Crafting a Political Message from a Scientific Survey

Date

2010-05

Authors

McCabe, Samuel F.

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Abstract

This thesis explores crafting political messages in a local setting through the use of polling data. The merits of polls are often misunderstood in a political campaign. News outlets publish different types of polling results, but less often are polls publicly exposed for their true values--testing language. People may ask why political campaigns run particular TV ads or a direct mail piece about one issue rather than another issue. I will answer this through a detailed description illustrating how to construct a political survey and how to interpret the results. By using a quantitative method I will show--through concrete examples--how I created a political message in a city council campaign in San Marcos, Texas in the fall of 2009. I will show both the initial poll questionnaire, the survey results, how I interpreted results to develop the message, the final election results, and post election analysis.

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Keywords

polling, political campaigns, San Marcos, politics, Texas politics

Citation

McCabe, S. F. (2010). Crafting a political message from a scientific survey (Unpublished thesis). Texas State University-San Marcos, San Marcos, Texas

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