Quinnipiac Poll Director Visits Ahead of Election

Recently, Doug Schwartz, Director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, spoke at an Upper School assembly. He told the boys about the history of the poll and how polls are conducted. The Quinnipiac University Poll was created to predict local elections in Connecticut, branching out into New York and New Jersey before going national. It first received national attention when it predicted Charles Schumer’s comfortable win for a senate seat in New York in 1998 over then incumbent Al D’Amato, when other polls indicated that it would be close. With the goal to become a poll that was nationally recognized, the Quinnipiac University Poll focused on swing states in polling for the presidential election—first Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and later adding Colorado, Virginia, and Iowa. This differentiated it from other national polls and gave it relevance.

Mr. Schwartz went on to describe the challenges of modern polling, from selecting a random sample to taking into account the fact that landlines are no longer ubiquitous in homes and that often those people who live in a certain area may have a cell phone number from a previous city or state in which they lived. This can cause, for example, those conducting the poll to call someone in California to ask about a New York race if they have a New York cell phone number. Another challenge is that of question wording. Mr. Schwartz told the boys that in this election, when Donald Trump’s name is specifically mentioned in a question, it leads to more polarizing answers than when it isn’t mentioned—those predisposed to Mr. Trump tend to agree with the statement that mentions him, while those who do not support him will almost universally disagree. When Mr. Trump’s name is taken out of the question, even though the rest of the question remains the same, some people’s answers will change. Mr. Schwartz also warned students to be wary of online polls. They are usually conducted using a self-selecting sample rather than a random sample, so sampling error cannot be taken into account. 
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