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Maine Political Campaigns Have Touted Recent Polls — But Are They Credible?

Robert F. Bukaty
/
Associated Press
Maine gubernatorial candidate Democrat Janet Mills, far left, speaks during a debate with fellow candidates Independent Alan Caron, second from left, Independent Teresea Hayes, and Republican Shawn Moody, Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2018, in Augusta.

In the last few days, several new polls have come out claiming to gauge the public’s support for candidates in the races for governor, Senate and House in Maine.

The surveys have come from Portland-based Pan-Atlantic Research, the campaign of independent gubernatorial candidate Terry Hayes, Suffolk University, and the New York Times-Siena College.

As Election Day nears, campaigns use poll results they like to show momentum — but as Maine Public senior political correspondent Mal Leary told Maine Things Considered Host Nora Flaherty, all polls are not created equal.

Flaherty: What do you make of these latest polls, and what do they say, if anything, about these races?

Leary: The biggest problem here is the lack of transparency in how these polls are designed and conducted. We have a poll paid for by a campaign, but then it doesn’t release the questions. That’s important. How questions are worded, in what order the questions are asked and more can affect the way people answer the questions in the first place. Methodology is also important. How is the random sample that’s supposed to represent all voters in a particular contest actually determined? Is the survey by phone, over the Internet or a mix of both? How many people were actually surveyed over what period of time? Lots of questions left unanswered by many of these polls.

How important are the things that you just talked about to the accuracy of the polling and how much should voters weigh them?

In the question of who paid for a poll, that should always be disclosed, so then voters can judge for themselves whether they should give the results any credibility. Polling is based on getting a random sample of voters that reflect the likely electorate on Election Day. So for example, with telephone polling, and that’s the most common type, you need to reach folks on both landlines and cellphones. And we’re seeing a steady shift from landlines to people that only have cellphones. So pollsters have to come up with the right balance that reaches the right number of both, and that varies from state to state, district to district, and it often means making thousands of calls to reach a sample of 500 or 600.

Do you have an example of a poll that you think is done well, that is transparent to the degree you think it should be?

We do have a very good example, and that’s the New York Times-Siena College series of polls they’ve been doing in congressional races across the country, including the 2nd District here in Maine. They actually show the calling underway in real time, and post partial results until the survey is completed, and they show where they come up short on trying to get that sample that actually reflects who they think is going to vote. For example, they wanted 8 percent of the more than 500 voters in the 2nd District that they surveyed to be 18-29 years of age. The actual sample was only 3 percent. They also wanted to reach more people on cellphones, but 62 percent of the completed calls they made were on landlines. All of that subtly has an impact on that sample and whether it really reflects the voters in the district.

It sounds like you’re saying that it’s very hard to get useful information out of polling as it is. What’s the takeaway then for voters, should they just ignore all the polls?

I don’t think they should ignore them, but they should take them with that proverbial very large grain of salt. All polls are not equal, but the more transparent they are with how they’re conducted, the more valid they are at reflecting what the voters were thinking at that point in time. The experts I’ve spoken with all say it’s best to look at all the polls and see if there’s some agreement, since all are conducted a little bit differently, some significantly differently. The 2nd District is a good example, where we have several public polls showing a close race. So voters know that’s a contest where every single vote may count.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Journalist Mal Leary spearheads Maine Public's news coverage of politics and government and is based at the State House.
Nora is originally from the Boston area but has lived in Chicago, Michigan, New York City and at the northern tip of New York state. Nora began working in public radio at Michigan Radio in Ann Arbor and has been an on-air host, a reporter, a digital editor, a producer, and, when they let her, played records.