(C) Daily Montanan This story was originally published by Daily Montanan and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Polling experts weigh in on contested Realtors' survey – Daily Montanan [1] ['Keila Szpaller', 'More From Author', '- August'] Date: 2023-08-22 Polling can cost a lot of money — for robust results. Polling can also be cheap — with outcomes that can be more squishy. The National Association of Realtors paid for a poll in early April about potential mayor candidates in Missoula, including questions focused on candidate, councilor and Realtor Mike Nugent. A campaign finance complaint pending with the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices alleges the poll and cost should have been disclosed in a campaign finance report. The Realtors have declined to provide the cost of the survey. In responses to the complaint, three separate parties argued that even if the poll should be reported, it is so old and has little value, especially more than four months after people answered questions. In interviews with the Daily Montanan last week, polling experts agreed the local and national Realtors’ argument that results from the April poll have lost value has some legitimacy. “The value of data can depreciate over time, especially in a fast-moving campaign,” said Lori Weigel, principal of New Bridge Strategy in Colorado. However, the experts also said a cost estimate in the campaign finance complaint may not be off the mark at $15,000 to $25,000 on the low end. In their response, the Realtors argued the poll was intended to determine candidate viability, contrary to an allegation the poll was meant to refine a message. But one election scientist who reviewed the questions said the language indicates the survey was testing messaging in addition to candidate viability. “What campaign issues are resonating with voters so I know where to spend my time during the election cycle to talk about my candidate in a favorable way?” said Christina Barsky, with the University of Montana, of poll results. Cost of polling Four different polling experts said so many factors go into cost, it’s difficult to offer an estimate without knowing more details about the poll. But they said generally the range in the complaint is fair; one said it could be low if the polling was done in house; another also said a range from $30,000 to $40,000 may be reasonable. The experts also agreed a national group considering a six-figure investment in a campaign wouldn’t want shoddy results. The National Association of Realtors bills itself as “America’s largest trade organization,” and its political arm is spending $125,000 on an independent committee backing Nugent for mayor in the five-way primary. It appears to be the first time the national Realtors have made a significant expenditure in a local campaign in Montana. Hope Dewell Gentry, professor of political science at Montana State University — Billings, said the cost of a poll can vary widely, and how a poll is conducted is a factor. A poll conducted face-to-face would be the most expensive, said Gentry, director of the Mountain States Poll. By comparison, mailers can be fairly inexpensive, but the latter doesn’t always produce the most responses, she said. The complaint said it could provide one witness who completed a survey by phone and another who completed a survey by text. Gentry said telephone surveys aren’t necessarily as expensive as people might think, but they also depend on circumstances. For example, do you want to weed out FAX machines from being called? Do you want to include cell phones of people who live inside the polled location but have a different area code? “If you’re doing all of those different steps to make sure they are really good, valid, non-repeated numbers, the cost can get pretty high,” Gentry said. The cost depends on labor as well, she said. Is the poll using a paid caller? Volunteers? An automated message? Additionally, Gentry said the cost depends on the profile being sought. Figuring out — in a statistically valid way — the views of a Montanan requires less work than figuring out the views of a 30-year-old male Democrat who rents, for example. The poll asked questions about age, political affiliation, race, home ownership versus renting or living on campus. If the national Realtors conducted the poll in-house, Gentry said the estimate in the complaint might be high, but if they outsourced it, “it seems completely reasonable.” She agreed polls are “very time sensitive,” but she also said answers to certain questions “might not be the types of things that fluctuate terribly.” Weigel, with New Bridge Strategy, agreed costs vary depending on a multitude of factors, including the experience of the pollster, number of interviews and method of contact. However, she said a distinction exists between the cost of a poll and the value of results over time. “A survey five years ago is way less valuable than a survey five days ago,” said Weigel, whose firm has worked in Montana. The Realtors said they conducted the poll in early April, even before the filing deadline had closed. As such, some of the questions are about potential candidates who didn’t end up filing. Clues in the questions Barsky, a UM Public Administration and Policy faculty member whose scholarship includes election science, reviewed screenshots of the questions in the poll, and she said they reveal clues about the survey. For one thing, the poll used a tool called “Qualtrics.” “Qualtrics is the gold standard online platform,” Barsky said. “It is what we have an enterprise license for at the University of Montana. It is not cheap. “So whoever is hosting this (poll) for them has a very expensive platform that they’re using.” (Three groups responded to the complaint: The Missoula Organization of Realtors; the National Association of Realtors Fund; and the Missoula Mayor political committee working on behalf of Nugent. Nugent has said his campaign is not coordinating with the independent committee and did not work on the poll.) Barsky agreed the questions show an interest in candidate viability, as the groups argued. However, she also said a pollster would be able to ascertain more than just viability. She said the results would show the following: The demographics most supportive of the candidate; how the preferred candidate stacks up against potential candidates; and favorable messaging. In particular, she pointed to one question that asks people to identify their top concern out of a list that includes property taxes, climate change, land use, housing costs, public safety and homelessness, among other items. “That’s a pretty clear indicator of messaging,” Barsky said. “What messages are going to work for our voters?” She agreed the value of the poll drops over time, but she also said some questions have more longevity. For example, if Missoula had experienced a horrific crime after the poll, results about public safety might be different today than in April. But she said the survey asked questions about some persistent challenges, such as housing, and housing affordability remains a significant problem in Missoula even four months later. “We’re talking about big issues. They’re not issues that are going away,” Barsky said. In the local campaign, Nugent is trying to unseat incumbent Mayor Jordan Hess and fend off candidates Brandi Atanasoff, Andrea Davis and Shawn Knopp. The top two vote-getters in the Sept. 12 primary will advance to the general election. Commissioner of Political Practices Chris Gallus said last week he was reviewing responses to the complaint about the poll and one earlier complaint related to the same race. Early last week, Gallus said he would likely decide whether to investigate the complaints within a couple of weeks. [END] --- [1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2023/08/22/polling-experts-weigh-in-on-contested-realtors-survey/ Published and (C) by Daily Montanan Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/