The Marist Poll, founded in 1978, is a national
public opinion poll operated by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion (MIPO)
on the campus of
Marist University in
Poughkeepsie, New York
Poughkeepsie ( ) is a city within the Poughkeepsie (town), New York, Town of Poughkeepsie, New York (state), New York. It is the county seat of Dutchess County, New York, Dutchess County, with a 2020 census population of 31,577. Poughkeepsie i ...
. The poll was one of the first college-based public opinion polls in the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
.
MIPO regularly measures public opinion, both in
New York State
New York, also called New York State, is a state in the northeastern United States. Bordered by New England to the east, Canada to the north, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the south, its territory extends into both the Atlantic Ocean and ...
and across the country. In 2020, polls were conducted in
Arizona
Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...
,
Florida
Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...
,
New Hampshire
New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
, New York,
North Carolina
North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...
,
South Carolina
South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...
, and
Texas
Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...
.
The Marist Poll has an 'A' rating from
ABC News' FiveThirtyEight and is often cited by
journalists and
pundits around the world.
History
MIPO was founded in 1978 by Dr. Lee Miringoff, former President of the National Council of Public Polls, as a poll on
Dutchess County elections for a
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...
class he was teaching on voting behavior.
MIPO was reportedly the first college-based survey center in the nation to involve
undergraduates
Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...
in the direct interaction and conducting of all its surveys.
While most of the polls are
political
Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...
in nature, MIPO does frequently conduct polls deemed to be in other areas of public interest. Other subjects commonly polled by MIPO include
sport
Sport is a physical activity or game, often Competition, competitive and organization, organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The numbe ...
s,
economics
Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...
,
society
A society () is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. ...
and
technology
Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...
.
Methodology
Marist polls are typically conducted through
random digit dialing in a dual frame manner, contacting both cell phones and landlines, with cell phones comprising the majority of its national sample. Marist modifies the proportion of its frames for local polling, based on data from the
National Health Interview Survey
The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) is an annual, cross-sectional survey intended to provide nationally representative estimates on a wide range of health status and utilization measures among the nonmilitary, noninstitutionalized popula ...
. Marist has also used a blend of phone, text, and online surveying for some polls. Marist's frames are primarily obtained from
Dynata. Marist uses
stratified sampling based on geography. Respondents are contacted through a Voxco
computer-assisted telephone interviewing system by live interviewers, typically recruited from the undergraduate student body. Callbacks of phone contacts may be attempted depending on the result of an attempted call. As of 2024, a typical poll will see around a 1% response rate. Polls are typically conducted across 3 to 5 days.
Marist conducts weighting of survey results with
US Census data on the variables of age, gender, income, race, and region. Likely voters are identified through a turnout model that incorporates their expressed chance of voting, interest in the election, and past election participation.
Partnerships
In 2012, the Marist Poll teamed with
NBC News
NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Media Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations r ...
and ''The
Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'' to conduct surveys in key
presidential battleground states. Consequently, MIPO accurately predicted the results of the presidential contest and
U.S. Senate and
governor
A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...
races in each of these states. Other media institutions Marist has partnered with include
Telemundo
Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast. It provides content ...
,
McClatchy,
NPR,
PBS Newshour
''PBS News Hour'', previously stylized as ''PBS NewsHour'', is the news division of PBS and an American daily evening news broadcasting#television, television news program broadcast on over 350 PBS Network affiliate#Member stations, member stat ...
, and
Yahoo News.
During the summer of 2013, MIPO announced they have conducted a survey on
Performance-enhancing drugs
Performance-enhancing substances (PESs), also known as performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), are substances that are used to improve any form of activity performance in humans.
Many substances, such as anabolic steroids, can be used to improve at ...
(PEDs) in
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...
. Specifically, the poll asked whether or not players linked to clinics that provide PEDs, such as
Biogenesis
Spontaneous generation is a Superseded scientific theories, superseded scientific theory that held that living creatures could arise from abiotic component, non-living matter and that such processes were commonplace and regular. It was Hypoth ...
, should be suspended—even if they did not fail a drug test. The second question asked if players who used PEDs should receive eligibility for the
Hall of Fame
A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or Wiktionary:fame, fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actu ...
.
On the October 22, 2013 edition of ''
Real Sports'' that
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
's longtime, sports-themed monthly
newsmagazine
A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio, or television program, usually published weekly, consisting of articles about current events. News magazines generally discuss stories in greater depth than newspapers or new ...
and the Marist Poll have launched a new, indefinite joint-polling initiative.
Towards the end of the program on October 22,
host Bryant Gumbel announced the results of a HBO ''Real Sports''/Marist Poll: a comprehensive national survey conducted by the Marist Poll in mid-July, 2013 with more than 1,200
Americans
Americans are the Citizenship of the United States, citizens and United States nationality law, nationals of the United States, United States of America.; ; Law of the United States, U.S. federal law does not equate nationality with Race (hu ...
over the age of 17 on the topic of
concussions and
brain trauma in
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
.
In 2015, Marist temporarily suspended polling of the candidates for nomination during the
Democratic primaries and
Republican primaries out of concern that polls were being inappropriately used to decide who was included and excluded from the primaries.
See also
*
The Phillips Academy Poll
*
Quinnipiac University Polling Institute
* Emerson College Polling
*
Suffolk University Political Research Center
*
Franklin & Marshall College Poll
*
Siena Research Institute
*
Monmouth University Polling Institute
References
External links
*
{{Marist College
1978 establishments in the United States
Public opinion research companies in the United States
Marist College