Q&A: Frank Newport, Editor-in-Chief of Gallup

Frank Newport is the Editor-in-Chief of Gallup, a management consulting company known for its influential public opinion polls, and author of "Polling Matters: Why Leaders Must Listen to the Wisdom of the People."He sat down with The Daily Princetonian before a lecture Thursday to talk about the importance of polling in politics, the role of Gallup in the 2016 election and where his love of polling comes from.

Daily Princetonian: What are some of the important changes in political polling since you've become Editor-in-Chief of the Gallup?

Frank Newport: The biggest change probably methodologically is the increasing use of cell phones in each sample which we did not have when I started in 1990, we were using the all land-line interviews so we continually changed our methodology. We made a lot of other changes in how we do it.

DP: This past month alone, polling has become sensationalized by the media, particularly in the political realm. What exactly do you see as the role of polling in politics?

FN: I believe that politicians should carefully read polling and take that into account. I think the people collectively are smarter than any one politician, although a politician would most likely disagree. To be sure, we have collective wisdom, since we have 100 senators and 435 representatives, so there is some collective decision. But, I think those collective decision makers should try to take into account and understand public opinion because it will help guide them to make wiser decisions to move our democracy forward in a positive way. That's my personal opinion. And, you know, the public is very wise. When you see people are resistant about doing something, it tells you something.

DP: How would you describe Gallup's role in the 2016 election?

FN: We will spend a lot of time in this election environment and have already tried to understand the issues that people are concerned about, how they are reacting to the candidates, what they like and don't like about them, and how Americans respond if somebody like Cruz, like I've mentioned [in the lecture], says he wants to abolish the IRS, it's important to know how the public will respond to that, and if Bernie Sanders says he will go to a single-payer system, how will the public react? We feel that's our major function in the field.

DP: So, what has been the impact of Gallup's decision to walk out of the horse-race polling during the 2016 election?

FN: That's one of the reasons that I gave my presentation to talk about our rationale. We're hoping people pay more attention to what we are doing, like I talked about tonight, understanding and guidance and less attention to whether we happen to be doing the horse-race polling.

DP: Did you see the discussions that emerged about Gallup polling after the 2012 election as valuable?

FN: It's always important - you know - we reviewed everything we did in methodology. Like every business, any industry, any medical practice, you continually want to improve, so it's part of our continuing process of always evaluating what we're doing. This field moves quickly.

DP: How has Gallup’s methodology changed since the 2012 election?

FN: It’s always evolving. It has since Gallup started. It’s constantly changing and had been. After the 2012 election we did a very large scale evaluation of methods and the way we do samples and some things about the way we weigh data. These are some of the more technical details that we tweaked. But, more recently as an example, we now do 60 percent of our interviews through cell phones and 40 percent through landlines. And that’s up from fifty-fifty just a year ago. That’s one of the ways that we’ve been moving forward in our standard telephone interviewing. Independently, we’re doing a lot of other testing – we do mail surveys, we do internet surveys when appropriate, we’re testing smartphone surveys, so we’re doing a variety of different kinds of work.

DP: What kinds of methodological obstacles as Gallup faced in the past, in general?

FN: All pollsters constantly face challenges. When you're calling out to people, the response variable has gone down. So, if you come to or conferences, that will be one issue everyone discusses, where of all the people we set out to contact, we end up making contact with about 10 percent. That's a challenge that we look at that's very important. There are legal challenges that we face about calling cell phones. So, that's another challenge that we must all face.

DP: In your personal opinion, what do you see as the best response to those who don’t see polling as useful?

FN: Nobody likes everything. Some people don't even think journalism has a place. We think it's by doing the best job we can and respond to anyone who criticizes and tries to explain what it is that we do. For reasons that I explained in my talk, there are always going to be some objections.

DP: Obviously, polling has its roots in times much earlier that the 21st century. However, what, in your opinion, do you see as the future of polling?

FN: For me the future lies in the power of public opinion. So, how we measure that, however, is going to constantly change. The value of public opinion, per se, will be continually valuable in the future.

DP: Dr. Newport, there are a lot of students on campus who struggle with finding your own passion. You seem to love your field, but where does that personal drive and ambition for polling come from?

FN: Personally, I have always had a fascination with human behavior; that's why I have a Ph.D in Sociology. Some people like to study ants, asteroids, big trees - I like to study humans. Polling is a great method of understanding humans. In my professional career, I have come to recognize that I think there's a lot of wisdom there. We need direction for society - the world needs direction. What do we do? If you have to move a society forward and make decisions, the collective wisdom of the people is better than having a dictator or any single person think they're so smart.

DP: Can you share with us some of your personal projects outside Gallup?

FN: I work a lot in the area of religion. I published a book on it and I'm still looking to what we can learn about Americans and religion. With the Muslim issues today that's extremely important. Religion's a powerful force still in the world and I'm trying to understand that. I also do a lot of work in inequality and the issue that Sanders has raised is a very important issue. American perception is a very muddy area. It's very easy to say that there's too much inequality but to try to remedy or look at what can be done is what I'm trying to do.