Posts by Brent

Cell Completes Needed

The Question(s) How many people do you know who still use a landline phone? How many do you know who would need a plastic surgeon to remove the cell phone from the palm of their hand? The Answer Despite the number of people in the second category (let’s call them cell-phoners) continually increasing relative to […]

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Pigskin, Politics, and Polling: Five Ways Polling Can Ensure A Winning (Election) Season

Heat. Humidity. Sweat. Two guys hitting each other for the fun of it. Welcome to college football!  College football kicked off (finally) on Saturday with a bang. The bands played, the fans screamed, and the players left it all on the field on the way to a “W.” Fresh out of Fall camp, the players were prepared. That’s what Fall camp is all about – putting […]

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Voter Turnout – Is a Blue Wave Coming?

Crunch time is right around the corner! Thankfully, the college football season starts soon, too. With summer ending, fall races are gearing up to be as exciting as the Kick Six  – at least for us Auburn fans. Prognosticators are touting a blue wave potentially washing up on the political shores of our country, but is there data […]

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Primary Turnout May – or May Not – Signal a Blue Wave

Two articles I read today do a great job of dampening (see what I did there?) the blue wave predictions for November. The first, an excellent piece by Stefan Hankin in Campaigns & Elections, digs into the turnout numbers for primaries this year compared to the last midterm wave – 2010. Read the whole thing, but the […]

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Madrid Trip: International Polling & Research Ripe for Disruption

If you’ve never been to Madrid, Spain, go ahead and put it on the list. This beautiful, laid-back metropolis has all the charm of Old Europe with the prices of South America – and has the kind, friendly people to go with it. I recently traveled to Madrid with a team of Latin American presidential […]

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Poll Script Writing 101: What Questions Should You Be Asking?

They key to asking the right questions is to ask questions. Let me rephrase that. The key to having questions in your political survey script (also known as an instrument) that will give you the information you want is to first ask yourself some questions. 1) Why am I doing a poll? This may seem […]

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Why We Quit “Doing It All” in Politics to Focus on Polling

The old saying goes: “Less is more.” In politics we too often ignore this sage advice in hopes that the more services we offer, the more clients we’ll serve. What’s in the water in politics that makes us think we can buck proven trends that work for the rest of the business world? Cygnal, a […]

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Year End: A Time for Reflection and Preparation

Christmas has passed. A new year is upon us. In our world of politics, campaign season is nigh…although it feels like we haven’t stopped since 2015. This time of year has a natural way of making us look back on the last twelve months. It got me thinking about John Maxwell’s, famed author and speaker […]

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A Note of Thanksgiving from the Cygnal Team

There’s something about the holiday season that makes people particularly reflective. It’s hard to put a finger on it, but life seems a little sweeter when viewed through the pumpkin-spice-colored lenses of Thanksgivings past. It’s the perfect pause at the end of the year, where you worry less about where you’re going, and give thanks […]

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Budgeting for Political Consulting Firms Is Like Catching Fireflies

Do you remember summer as a kid? If you lived in the eastern half of the United States, your evenings probably involved catching fireflies. As you stand there in your backyard, jar in hand, you see the lightning bugs flicker their tails on and off. Your legs spring into action as you dive forward to […]

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