We’ve got great news for all of you political junkies out there. Earlier this month, we announced a partnership extension with NBC News, which means together we’ll run weekly polls and publish the results so you can stay on top of the latest and greatest trends in the 2016 presidential race.
Remember the days when you were rudely interrupted during dinner by a caller inquiring about your political views? We’re proud to say the person on the other line won’t be one of us. We meet people where they are, and when they want to voice their political opinions.
Here’s how it works: Each week, we capture a nationally representative sample of thousands of adults 18 and older. We randomly select respondents from the millions of people using the SurveyMonkey platform daily. The Survey Research teams support the data collection and tabulation efforts. The polls are produced by the Data Analytics Lab of NBC News in conjunction with Penn’s Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies.
So, why campaign polling?
SurveyMonkey helps more than 25 million customers gather much-needed data and make better decisions, but to most Americans, “polls” are the surveys that ask about their election preferences.
First and foremost, we’re conducting election polling to demonstrate the power of SurveyMonkey’s tremendous research platform, which provides access to a remarkably diverse pool of people who are ready and willing to answer questions we care about, combined with industry-leading technology and advanced methodological expertise.
We believe the spotlight of election polling will also help prove two other big advantages we offer over traditional election surveys: The speed to allow for taking a quick pulse on voter behaviors and attitudes throughout the election season and the ability to interview unusually large sample that allow a closer examination of subgroups than more traditional telephone surveys.
The election survey platform also allows us to conduct systematic research into how to best conduct online surveys. Our studies give researchers clear direction when it comes to deciding how many questions to ask, how to optimize surveys for mobile devices, exactly when to ask open-ended questions, and much more.
We’ve already built a track record of success. Our experimental surveys proved accurate in 2012 and 2014, and we accurately predicted the outcome of the widely debated UK Labour Party’s leadership elections last year.
Our partnership with NBC, however, will let us go beyond the horse race. We’ve already covered a wide range of topics from kindness to Trump’s surprising durability with potential voters in the race for the Republican nomination.
So keep an eye out for our updates as the presidential race heats up. And don’t forget to share using #SMtracking.
