POLLING AND
SURVEY RESEARCH
Our Polling Philosophy
Every campaign wants a finger to the pulse of public opinion, but few have unlimited research budgets. We find the best survey options for your campaign budget and work with you to capture data, distill insights, and meet tight deadlines for maximum impact.
Our clients know we take them seriously. We build personal relationships and give individual attention to each campaign. Plus, our experience ensures reliable data for more accurate projections.
- Our client list includes trade associations, advocacy groups, ballot measure campaigns and candidates at the federal, state, legislative and local government levels
- innovators in the use of SMS to reach younger voters and include more people of color in the election process
- Since our firm began, we have completed more than 1,000 surveys in 47 states
We share high-value insights that drive winning strategies. In our hyper-connected world, having a finger on the pulse of the public’s opinion is crucial to success in any campaign. No matter your budget size or ballot position it’s essential to “see around the corner.” We move with your campaign to find good data fast and deliver high-value insights that inform what’s next for your winning strategy.
Our Services & Methodology
Cross Tab Reports
We produce crosstabs by gender, region, age and most important, Party affiliation.
Data, Charts, Insights
We can ask open-ended questions about your most important issues and code responses. We produce word clouds and other charts and graphics for analysis.
Weighting
Accurate weighting of the polling sample is essential, and we work closely with the client to review relevant election history and the electoral landscape of the upcoming election to develop the most reliable estimates of age, gender, education, ethnicity and partisan mix of the district in question. We also include questions that measure voter enthusiasm that we incorporate into the turnout model and weighting of individual responses.
Pre-Testing
Prior to full launch, we program and test the process multiple times by dialing to team members as if they were residents of the targeted legislative district.
Monitoring
Our live agent to supervisor ratio is never higher than 12:1. We monitor the survey activity in real time to ensure adherence to the script.
Training
We conduct pre-survey training with our live operators that includes a review of the purpose of the project and the proposed use of the results of this survey; the actual survey language itself, complete with phonetic spellings as appropriate; and the background information for FAQ’s by respondents.
Data Collection
We dial randomly through the list of records in the sample, taking care to note the number of completed responses by “bucket” each day. When we reach our target number for each bucket, we cease dialing that subgroup and concentrate on other target quotas not yet filled. We review daily the progress toward those goals and if necessary, utilize remaining data by “bucket” to replenish the number of targets for the survey.
Response Rates
We call in waves over several days, measuring response rates by time of day and using that data to adjust calling times in subsequent call dates. We track daily the number of survey responses according to the targeted completion goals by age, race, ethnicity and ward. (We do not consider any other question responses in determining call backs.)
Data Editing
Our software ensures the appropriate branching based on answers to the previous questions. We will confirm with the client at the outset of the program how many, if any refusals to particular questions will prompt termination of the survey. We will note daily those surveys that are terminated for question refusals and review available data by age, race, gender to see if patterns are detectable. We retain the results of all partial completes for review by the client.
We began as Chism Strategies, a direct voter contact firm making millions of persuasion and GOTV phone calls annually.
Over the years, to better serve legislative and local government clients who lacked the budgets of competitive federal races, we experimented with alternative research methods. We were pioneers in IVR survey technology more than a decade ago and were recognized by our national trade association in 2006 for innovations with this tool.
We have partnered on research projects with Yale, Fordham, the Analyst Institute, and others along with our own survey work including modeling for pollsters and campaigns.
We introduced IVR/Live agent survey mix as the number of mobile-phone-only voter households continued to rise and our legislative clients wanted better ways to reach younger voters and persons of color who were less likely to use landlines.
We continue to use SMS technology to survey voters and are constantly researching new methodology to better reach voters across the country.
Today, Chism Strategies is on the leading edge of survey innovations in the country so we can deliver high value insights that drive effective strategy for our clients.
Poll Your Target Audience with Chism Strategies Today!
A full-service political consulting firm here to help you win campaigns.
Where to find us?
