Cygnal Continues Its #1 Private Pollster Ranking Streak…and a Bit of Our Story Leading to It
The polling business isn’t for the faint of heart…and I don’t even mean the public polls. That’s a fraction of what us private pollsters do. Nate Silver, the godfather of ranking polling accuracy, just released his 2024 rankings over at the Silver Bulletin (and formerly through FiveThirtyEight). Overall, polling held up pretty well despite some banger misses, like the Iowa poll released days before the election.
Read MoreHow Americans are Outsmarting the Algorithmic Echo Chambers to Find Better News
In 2008, then candidate Barack Obama’s campaign marked the unofficial beginning of the “new media wars” and his meteoric rise was credited in large part due to his embrace of leveraging alternative channels of news and information like social media apps and mobile targeting technology. Republicans were late to the game and struggled to course correct. Now they’ve caught up. Thanks to the generationally rare talents, magnetism, and flare of Donald Trump – a perfect star for a fully matured digital news and social media environment – Republicans have leveled the playing field, and voters are realigning their consumption habits in this new era of vast and more trustworthy alternatives. As a consumer, you probably already know this is true or have been a part of this shift. But it’s not just a sense, Cygnal has some data to back it up (go figure).
Read MoreBrent Buchanan Joins the Morning Wire Podcast – Why Trump – Harris Polls Might Be Misleading 9/1/24
"Cygnal pollster Brent Buchanan lays out which presidential candidate has the most likely path to 270 electoral votes, and what effect will Robert Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement of Donald Trump have on the general election. Get the facts first on Morning Wire." From the Morning Wire Podcast
Read MoreAre Democrats in Disarray? It Depends When You Poll.
Recent 2024 presidential polls have shown a lot of different scenarios within the same margin of error with either a tied race or a slight Trump lead in the popular vote. At the same time, it seems like there has been a constant string of high-profile elections where Democrats do well or even outperform the polling like in the NY-03 special. This article attempts to answer the question of why the polls show good numbers for Republicans that don’t always bear out in final results and why current polling might be off.
Read MoreWhy We Launched 30 Under 30, America’s Rising Republican Operatives
We all remember that feeling of walking into a room where everyone seems to know each other, and you are trying to determine the best way to penetrate an existing network. Conversation by conversation, year by year, you hopefully find your eventual place. Once you’ve made it into the circle, is it even the right circle? There has to be a better way.
Read More2022 Polling Retrospective
Coming off what most would consider an odd election cycle, we wanted to reflect on lessons learned as one of our core values is Never Settle: We are curious, always learning, and growing. It was a cycle where we had amazing wins with incredible clients like Governors Kemp and Abbott, Senator Mullin, Congressmen Molinaro, Congresswoman Hageman, and Congressman Miller, CLF, NRCC, RGA, RAGA, and RSLC – just to name a few among the 405 general election races we conducted polling in for 2022.
Read MoreMichigan – A Polling Experiment Explained
Gretchen Whitmer dominated the Michigan governor’s race, winning by a large margin. Our polling firm, Cygnal, set out with an experiment to test our Momentum tracking methodology against traditional tracking polls.
Read MoreHow The Abortion Issue Reshaped The ’22 Midterm Landscape
On June 24th, 2022, the Supreme Court issued the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overruling Roe v. Wade and the federally protected right to an abortion. Since then, there has been a decidedly significant shift in the political environment. However, time slots and prices are irrelevant if the messaging is faulty.
Read MoreMessage Mapping: The Next Evolution of Political Message Testing
One of the most crucial components to any political campaign is television messaging. Knowing how to communicate a candidate’s message and target particular constituencies is paramount to a successful campaign. Television advertising is a great challenge given the scarcity of well-positioned time slots and increased pricing as elections grow nearer. However, time slots and prices are irrelevant if the messaging is faulty.
Read MoreHow Republicans Can ‘Thread the Needle’ in Purple States
For our friends running in competitive blue and purple states, all they are hearing this cycle is “Well, if there was ever a year to do it…” Well, that’s true. Our national survey shows that very clearly. Unsustainable inflation, never-ending tax increase proposals, calls to defund our local law enforcement, and relentless “woke” cancel […]
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