Interviewing Public Policy Polling on Twitter

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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