Information is crucial for candidates in political campaigns. This book, written by someone who has polled for 23 years, first focuses on the process of acquiring information during a campaign through polling. The book describes how to write questions, draw samples of voters, and conduct calling. The second major concern of the book is how to analyze results, and then interpret and present results in a way that will contribute to forming a strategy for a campaign. The book deals with the issues of biased questions and results, and why it is of no value to candidates to engage in such practices.
Jeffrey Stonecash is professor of political science at Syracuse University.
Chapter 1 PrefaceChapter 2 Campaigns, Democracy, and the Need for InformationChapter 3 Purpose, Limited Budgets, and When to PollChapter 4 What Kind of Poll?Chapter 5 Writing Questions: Language and the ScriptChapter 6 Pulling a Sample: Who Votes, Sample Size, and RepresentativenessChapter 7 Callers and CallingChapter 8 The Crucial Part: Analysis and Developing a Campaign PlanChapter 9 Reports and RecommendationsChapter 10 Tracking Polls and the UndecidedChapter 11 A Final Note on Polling and DemocracyChapter 12 Appendix: A Sample ReportChapter 13 Bibliography
A good resource for learning how to analyze results and then intrepret and present them to campaigns in a way that will help inform strategy....Useful to those just starting careers in politics.