A historic presidential election will cap off a truly historic year, and one of the most active and accurate polls in the nation is all over it.
“We’ve been polling on the presidential election for over a year now, nationally and in key swing states,” said April Kleinman, associate director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. “Over the last six months, preparations for us included selecting states to poll in that we thought would be the most interesting and important, and staying on top of the news events.”
The Quinnipiac Polling Institute is often regarded as the gold standard in national and statewide polling, as it has been cited numerous times by national and international media outlets. The poll covers topics like politics and issues in the news and is often recognized for its, “exactness and thoroughness, and as a barometer of public opinion on the issues that matter most to the American public,” according to the poll’s website.
Run by a staff of industry-leading experts, the poll conducts at least one national survey every two weeks. To keep the phones active, the poll also hires Quinnipiac University students to work the telephones along with its regular interviewers.
Alexandria Pacrin, junior behavioral neuroscience major at Quinnipiac, has worked her role at the poll as a telephone interviewer for two years.
“We haven’t started operating yet, but we are all adequately trained for remote interviewing already,” said Pacrin. “They’ve recently offered (previous employees from the spring) the opportunity to start working from home remotely starting this semester.”
The Quinnipiac poll is based on a random sample of adults, 18 years of age and older. It’s also based on registered voters only, since the poll is most busy closer to an election, the reports are based on “likely voters”. Come November, arguably the most historical Presidential election will take place.
Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic has plagued the poll and how it’s run with significant roadblocks, including closing up shop.
“Closing our call center was a difficult thing to do,” said Kleinman. “Some of our interviewing team have worked with us for many years and it was difficult not being able to tell them when we would reopen.”
Quinnipiac students like Pacrin and others working in the phone banks were brought up to speed in the new form of interviewing, via Zoom.
“As they have already been trained in interviewing techniques, they only needed some additional software training with Zoom technology, activating remote access to our interviewing software and the university’s time keeping program,” said Kleinman. “Also discussed are protocols regarding appropriate work space and privacy.”
Kleinman also added that she is hoping to use this remote interviewing method to, “supplement our samples through the election.”
What used to be a buzzing, voice-filled office is now an empty, silent building. Both polling institute offices, on WestWoods Road and Whitney Avenue in Hamden, CT, are left empty as most staff and workers are performing everyday tasks remotely.
Instead, the poll transitioned to an outside call center that was already set up for remote calling prior to the pandemic.
“Transitioning our data collection to an outside call center was a significant change for us. However, we have a strong relationship with the vendor and work well together on our surveys,” said Kleinman.
The Quinnipiac University Poll conducts timely and accurate polls in Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and nationally as a public service and for academic research.
According to Kleinman, the poll will be launching an updated website which will be more “user friendly” and contain more information on the poll.
The poll also releases updates via its Twitter account and Facebook page.