2018 General Election Forecast and Polling Fundamentals – Chris Perkins

Chris Perkins is the Principal of Ragnar Research and a nationally renowned expert in public opinion polling. Today he’s joining us to talk about the Texas Primaries, we’ll look forward to federal elections this November and we talk in detail about top considerations for your campaign when making polling decisions.

For all my Texas friends recovering from the Primary election last week, I hope you’re catching up on sleep and enjoying some outside time that doesn’t involve canvassing or waving signs!

Texas had the country’s first primary election this year and it was nuts. Lots of competitive seats and we’ve got a bunch of runoff elections coming up in May. So, all that to say, the fight continues for a lot of folks, but at least some of you guys are getting some sleep.

Today, we’re talking to Chris Perkins, a nationally-renowned pollster and we’ll spend time looking at the lessons from the Texas primary, what we know about the landscape for the general election and critical things you need to know about polling for your campaign.

Win or lose, I hope you left everything on the field and know you did everything you could. The only thing that sucks worse than losing, is knowing that a bit more work would have made the difference.

Whether you win or lose, make sure you take the time to complete a rigorous post-mortem on the campaign. That’s the only way you’ll fully understand your strong and weak points. What helped you win or made you lose. Few campaigns put enough focus on this since everybody is tired and either excited or crestfallen. The lessons you learn will be of incredible help down the line, so take the time and learn them!

If you haven’t subscribed to the podcast and given us a review, please do so! It’s huge in attracting new listeners. And don’t hesitate to give us or our guests a shout. One of our listeners in Australia reached out to Campaign Sidekick last week and it’s always cool connecting to y’all!

Chris Perkins is an expert in quantitative and qualitative analysis having conducted and analyzed survey data for over a decade on behalf of Republican candidates. Perkins is considered one of the top public opinion experts in the United States and has been cited as among the most accurate pollsters in the country.

In the 2010 – 2016 election cycles, Perkins polled for nearly one hundred winning Republican candidates from State legislative to statewide office. Perkins has conducted public opinion research in half the states in the union and built a fantastic reputation.

I’ve known Chris for about 8 years since we were both working early on in Ted Cruz’s orbit. He continues to provide great results for campaigns and it’s been great seeing his reputation grow!

What You’ll Learn about Chris Perkins In This Episode:

[00:00] Podcast Introduction and Chris Perkins Bio

[02:52] How Chris Perkins became involved with Political Campaigns

[22:40] Polling Lessons Learned from 2016

[30:37] What can we learn from the Texas Primary Election?

[40:18] Looking at the November General Election, what’s the outlook for the Republican/Democrat balance in Congress?

[49:24] Looking at the Texas Senate race between Cruz and O’Rourke

[55:16] What does Ragnar Research do and what makes you unique?

[57:22] Top things to look at when looking at polling vendors and figuring out what you NEED

[1:01:04] Where can people find you online?

Links from the Podcast:

Connect with Chris Perkins on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Learn more about him at www.ragnarresearch.com.