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Bill Curtis: We've all heard, seen and read a thousand times about
Bill Curtis: how this or that politician or candidate is polling, pre-
Bill Curtis: debate, post- debate, about this issue, that issue, and we
Bill Curtis: watch incessantly while news announcers give us their organization's reflection
Bill Curtis: of, well, our collective opinion, or at least today's collective
Bill Curtis: opinion. It seems that our society's opinions change about as
Bill Curtis: often as my socks do. Yes, Mike, I mean daily.
Bill Curtis: But, where do these statistics come from? How are they
Bill Curtis: sourced, counted, kept honest? Today we're going to deep dive
Bill Curtis: into our own opinions with the help of one of
Bill Curtis: the most respected pollsters in the country. I can't think
Bill Curtis: of a more appropriate subject for this episode of Politics:
Bill Curtis: Meet Me in the Middle. I'm Bill Curtis. Our panel.
Bill Curtis: Firstly, our cohost, Pulitzer prize- winning historian, best- selling author,
Bill Curtis: worldwide lecturer, and the widely quoted socially distant and zoomed-
Bill Curtis: in authority of everything historical and constitutional, Professor Ed Larson.
Bill Curtis: How're you doing, Ed?
Ed Larson: Glad to be back with you and glad to be
Ed Larson: with Jane and Patrick Murray. What a treat.
Bill Curtis: Also zooming in, Jane Albrecht. She's an international trade attorney
Bill Curtis: who represented US interests all over the world. She has
Bill Curtis: worked with high- level government officials in many countries, and
Bill Curtis: she's been involved in several US presidential campaigns. Hey, Jane,
Bill Curtis: nice to remotely see you, too.
Jane Albrecht: It's always delightful to be here and honored to be
Jane Albrecht: here with Patrick Murray as well.
Bill Curtis: So, as you've heard, Monmouth University is one of the
Bill Curtis: most respected polling institutes in the country. We're fortunate that
Bill Curtis: Monmouth's founding director, Patrick Murray, is here with us in
Bill Curtis: the middle today. You'll recognize his voice, of course, because
Bill Curtis: you've heard him so many times doing exit poll analysis
Bill Curtis: and commentary on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, PBS, NPR, and all
Bill Curtis: the major networks. And since 2005 he has focused Monmouth's
Bill Curtis: polling on everything you can imagine from presidential state and
Bill Curtis: local elections to business studies, nonprofits, TV, viewer segmentation, even
Bill Curtis: something close to my heart, magazine reader surveys. Hopefully podcast
Bill Curtis: next. He's a commentator on politics and public opinions and
Bill Curtis: that's where we'll be focusing our discussions here on Politics:
Bill Curtis: Meet Me in the Middle. So, Ed, is polling a
Bill Curtis: new thing or did our founders take voters' temperature back
Bill Curtis: in the formation of America?
Ed Larson: Good politicians have always had a knack for knowing what
Ed Larson: the voters think and what they want. Aaron Burr was
Ed Larson: a master of it, but formal polling is really relatively
Ed Larson: new, at least within the last century. It started with
Ed Larson: the growth of the modern newspapers. It was only in
Ed Larson: the 1930s that Elmo Roper and George Gallup tried to
Ed Larson: develop a scientific method of polling where you'd try to
Ed Larson: get a representative sample of people. Now, those representative samples
Ed Larson: weren't very good. Blacks were almost entirely excluded. You can
Ed Larson: look back now and it's almost comical how bad their
Ed Larson: collections were and how biased they were. Now there are
Ed Larson: literally hundreds of organizations taking thousands of polls with every
Ed Larson: election cycle, and with having Patrick Murray on, we've got
Ed Larson: one of the best.
Bill Curtis: Well, speaking about one of the best, Patrick, how did you get started in this racket?
Patrick Murray: Well, the story that my grandmother tells is that I
Patrick Murray: started when I was about four- years- old, riding a
Patrick Murray: bus into Philadelphia. I sat at the front of the
Patrick Murray: bus and I asked everybody who got on the bus
Patrick Murray: if they liked the bus. But I learned my first
Patrick Murray: lesson about how you bias a poll by following up
Patrick Murray: that question before they answered with saying, " I like the
Patrick Murray: bus." So I'm telegraphing to them what the correct answer
Patrick Murray: is. So, automatically from the age of four I was
Patrick Murray: learning how to ask questions and how not to ask
Patrick Murray: questions. But seriously, a most formative experience that I had,
Patrick Murray: which was, I was doing a semester in Washington, D.
Patrick Murray: C. as an undergraduate, then I saw this ad in
Patrick Murray: the city paper there and walked in and it was
Patrick Murray: a pollster. Peter Hart was the Democratic pollster. I didn't
Patrick Murray: know whether Democrat, Republican, I had no idea. What I
Patrick Murray: did know was that I was calling and talking to
Patrick Murray: voters in Hawaii and Michigan and Wisconsin and Arkansas, and
Patrick Murray: a whole post of interesting places and asking them questions.
Patrick Murray: And I realized I was pretty good at that. And
Patrick Murray: I went to Rutgers University where they had one of
Patrick Murray: the foremost state level polls at the time, the Eagleton
Patrick Murray: poll, which started in 1971. And I walked over there
Patrick Murray: one day and just said, " I'm interested in practical politics.
Patrick Murray: I'm interested in this stuff when I read it in
Patrick Murray: the academic literature. You got anything for me to do?"
Patrick Murray: And they said, " Yeah, we've got this little project we just
Patrick Murray: need some help with, if you want to do it." And
Patrick Murray: that was it. From that point on, I was not
Patrick Murray: going to be a political science professor, I was going
Patrick Murray: to be a pollster. What happened was, as I progressed
Patrick Murray: as a pollster, that experience that I had as an
Patrick Murray: interviewer, talking to people and understanding the interaction that you
Patrick Murray: have when you're trying to get people to tell you
Patrick Murray: their honest opinion, informed me much more than any of
Patrick Murray: the academic work in many ways that I did along
Patrick Murray: the way.
Bill Curtis: How could you tell at the time, Patrick, that you
Bill Curtis: were getting an honest opinion as opposed to the opinion
Bill Curtis: they thought they should give you? How do you create
Bill Curtis: a control for people that are not actually giving you
Bill Curtis: honest answers when you realize that you're getting kind of
Bill Curtis: a load from someone because they're telling you what they
Bill Curtis: think you should be hearing rather than what they're thinking?
Patrick Murray: That social desirability bias is important. That's one of the
Patrick Murray: things that I said you really need to develop an ear
Patrick Murray: to understand that a question that you ask may not
Patrick Murray: be as innocuous as you think. I'm going to give
Patrick Murray: you an example from a poll that we just released, which
Patrick Murray: is, before COVID hit, were you planning to take a
Patrick Murray: trip for summer vacation? It seems innocuous, right? A yes
Patrick Murray: or no answer. So we got a number, 63% that
Patrick Murray: was in line with numbers that we had gotten from past
Patrick Murray: years. And of course when we ask follow- up questions
Patrick Murray: we find that fewer people are actually going to take
Patrick Murray: that vacation. That was the purpose we were asking them. When we actually
Patrick Murray: looked at how the responses were given by party, Democrats
Patrick Murray: were significantly more likely, 76% or so of Democrats said
Patrick Murray: that they were planning a vacation, which was more than
Patrick Murray: we'd seen for Democrats in the past. But by the
Patrick Murray: same token, only 47% of Republicans said they were planning a
Patrick Murray: vacation, which would mean before COVID hit, 2020 was going
Patrick Murray: to be the lowest year for Republicans taking a vacation
Patrick Murray: in a year in history. Now, there's no way that
Patrick Murray: that's true. What happened was, we were asking that question
Patrick Murray: within a series of other questions, asking about the impact
Patrick Murray: of COVID. This is a huge problem that we've been
Patrick Murray: facing and has been growing over the past decade, is
Patrick Murray: that almost everything now is viewed through a partisan lens
Patrick Murray: so that when you get a question you first are
Patrick Murray: thinking about, " Well, what does this say about my belief
Patrick Murray: system?" Rather than simply, " Am I going to do this
Patrick Murray: or not going to do this?" And so, Republicans who
Patrick Murray: want to defend President Trump want to say, " Hey, I
Patrick Murray: wasn't planning a vacation because, you know, to let you
Patrick Murray: know that COVID hasn't changed my plans. I had... COVID,
Patrick Murray: there's not been a big impact," where Democrats are saying, "
Patrick Murray: I did plan a vacation and COVID and the response
Patrick Murray: of the Republicans and President Trump are what caused me
Patrick Murray: not to be able to take this vacation." Now, when
Patrick Murray: we actually drilled down, we had a bunch of follow-
Patrick Murray: up questions. By the time we got to the follow-
Patrick Murray: up questions about what you actually are going to do,
Patrick Murray: that partisanship disappeared because we were now anchoring it in
Patrick Murray: real behaviors that they said they were going to do tomorrow.
Bill Curtis: Interesting.
Patrick Murray: One of the things I think distinguishes me from other
Patrick Murray: pollsters is that I go out there and I actually
Patrick Murray: talk to people. I listen in on conversations. This is
Patrick Murray: like how you understand how people talk about things, not
Patrick Murray: by imposing your academic view on how the world should
Patrick Murray: work, but on actually how people talk about them, the
Patrick Murray: vernacular used. And I found that when I go out
Patrick Murray: to places like Iowa, New Hampshire in the throes of
Patrick Murray: these presidential primaries, I am able to get people to
Patrick Murray: come out of their shell because they don't know what
Patrick Murray: I think. I'm able to present in a way that,
Patrick Murray: whatever you're about to tell me, I don't have a
Patrick Murray: judgment on. Or maybe you even think that I probably
Patrick Murray: will agree with you. I found people saying things to
Patrick Murray: me in those situations that they probably would not say
Patrick Murray: if I had walked up with a TV camera where
Patrick Murray: they were automatically going to say, " Well, I have to
Patrick Murray: defend President Trump," or, " I have to knock President Trump
Patrick Murray: and defend the Democrats," whatever it happened to be.
Bill Curtis: So, let's dive into a polling situation that we all
Bill Curtis: remember. What lessons did we learn from the 2016 Clinton/
Bill Curtis: Trump election?
Patrick Murray: Well, one of the things that I learned is that
Patrick Murray: the media doesn't really understand the error associated with polling.
Patrick Murray: And one of the things that I looked at is the
Patrick Murray: total error, particularly in the states that were competitive. And
Patrick Murray: so, let's say we have 15 states that are the
Patrick Murray: most competitive states. Well, the error in 2016 across those
Patrick Murray: states was no different than the error was in 2012.
Patrick Murray: And overall the error in 2016 at the state level
Patrick Murray: was only slightly higher than it had been on average. What
Patrick Murray: happened was, the error was off enough in a few
Patrick Murray: states that it changed the Electoral vote outcome, whereas in
Patrick Murray: 2012 it did not do that. So the errors that
Patrick Murray: are inherent in the polling did not change what our
Patrick Murray: expectations were going into the election. That was the key,
Patrick Murray: that the same amount of error was there, it was
Patrick Murray: just our expectations were held up even with the error
Patrick Murray: in 2012, but expectations were not met in 2016.
Bill Curtis: When you polled for 2016, did you poll based on
Bill Curtis: the Electoral College or did you poll based on popular vote?
Patrick Murray: We polled based on popular vote. If you're going to
Patrick Murray: do Electoral College you do a 50 state poll, which
Patrick Murray: means you have to have a large enough sample size
Patrick Murray: in all 50 states. So you're focused on those 15
Patrick Murray: states, but what happens is that those 15 states that
Patrick Murray: are most competitive are close, then the potential errors are
Patrick Murray: going to be exacerbated. And that was the problem that
Patrick Murray: we found. The public had shifted in terms of how
Patrick Murray: they voted based on their educational level. In the past
Patrick Murray: the difference between voters with a college degree and voters
Patrick Murray: without a college degree didn't matter all that much. Now,
Patrick Murray: starting in 2016, it mattered, and because we didn't have
Patrick Murray: a proper way in our voter list to weigh education,
Patrick Murray: a lot of pollsters didn't weigh by education, but that
Patrick Murray: only accounted for about one or two points of the
Patrick Murray: total error. We're talking about a four point error overall.
Patrick Murray: We found that more of our likely voters who said
Patrick Murray: they were going to vote for Hillary Clinton decided to
Patrick Murray: stay home than Trump voters and that accounted for a
Patrick Murray: point or two. These are things that you can't predict
Patrick Murray: in a poll, and that was my big problem with
Patrick Murray: the polling error in 2016 was not so much about
Patrick Murray: the polling, it was about the number of articles out
Patrick Murray: there that used the word predict. Polls don't predict anything.
Patrick Murray: Polls tell you what things are at the time you
Patrick Murray: take the poll. Now, the fact that polls are fairly
Patrick Murray: accurate in terms of elections is because very little usually
Patrick Murray: changes between the time a poll was taken and the
Patrick Murray: election, if you're talking about a poll that's taken within
Patrick Murray: a week of the election, that pretty much the die
Patrick Murray: is cast. And that's why polls are accurate. Not because
Patrick Murray: they're predicting what will happen, it's because what was the lay
Patrick Murray: of the land on the day the poll was taken
Patrick Murray: didn't change by the time we got to the election.
Patrick Murray: And that's why polls aren't in and themself predictive, it
Patrick Murray: is they just tell you what is at the time,
Patrick Murray: and as long as things aren't volatile in the last
Patrick Murray: few days, and that certainly was not the case in
Patrick Murray: 2016, then you're not going to get changes. And what
Patrick Murray: happened is, we had a volatile election, we had enough
Patrick Murray: people moving around, and we had a number of polls
Patrick Murray: that had the race in these key states within five
Patrick Murray: points, and all that said was, " Well, this is going
Patrick Murray: to be a close race and it looks like Hillary
Patrick Murray: Clinton's ahead, but you shouldn't put all your money on
Patrick Murray: that because we know that things are going to be
Patrick Murray: changing between now, the time we took the poll, and
Patrick Murray: election day."
Bill Curtis: Is it possible that in 2016 people weren't really willing
Bill Curtis: to admit out loud that they were thinking of voting
Bill Curtis: for Trump?
Patrick Murray: There were some of those people and I had looked at
Patrick Murray: my poll, particularly in Pennsylvania. What we discovered was, in
Patrick Murray: urban areas and suburban areas, which made up about two
Patrick Murray: thirds of Pennsylvania, we had the results dead on. When
Patrick Murray: we compared our results in those counties versus what we
Patrick Murray: had in the poll, they were dead on. Where we
Patrick Murray: were off was in the rural part of Pennsylvania. What
Patrick Murray: we found is not... People weren't lying to us about
Patrick Murray: how they were going to vote. That the Democrats who
Patrick Murray: are going to vote for Trump or the lean Democrats who were
Patrick Murray: going to vote for Trump, weren't talking about it. So
Patrick Murray: they were less likely to answer a poll than they
Patrick Murray: had been in the past. And what we found from
Patrick Murray: doing our follow- up work was, it wasn't just about
Patrick Murray: answering poll questions. They actually weren't talking to their family
Patrick Murray: members about how they're going to vote. They didn't want
Patrick Murray: to hear it. We already are seeing there's some of
Patrick Murray: that still exists today. We have to factor that in.
Patrick Murray: But as I said, that's only 1%. Now, if we're
Patrick Murray: talking about a couple of different factors that are one
Patrick Murray: or two percent and they add up to four or
Patrick Murray: five percent but you don't know which ones are at
Patrick Murray: play at which particular time, the key thing that we
Patrick Murray: need to do is to get the media to start
Patrick Murray: saying, when a four or five point poll or a
Patrick Murray: bunch of four or five point polls come in, is
Patrick Murray: that saying, there's still error around this. While it looks
Patrick Murray: like it's leaning towards Biden or leading towards Trump, there
Patrick Murray: still is enough error around this that we can only
Patrick Murray: characterize this as a close election. There is unknowns. There's
Patrick Murray: error and unknowables inherent in polling, and we need to
Patrick Murray: be more cognizant about that and talk about that a
Patrick Murray: little bit more. Look, if we see Joe Biden is
Patrick Murray: ahead by 10 points in every poll in Michigan, then
Patrick Murray: yes, Joe Biden is ahead. And if he loses that,
Patrick Murray: the polls were definitely wrong. But if we see Joe
Patrick Murray: Biden ahead by four points on average, and Donald Trump
Patrick Murray: ends up being able to squeak out a win by 10, 15,
Patrick Murray: 000 votes in Michigan, then the polls were not necessarily
Patrick Murray: wrong. It's only the depiction of the polls. The media
Patrick Murray: were saying, " Joe Biden's definitely going to win this," based
Patrick Murray: on a bunch of polls that only had him up
Patrick Murray: by three or four points.
Bill Curtis: We're going to take a quick break and when we
Bill Curtis: return, I'd like to talk to you about that particular
Bill Curtis: subject and how you're dealing with 2020 when the people
Bill Curtis: who actually vote are going to be a little up
Bill Curtis: in the air. We'll be right back.
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Bill Curtis: We're back with Patrick Murray, Monmouth University Polling Institute, and
Bill Curtis: Ed Larson and Jane Albrecht. So, Patrick, we were talking
Bill Curtis: about what happened in 2016. And now as we get
Bill Curtis: to 2020, there are a lot of interesting factors that
Bill Curtis: you've probably not been dealing with before, like the pandemic,
Bill Curtis: how it's going to affect people actually leaving their homes
Bill Curtis: and voting, where you can have a mail- in ballot
Bill Curtis: and where the mail- in ballots might not happen. How
Bill Curtis: are you controlling for that?
Patrick Murray: We don't know yet because, I'll be honest with you,
Patrick Murray: we stopped our state- level polling as the pandemic hit.
Patrick Murray: We were polling in the Democratic primary. We polled Michigan
Patrick Murray: in early March and then Arizona, and in Michigan our
Patrick Murray: poll was great. But Arizona, what happened was, between the
Patrick Murray: time we polled and the time the election happened, which
Patrick Murray: was only a couple of days between them, is that
Patrick Murray: there was a huge shift in people not showing up to
Patrick Murray: vote on person because of the unrolling pandemic. And more
Patrick Murray: people voted by mail or by drop- off than had
Patrick Murray: voted ever before. But the people that we had in
Patrick Murray: our poll, many of them who were going to vote in
Patrick Murray: person, just simply did not vote. And so we dropped
Patrick Murray: our polling at the state level because of that. So
Patrick Murray: the larger question is, " Okay, so what are you going to do
Patrick Murray: about this?" And I said, " Part of it was, we don't know yet
Patrick Murray: because the states haven't told us exactly how they're going
Patrick Murray: to run the election in November." Because we already know
Patrick Murray: from our past polling in March that this is going
Patrick Murray: to be a big issue.
Bill Curtis: So, over the weekend I think you tweeted, " Rarely does
Bill Curtis: a poll result surprise me because I am open to
Bill Curtis: whatever the data will reveal. Change is usually either incremental
Bill Curtis: or momentary, but there's something fundamentally different in these results."
Bill Curtis: And you were reflecting upon results where almost 60% of
Bill Curtis: the people that you polled said that police officers facing
Bill Curtis: a difficult or dangerous situation would be more likely to
Bill Curtis: use excessive force if the culprit is black compared to
Bill Curtis: the one third who say that police are just as
Bill Curtis: likely to use excessive force against a black or white
Bill Curtis: culprit. You were pretty surprised by that.
Patrick Murray: Yes, I was because it was a significant sea change
Patrick Murray: just four years ago. Only about a third of the
Patrick Murray: public said that. They are now close to six and 10 who say
Patrick Murray: that. That's a big shift. And I have been asking that
Patrick Murray: question for a couple of years, and there are other
Patrick Murray: incidents. Eric Garner and so, or they didn't change opinion
Patrick Murray: all that much. It was incremental. And opinions are changing among the
Patrick Murray: white. And to me as somebody who's been measuring public (inaudible)
Patrick Murray: for 25 years, there are certain things that stand
Patrick Murray: out to you that you say, " Well, this is different than I've
Patrick Murray: ever seen in a poll before in terms of a
Patrick Murray: shift." And that was one of them. And that's where
Patrick Murray: your understanding of sociology and psychology comes into play.
Bill Curtis: So what are some of the other ways that Monmouth University
Bill Curtis: Polling is trying to understand the Black Lives Matter movement,
Bill Curtis: its resilience or lack thereof?
Patrick Murray: We were doing that polling just as the protests were
Patrick Murray: starting with the George Floyd murder. And what we're finding
Patrick Murray: was that the initial violence, people were saying, " Oh, I
Patrick Murray: don't like the violence." And we've gotten that all along.
Patrick Murray: And usually what will happen is, particularly among white respondents,
Patrick Murray: they'll see the violence and say, " Well, that undercuts the
Patrick Murray: validity of the cause." And what we're finding in our questions
Patrick Murray: was, if you ask a separate question, they said, " Well, we
Patrick Murray: don't like the violence, but we fully understand where that
Patrick Murray: anger is coming from." And that's a key difference, that one I never
Patrick Murray: saw before.
Bill Curtis: With the Black Lives Matter movement, have we actually gotten
Bill Curtis: to the point where we're going to take it seriously
Bill Curtis: and it'll live long- term, or could it qualify for
Bill Curtis: that momentary concept?
Patrick Murray: I put it this way because, as I said, I've
Patrick Murray: seen something different in this polling number, something that is a
Patrick Murray: harder change, a more permanent change. But because I see
Patrick Murray: it as a permanent change now doesn't mean it will
Patrick Murray: remain permanent. What I can say is, I've seen a
Patrick Murray: window open to a discussion about race and systemic racism
Patrick Murray: that we haven't seen in the past. And so the
Patrick Murray: question is, does that window stay open? And it depends
Patrick Murray: on how the conversation develops, but the potential for that
Patrick Murray: staying open, that conversation continuing, is at a level that
Patrick Murray: it's never been at before.
Bill Curtis: What can we learn from the polls? How can we
Bill Curtis: use what you learn as a way to change our
Bill Curtis: actions so that we can make sure that this is
Bill Curtis: more of a long- term change rather than this week's fad?
Patrick Murray: Well, what we do know about how people behave is that
Patrick Murray: they close off their willingness to engage in new discussions
Patrick Murray: when fear is involved. And that has been the case
Patrick Murray: in every past situation is, yes, this is a problem,
Patrick Murray: but I need to protect myself. Well, the president's rhetoric
Patrick Murray: plays on that fear. It has had actually had the
Patrick Murray: opposite effect because he hasn't done what other past politicians
Patrick Murray: have done, which is acknowledge that there's some sort of
Patrick Murray: ephemeral problem out there, and we're going to do something
Patrick Murray: unnamed to address it. But, the violence that these people
Patrick Murray: are using to express their point of view will undermine
Patrick Murray: your safety and security in the neighborhoods where you live.
Patrick Murray: What Trump is just saying is, " Their behavior is bad and
Patrick Murray: everybody's behavior who's supporting them is bad," so they're putting
Patrick Murray: all these white people in the same boat with the
Patrick Murray: black people who are protesting and other people of color
Patrick Murray: who are protesting, and so white people are now saying, "
Patrick Murray: Wait, he's calling me the enemy." So he's not having
Patrick Murray: the effect of promoting fear among them. He's actually pushing
Patrick Murray: them into solidarity. Ironically, probably one of the things that
Patrick Murray: can happen here is for Trump to continue what he's
Patrick Murray: doing in his rhetoric, because it's pushing those people who
Patrick Murray: have said that they're willing to engage in this conversation
Patrick Murray: to continue to engage in this conversation. Now the thing
Patrick Murray: that you don't want to do is you don't want
Patrick Murray: to divert attention. As I mentioned, you don't want to
Patrick Murray: divert attention and dilute what this is all about. I
Patrick Murray: mean, this is about systemic racism which has been a
Patrick Murray: scourge for our country since slavery. And so you want
Patrick Murray: to make sure that you continue to concentrate on that.
Jane Albrecht: Going back to what you just talked about, Patrick, the
Jane Albrecht: fact that what's happened has opened a window to discussion
Jane Albrecht: in a way that hadn't been opened before, but people
Jane Albrecht: tend to close off such discussions when fear is involved.
Jane Albrecht: Do you have any sense yet for how the moniker
Jane Albrecht: Defund The Police could feed into that? It's not just
Jane Albrecht: Trump playing on the fear of the violence of the
Jane Albrecht: protest. I don't think that will get that far, but
Jane Albrecht: because Defund The Police, if you know what's behind it,
Jane Albrecht: it's really about deep reform of policing. But the moniker
Jane Albrecht: they chose is radical and seems extreme, and I could
Jane Albrecht: see people saying, " Hey, I really think we should address
Jane Albrecht: this situation of systemic racism and police brutality, but I
Jane Albrecht: don't know if I want to trust the Democrats to
Jane Albrecht: do this because they would defund the police." So, how
Jane Albrecht: is that going to play into this ability to move forward?
Patrick Murray: Jane, you've read my mind because that's the key. That's
Patrick Murray: what I'm talking about in terms of keeping this conversation
Patrick Murray: open. It's not whether the public fully understands what Defund
Patrick Murray: The Police means. It's what their perceptions are. People act
Patrick Murray: based on their perceptions of reality, not what reality is.
Patrick Murray: And that's something that polling can measure. We can't measure in-
Patrick Murray: depth analysis of people thinking about solutions for racism. What
Patrick Murray: we can measure is the things that are going on
Patrick Murray: out there in the world. How are they reacting to
Patrick Murray: them? And is that going to potentially have an impact
Patrick Murray: on, not only their attitudes, but their behaviors. Is Defund
Patrick Murray: The Police, is that something that can stoke fear or
Patrick Murray: has the conversation moved enough that people feel, " Oh, I
Patrick Murray: know what that really means." Even if they don't know
Patrick Murray: exactly what that really means, their perception is that, " Yeah,
Patrick Murray: I know it doesn't mean fully that." So that, then,
Patrick Murray: do we get a tipping point where that pushes that
Patrick Murray: too far? We don't know and that's why you need polling.
Bill Curtis: Can you tell us how your polls have gauged the
Bill Curtis: effect of the pandemic on the next elections? And have
Bill Curtis: you been able to test that at all?
Patrick Murray: Less about predicting what's going to happen in an election
Patrick Murray: versus what we actually saw in terms of moving the
Patrick Murray: needle. Trump got an initial bump in his approval rating
Patrick Murray: in March because there's this rally effect. People want to
Patrick Murray: be able to rally around their leader. Again, this goes
Patrick Murray: back to fear. When there's an attack on us, and
Patrick Murray: then this pandemic is an attack on our security and our
Patrick Murray: safety, and you want a strong leader to be able
Patrick Murray: to do that. What's interesting was why he got a
Patrick Murray: bump. He got nowhere near the bump that our state
Patrick Murray: governor's got, that other foreign leaders got in their own
Patrick Murray: countries, because the opinion about Trump is baked in. So
Patrick Murray: what we found is there was a lot of polling
Patrick Murray: out there that said, " Oh, older people who are more
Patrick Murray: susceptible to the virus are turning against Trump because of
Patrick Murray: his response to COVID." When I looked at the polls, I said, "
Patrick Murray: Well, no. These differences existed before COVID." What they're only
Patrick Murray: doing is reinforcing what people already thought about President Trump.
Patrick Murray: Whether you like him or dislike him, it had a
Patrick Murray: reinforcing effect.
Bill Curtis: Let's talk about some of the more detail aspects of
Bill Curtis: pandemic and see if you've polled for it. For example,
Bill Curtis: the opening of the economy versus the health risks and
Bill Curtis: the potential for a bump and hospitals having more issues.
Bill Curtis: Have you tested those points?
Patrick Murray: Yeah, we get by about two- to- one margin. People
Patrick Murray: are more concerned about opening too quickly because of the
Patrick Murray: health impact than they are concerned about opening too slowly
Patrick Murray: because of the economic impact. And that's been pretty stable throughout this.
Bill Curtis: Well, that's interesting. Is that nationwide or is that state by state?
Patrick Murray: That's nationwide.
Bill Curtis: The impression I think a lot of us have is
Bill Curtis: that funding can affect a poll's outcome. Does it matter
Bill Curtis: who's paying for the poll?
Patrick Murray: I guess it does. I mean, we don't do paid
Patrick Murray: polls, so it's not so much that they bias the polls
Patrick Murray: when they do that, but when you're dealing with a
Patrick Murray: client, it actually comes out in the questions that you
Patrick Murray: ask and the questions that you choose not to ask.
Patrick Murray: That is where I tend to see the bias. It's not
Patrick Murray: in the results themselves, but in, let's avoid this part
Patrick Murray: of the issue, seems to be the bigger bias.
Bill Curtis: That's interesting that you said you don't charge for your
Bill Curtis: polling. So how does Monmouth University get its funding for this?
Patrick Murray: So, Monmouth University is doing this as a public service.
Patrick Murray: This is one of the areas, we have a number
Patrick Murray: of other research institutes, something called the Urban Coast Institute,
Patrick Murray: for example, that does research on the urban environment, the intersection
Patrick Murray: of public policy and science. And we do that in
Patrick Murray: order to take the expertise that we have inside the
Patrick Murray: university and share it outside the university. So this is
Patrick Murray: one of the things that Monmouth does. Now obviously it
Patrick Murray: also helps to give Monmouth publicity and people hear the
Patrick Murray: Monmouth name, and that's always good because every college spends
Patrick Murray: money on marketing and communications. So this is one of
Patrick Murray: the ways that we do some of that as well.
Bill Curtis: Interesting. So being that we've only got a few minutes
Bill Curtis: left, I can't help but ask you if right now
Bill Curtis: you had to lay down a bet based on the
Bill Curtis: polls that you've put out there and the trends you've watched
Bill Curtis: over the last two decades, can you call our next election?
Patrick Murray: No, absolutely not.
Bill Curtis: Presidential election?
Patrick Murray: Absolutely-
Bill Curtis: You're not even going to take a stab at it.
Patrick Murray: ... no question, no way in hell. And in fact, and don't take this
Patrick Murray: personally, Bill, but I'm offended by that question because this
Patrick Murray: is my bugaboo, is that polls do not predict. I
Patrick Murray: don't predict. I don't have a crystal ball. I don't
Patrick Murray: know what's going to happen. I get these questions from
Patrick Murray: reporters all the time. " Well, does what happened yesterday mean
Patrick Murray: for four months down the line?" I have absolutely no
Patrick Murray: clue because if I did, I'd be using that money
Patrick Murray: to go bet on the horses or play the lottery,
Patrick Murray: not to do polling.
Jane Albrecht: Patrick, can you explain a little bit of the difference
Jane Albrecht: between what Monmouth does and the pollsters that the presidential
Jane Albrecht: campaigns employ? My understanding is that at this stage, the
Jane Albrecht: presidential campaigns will have very capable pollsters and they will
Jane Albrecht: be polling down to the district. But if you can
Jane Albrecht: explain the difference between what you do and what someone,
Jane Albrecht: even a top pollster working for a presidential campaign, would
Jane Albrecht: do these days.
Patrick Murray: Right. I've said that our polling industry is pretty open
Patrick Murray: in terms of sharing information with us. One area that's
Patrick Murray: not as open are the campaign pollsters. They play everything
Patrick Murray: close to the vest because what they're doing at this
Patrick Murray: particular stage of the race is they're testing messages. They
Patrick Murray: say, "Oh, I have this information about my opponent and I
Patrick Murray: have 16 different negative pieces of information about my opponent.
Patrick Murray: Which one do I think is going to be most
Patrick Murray: effective, and with which group of voters?" Because you're only
Patrick Murray: going to target that group of voters with online ads
Patrick Murray: or TV ads or whatever it is, these messages. So
Patrick Murray: which message is going to be most effective to do
Patrick Murray: that? That's called message testing. So that's what these pollsters
Patrick Murray: are doing. The other thing that they're doing is then
Patrick Murray: looking at these different groups and saying, " Okay, if we
Patrick Murray: can move this group over here and we can move
Patrick Murray: X percentage of them, how does that impact our likelihood
Patrick Murray: to win that state?" And that's what those... We're not
Patrick Murray: doing that because that's not our mission. Our mission is
Patrick Murray: to simply say, " This is what was on the minds
Patrick Murray: of the voters. This is what they think is the
Patrick Murray: lay of the land today. This is what they care about."
Patrick Murray: Their mission is to say, " How do I help win
Patrick Murray: the next election for my client? And I do that
Patrick Murray: by figuring out what messages are going to work best
Patrick Murray: for them, where do they spend the resources? And also
Patrick Murray: where do they spend the resources getting out the vote,"
Patrick Murray: in the hopes that this will push them over the
Patrick Murray: top and close elections.
Bill Curtis: Patrick, do you mind if we do just a rapid-
Bill Curtis: fire asking your opinion of the following subjects. I'd like
Bill Curtis: you to rank them one to 10, 10 being highest, whether
Bill Curtis: or not your polls have revealed that these issues may
Bill Curtis: or may not affect state or federal elections.
Patrick Murray: I'll try.
Bill Curtis: Race, Black Lives Matter.
Patrick Murray: I think that's about an eight right now.
Bill Curtis: Handling of COVID- 19.
Patrick Murray: It's either a five or a 10, depending on how you
Patrick Murray: look at it. People won't react to it specifically, but
Patrick Murray: it's the undercurrent of what they think is going on
Patrick Murray: in the world.
Bill Curtis: Supreme Court.
Patrick Murray: Two, except in Maine. In the Maine Senate race I
Patrick Murray: think the Supreme Court could play out with Susan Collins.
Patrick Murray: Other than that, it's going to be a two.
Bill Curtis: How about women's rights to choose?
Patrick Murray: Again, one or two specific Senate races, Maine being one
Patrick Murray: of them. Other than that, not an overarching issue. Not an
Patrick Murray: issue that's going to change minds. So I would say a three or four.
Bill Curtis: When you say it's going to be an issue, and it could be an issue
Bill Curtis: in Maine, the Supreme Court, would it help Susan Collins
Bill Curtis: or hurt her? Which way does it cut?
Patrick Murray: Hurt her now because of her response and her dealing
Patrick Murray: with the Kavanaugh appointment. That's going to hurt her because
Patrick Murray: even though she personally is pro- choice, the steps that
Patrick Murray: she's taken along the way and her explanation, her very
Patrick Murray: weak explanation for what she did in the Kavanaugh hearing,
Patrick Murray: keeps undermining itself. So, for example, Kavanaugh was one of
Patrick Murray: the dissenting votes on the LGBT ruling of the Supreme
Patrick Murray: Court, right? So that's going to all just feed into
Patrick Murray: Susan Collins's... Not that Susan Collins is anti- gay, but
Patrick Murray: that Susan Collins are anti anti- abortion, either one of
Patrick Murray: those, but that Susan Collins really is not effective and
Patrick Murray: is being played.
Bill Curtis: Which leads us to the next one, LGBT.
Patrick Murray: Again, I take this from the 40, 000 foot view
Patrick Murray: above, for many individuals, that is a very important issue. In
Patrick Murray: terms of affecting this election and changing this election, it's
Patrick Murray: a two or a three.
Bill Curtis: Okay. Lies.
Patrick Murray: Hmm. A two, because you believe what you're going to believe.
Bill Curtis: History of womanizing. Abuse. Me Too.
Patrick Murray: That's going to be a two or a three, in terms
Patrick Murray: of changing the outcome.
Bill Curtis: International relations, China and Mexico?
Patrick Murray: Two or a three, barring something happening.
Bill Curtis: Pro business at all costs, oil and so on.
Patrick Murray: That could be a six or a seven.
Bill Curtis: Environment at all costs.
Patrick Murray: I think before the events of the past couple of
Patrick Murray: weeks, that could've been a six or a seven. I
Patrick Murray: think it's down to a four or five now.
Bill Curtis: Economy versus economy because of a pandemic.
Patrick Murray: The economy is going to be a nine or a
Patrick Murray: 10, but not necessarily in the way that you might think.
Bill Curtis: Oh, well, then you got to give me a little color.
Patrick Murray: Okay. All right. So a lot of people are looking
Patrick Murray: at the economic issues in terms of overall employment rates
Patrick Murray: or GDP or stock market, and those don't matter as
Patrick Murray: much. Again, as perceptions of how people feel that they
Patrick Murray: are doing relative to everybody else, and right now people
Patrick Murray: are feeling that relative to everybody else, they're doing okay
Patrick Murray: even if they're suffering from short- term layoffs and so
Patrick Murray: forth, because they believe those layoffs are going to be short-
Patrick Murray: term. If those layoffs become long- term in November, then
Patrick Murray: that's going to shift the equation.
Bill Curtis: Interesting. Healthcare for all.
Patrick Murray: As of right now, it doesn't look like it's going
Patrick Murray: to be as much of an issue as it would have been a
Patrick Murray: month ago. So maybe I'll say a seven or an eight.
Bill Curtis: Okay. How about presence? Ability to appear presidential?
Patrick Murray: 10. And it's not that it's changing anybody's mind, but
Patrick Murray: that's why people think what they do about Donald Trump
Patrick Murray: right now. And as long as Joe Biden doesn't show
Patrick Murray: himself to be unpresidential, I think he's going to hold
Patrick Murray: on to that as well. But that is going to
Patrick Murray: be extremely important.
Bill Curtis: Interesting. Patrick, this has been a pleasure and enlightening for
Bill Curtis: me. I hope you'll come back and join us a
Bill Curtis: few times before the election, because I got through about
Bill Curtis: a third of my questions. You've been a good sport.
Bill Curtis: Thank you.
Patrick Murray: Oh, my pleasure. Anytime. Take care.
Bill Curtis: Jane Albrecht, thank you very much, and Ed Larson. This
Bill Curtis: is Politics: Meet Me in the Middle. Come back and
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