Fast, accurate, and low cost polling can make all the difference for Democrats in this surge year. Just ask Carolyn Nichols. A civil rights attorney in Philadelphia, Nichols decided to run for the Superior Court in Pennsylvania in 2017.
Raising less than $100K, no one thought she could win. Nichols relied on HGL company Change Research to survey deeply in urban areas throughout Pennsylvania. She refined her turn-out messaging with insight from Change Research and targeted the voters she needed to help her win. Now Nichols is the first African American Democratic woman to ever hold statewide office in Pennsylvania.
In 2018, Change Research is working in dozens of states—with candidates running up and down the ballot and also with progressive PACs, advocacy organizations, and progressive causes. Motivated by the 2016 election results, the Change Research founders set out to dramatically improve public opinion polling by surveying people online to offer faster, more accurate polling options.
A Public Benefit Corporation, Change Research’s mission is to democratize access to public opinion research. They provide fast, accurate, and affordable technology-based polling that can deliver results at scale. Their patent-pending Bias Correct Engine monitors survey responses and adjusts targeting to ensure the sample is representative of the population in the geographic area they are polling.
For candidates running for state legislative and local races, Change Research offers cost-effective research for even the smallest races. For example, you can run a 500-person tracking poll with Change Research for just $3,200, or a 1,000-person messaging poll for only $7,900.
To demonstrate the success of the Bias Correct Engine, Change Research did public polling in the New Jersey and Virginia November 2017 elections. Change Research accurately predicted all four statewide races within 3 percentage points, earning it accolades from FiveThirtyEight, MSNBC, Politico, and others.
Change Research launched Turnout Insight 2018, which implements pre- and post-election polling in special elections and primaries in 2018 in order to understand who says they’ll vote, who actually votes, who doesn’t vote, and why. Change Research plans to incorporate the results into their polling services to share these insights with campaigns and Democrats more broadly.
Founders Pat Reilly and Mike Greenfield bring lots of tech and political experience to the Change Research team. Pat Reilly started her career during the first ‘Year of the Woman’ in politics, back in 1992, leading communications for the National Women’s Political Caucus and National Governors’ Association, before coming to California to serve as the campaign press secretary for San Francisco Mayor Willie L. Brown, Jr. She founded PR & Company, and for 20 years helped foundations, nonprofits and Silicon Valley companies leverage their impact with communications. Mike Greenfield was the first data scientist at PayPal and led LinkedIn’s early analytics team. He previously founded Team Rankings, a longtime leader in sports analytics, and Circle of Moms, which helps millions of moms find helpful information.
If you know of a candidate or cause interested in running a poll with Change Research for an upcoming election, campaign, or cause, reach out to info@highergroundlabs.com to connect with the Change Research team.
