High Tech and High Touch: The Use of Polls and Focus Groups in Political Campaigns

April 2006
By  Brad Bannon

Survey research is more than numbers; it is about words and feelings. For this reason, survey research should be about focus groups and not just polls.

 

In political research, polling and focus groups should go together like a horse and carriage. But, often the only kind of research that campaigns conduct is a poll. Polls serve an important need in politics but they are rigid, structured and formal.

 

If a political campaign is an effort to build a candidate and win an election, the information from the poll would provide the skeleton and the focus groups would supply the skin. Conducting a poll without doing focus groups is a lot like having an ice cream sundae without the whipped cream topping.

A Consumers’ Guide To Getting The Most Out Of Your Poll

Friday, September 03, 2004
By: Brad Bannon

After years of struggle, the campaign industry has reached a point, I hope, where just about everybody in the business understands the necessity of polling. But what still is a fight is the question of how to use the poll after you take the time, trouble and money to conduct one.

After 25 years in this business, it still amazes me how little use people make of the polling they do. I now use the time I spent trying to convince people to poll trying to get them to use the poll to make tactical and strategic decisions after campaigns conduct a survey.

There are good and bad reasons to conduct political surveys.