Is polling dead? (Part 2; we revisit the question)
It is no secret that I am bearish on the value of polling in political campaigning; we have published relevant material before. It is inherently limited to the people who will engage with a phone call or online link to ask them questions about their political preferences, and that set is inherently skewed towards the type of people who would do so. No voodoo mathematics can cure this ailment.
Earlier this year, five of the top Democratic polling agencies released a joint memo admitting that they pretty much done goofed up the 2020 presidential polling numbers in precisely the places it mattered most. Their conclusions are not outlandish or unexpected; essentially, with all the additional weights and models and statistical techniques at their disposal, they still failed to predict the “Trump voter;” that is, they could not properly account for the low propensity Republican.
Fine. It’s not controversial to admit that these voters would be difficult to pick up. But this particular passage from Democracy Docket struck me curiously:
Social trust: Related to the COVID-19 hypothesis is another popular idea that some voters are increasingly opting out of polls due to a lack of “social trust.” High quality social science surveys suggest Americans’ trust in each other has been falling for decades. As some analysts have suggested, Trump may have helped turn this into a problem for pollsters by attracting distrustful voters and making his most ardent supporters even more distrustful of other people, of the media, and perhaps even polling itself. That, in turn, could have made his supporters less likely to answer polls.
My argument is not that this is somehow a data flaw that can be predicted or mitigated. My argument is that most reasonable people fit into this category, and therefore when we poll we have to make radical, outlandish assumptions about most reasonable people.
Who, pray tell, actually enjoys picking up the phone and talking to polling agencies about their opinions? They’ve typically got some free time in the afternoon or early evening, they’re typically really into politics, and they typically enjoy talking to strangers.
That doesn’t really describe the vast majority of people; the vast majority work all day, are tired when they come home and just want dinner, prefer to keep their politics private, and don’t spend their time reading bills for fun (even though, TBH, I totally do).
So either you’re stuck making wild assertions about the people who are most “interesting” or “likely to swing” in an election in order to attempt the full picture, or you’re caught shooting in the dark with the only set of people you can be reasonably confident in: high-propensity partisan voters.
Understand, as you read this, that I am not a statistician. But given how wrong the statisticians were, and how much money they made to be wrong, give me a shot here!
I know that polling can be valuable in high-profile races where decisions must be made about where to allocate finite resources. I know that polling can also be valuable in tracking the changing sentiments of a sample set over time. But so much money gets blown on something very few people (myself included) understand, which apparently doesn’t even work in the most crucial moments (the term for this is “low confidence,” right, lol) that another solution is begging to be produced.
When’s the last time you really invested in the persuasion media process, from start to finish, without polling?
When is the last time you really asked yourself about your “why” without focus groups or a room of acquaintances you’re forced to rely on as political advisors?
Many times, when I take on clients, I ask them to write a brief statement honestly proclaiming why they’ve made the decision to run for office. Call it their raison d’être, their manifesto, whatever you want. It’s a “why” statement.
Those thoughts, the ones that will motivate you to get up every day and fight for what you believe in, are also, incidentally, the ones most capable of persuading someone new to get up early before work and go vote for you. That honesty and authenticity will make messaging more affordable, videos more likely to go viral, emails more likely to generate donors. If we can derive one single positive lesson from Trump, it’s that authenticity gets attention.
(And, of course, once you’ve developed that statement, we can help you get the message out.)
At the end of the day, your job is not to triangulate the solution to a problem according to the least common denominator; your job is to provide a creative argument for change yourself. When that comes first, campaigning becomes a lot easier and a lot more affordable.
To finally answer the question: polling may not be completely dead, but the argument in favor of paying for something else instead is stronger than ever.
P.S. There are better ways to gauge sentiment than polling. Read your local news comments sections online. Invest in a social analytics tool. Check your notifications obsessively. Listen more than you speak.
