom that opinions would change, so polling came to a standstill a few weeks prior to the election . Wrong move. Harry Truman came out on top, winning by just 4% over Dewey.

Another polling “drama” occurred when Orion Strategies released results placing current Congressional candidate Mike Oliverio ahead of Rep. Alan Mollohan. The owner of Orion Strategies is Curtis Wilkerson, Oliverio’s campaign manager. For more information on that story, click here: http://bit.ly/9p5Qdm

Overall, America has witnessed a proliferation of polling, but can polling results be trusted? It all depends on who does the polling.

Yesterday, Rasmussen Reports released West Virginia Senate race polling results that placed John Raese just 6 points behind Governor Joe Manchin. But just how accurate are these results?

Scott Rasmussen, the founder of Rasmussen Reports, previously worked for George W. Bush during his 2004 presidential campaign. That being said, the majority of polling conducted by his company is thought to lean to the right. So should West Virginia Democrats be alarmed? I’d say no.

Wild, Wonderful West Virginia with a Woman Governor

“Women are not single-issue voters. Women, like me, have a wide variety of views. ...all of us are worried about our children’s futures,” stated Carly Fiorina.

Females continue climbing the political ladder in the United States, and right here at home. We’ve had two females in the Secretary of State’s Office, Natalie Tennant (@NatalieTennant) and Betty Ireland (@bettyireland). Carrie Webster (@judgewebster) as the first female to serve as the House of Delegates Judiciary Chair. And that’s not even the beginning!

But one thing we haven’t seen is a female governor. When Charlotte Pritt ran in 1996, I distinctly remember my Mom saying on the way home from voting, “Well, win or lose I voted for the first female governor.”

Now, 14 years later, the possibility looks better than ever. R.L. Repass and Partners recently conducted polling and the results show that the two top contenders for West Virginia Governor are women! Natalie Tennant is 3 points shy of Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (@Capito4Congress), but neither have declared their intentions to run.

Another female being mentioned in the 2012 fight to keep the White House is Hilary Clinton

as Vice President.

Whatever the outcome, one thing is crystal clear, the glass ceiling is without a doubt breaking in the world of politics.

Before Stiletto~ing Out the Door, Know Which Direction To Go

In both fashion and politics, doing your research is critical before stepping on the red carpet or sending out that first piece of political direct mail.

“Before the first speech, the first commercial, or the first handshake comes research. Nothing is more important or more powerful than knowing what the public is thinking and how these thoughts are shaping their decisions.” -Rainmaker, Inc.

After completing my first Primary campaign cycle at Rainmaker, Inc., I realized just how imperative public opinion research is to campaign message formation. While you may look great on the boob tube, you might not be discussing the right issues or have the right stances that will appeal to voters. If obtaining information about the the needs, wants, and desires of the general public wasn’t important, would thousands of polls be conducted across the United States and the world on a daily basis? It seems every type of business and news channel is conducting daily polling, from CNN to Elle Magazine to Cheerios.

Adlai Stevenson said, “The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal - that you can gather votes like box tops - is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.” But image sells, if you craft it correctly.

I can’t help but bring up a Sex and the City episode where Carrie spent way too much on a pair of Manolos so she would be at least as tall as Big’s fiancee, Natasha. Just like Carrie did her research, don’t we all before we walk out into the spotlight? We must know the arena we are stiletto-ing into before we step in. Yet at the same time, evoking an emotional appeal to our audience, be it Mr. Big or the general public, is critical for success.

Compare and contrast former President Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign TV spots with Senator John Kerry’s, what comes to mind? Clinton evoked more emotional response than Kerry, hands down. His campaign manager combined all the research findings, then hooked Americans with association networks of hope and the “American Dream.”

According to Abraham Lincoln, “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.”