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Interviewing Public Policy Polling on Twitter

By │ 4/25/12, 11:16 am │ News

The left-leaning company does lots of polling in New Mexico and gets hammered by Republicans frequently. I decided to ask about its methodology and funding to better understand the company and its work.

Every time the left-leaning Public Policy Polling comes out with a new survey in New Mexico, Republicans pounce – and the criticism isn’t unique to the Land of Enchantment.

The last time I wrote about the controversy, the state GOP accused PPP of perpetuating polling fraud by including “more Democrat voters in their approval polls than is representative of the state.”

Another time, national Republicans jumped into the fray. The polling company’s Tom Jensen has defended its work in part by pointing to past surveys in New Mexico and elsewhere that were “pretty darn accurate.”

The debate is not insignificant. PPP is doing more publicly released polling in New Mexico than anyone else these days.

Anyway, the company released a new poll of the New Mexico Senate race on Tuesday that showed little change since the last survey. I noticed that this one had higher percentages of women and Hispanics but fewer Democrats than the last. It’s not uncommon for their demographics to change like that from poll to poll.

So I decided to question PPP about it on Twitter. Here are the highlights:

Darren White, a prominent Republican, also responded to my initial question:

More discussion:

I asked about how PPP is funded as well:

Brian Walsh, communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, inserted his opinion into the discussion:

Of course, my last question was directed at PPP. Their response was, simply, “correct.”

You can learn more about PPP from Wikipedia. You can read the company’s explanation of its methodology here.

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2 comments so far. Scroll down to submit your own comment.

  1. Heath Haussamen
    April 26, 2012 • 6:02 am

    Mick, I appreciate the feedback. I identify every polling company that does a survey in NM and is left- or right-leaning as such – or I identify the poll as being conducted for a specific campaign if that’s how it was done. That was the case here:

    http://www.nmpolitics.net/index/2012/02/wilsons-poll-has-her-leading-sowards-by-71-points/

    I pointed out that it was an internal poll conducted for the Wilson campaign. The point isn’t to hit a company for being lefty or righty, but to give readers the information they need to make a judgment on the poll’s accuracy.

    No, these tweets aren’t to be taken as in-depth reporting. It was an experiment in doing something a little different, and I appreciate your feedback. As for the SEIU question, they are one of PPP’s biggest clients:

    http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/148037-union-partners-with-liberal-blog-to-produce-2012-polling

    And, no, the two Republicans weren’t interviewing PPP. But they inserted their comments into the discussion – as anyone can do on Twitter – so I included them because they were interesting, I thought. 

  2. Mick
    April 25, 2012 • 8:35 pm

    Heath,

    Were you interviewing Public Policy Polling, or were you and two Republicans interviewing PPP?

    Are these Tweets to be taken for in depth reporting?

    What are your conclusions? Did you conclude that SEIU funds the firm in large part? Is SEIU a client or a patron (or both)? I can’t tell from this puff piece.

    Please, let’s have journalism and not punditry. This interview is not up to your usual high standards. For example, PPP is described as the left leaning-company. You don’t introduce Todd Myers as the professional propagandist for the right-leaning Washington Policy Center and an adjunct to the industry-funded Rio Grande Foundation. Why the scorn for PPP?

    Perhaps Twitter is not a suitable vehicle for thoughtful conversation.

    Oh well; you can’t please everyone.

    As ever, Michael J. Flynn

     

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