In the
public opinion research office where I work we have several framed bar graphs
hanging on the wall. These bar graphs
show how closely our survey results matched the actual voting in several local
elections. We also have a Dilbert comic
strip on the wall that succinctly captures the challenges of getting reliable
information from telephone polling:
Dilbert is
in a meeting with his boss and a consultant.
The consultant is explaining the results of a survey and says that they
surveyed 1,000 people who still have landline phones and no caller ID. When asked for their opinions a new
technology, 34 percent replied, “Fiddlesticks” and 23 percent could not hear
the question. The other 43 percent
thought that the interviewer was in the room with them and offered hard candy.
The
Obama campaign made use of Big Data before the election in 2012. They were able to precisely predict how the
vote would go in each state. I also
learned that the campaign relied on benchmark data that was gathered from
conducting 10,000 telephone interviews.
These interviews measured the opinions and demographic characteristics of
voters throughout the United States. The
campaign used this information to create models of voters who might be
persuaded to change their vote and if so, what might influence them to do so. This helped the campaign to carefully craft
individualized online ads to reach voters even in solidly Republican precincts.
I like to
remember the part about the 10,000 telephone interviews when I see posts on
LinkedIn warning me that my job may become obsolete. Big Data and such things as text analytics
may automate some of the work done by human analysts, but someone will still
need to get on the telephone to gather information that can be used to
calibrate such data. Such calibration
will be even more important in predicting local elections.
We recently
completed a survey about a levy issue that will be on the ballot in November of
2014. We are planning to conduct another in October. I have taken steps to learn more
about Big Data and text analytics to learn if they can be used to predict
elections with the same accuracy that we have achieved with telephone surveys. If our clients perceive that they can get the
information they need to influence how likely voters will vote, they will
believe that they will not need to spend money on telephone surveys. It will be important to be ahead of this
perception rather than trying to catch up with it.
I doubt that there is enough data on the Internet to provide
insight on crafting campaign messages for a local election or accurately
predicting such an election. The Obama
campaign had plenty of text to analyze.
People were interested in the presidential election. They posted blogs and participated in
discussions on Facebook about it. I see
almost nothing about local elections.
The posts that I do see are for candidates, not bond or levy issues.
The Dilbert
comic strip mentioned above illustrates one of the challenges of polling individuals
younger than 65. I wonder whether Big
Data and text analytics can measure the opinions or predict the voting behavior
of those older than 65. Such people are
more likely to vote on bond and levy issues than younger people, but are less
likely to participate in heated debates on Facebook than younger people. Calling them on the telephone may be the only
way to learn how they plan to vote and why.
John C. Stevens
Saperstein Associates
(614) 261-0065
jstevens@sapersteinassociates.com
