Matt Harmon: On this episode of Monmouth weekly university, president Patrick Lehe, and I talk polling. And how important it's been in the national conversation with university polling Institute, director Patrick Murray. This is faculty member, Matt Harmon. It's time for episode number 20 of our Monmouth weekly podcast. Thanks as always for joining us. Matt Harmon: Well, it looks to be a very beautiful morning in what, uh, hopefully we will have a nice weekend coming up. We record on a Thursday morning. This says Monmouth weekly and crazy enough to say episode number 20 from project, we started all the way back in the beginning of the pandemic in March. I'm Matt Harmon joined by my normal co-host university, president Patrick Lehe. And today our special guest will be Monmouth university polling Institute, director, Patrick Murray. Uh, Patrick, I wanna say good morning to you first. And I would imagine that the last couple of weeks before we really dive into it, we'll start with someth updates from president Lehe. Uh, but I would imagine the last couple weeks you have not gotten a whole lot of sleep. So thanks for joining us here on an early morning. Sure. My pleasure, uh, president Lehe, I wish a good morning to you. And, and, um, before we talk about the latest happenings with, with what's taken place with the university, I, I think a good way to start is just, um, what the polling Institute means to Mout and how important it's been to kind of keep the university in a lot of ways in the national spotlight. Patrick Leahy: Yeah. Good morning, Matt. Uh, nice to be with you again and, uh, good morning, Patrick. Thanks for, uh, joining us. Um, I'm so pleased to have this opportunity to talk with Patrick cuz uh, uh, quite candidly it was, um, Mammouth university polling Institute, which, uh, in large part attracted me to, to this job. I always said, you know, I'm sitting here, uh, quietly and peacefully in my living room in Wilkesboro, Pennsylvania a couple years ago. And uh, I kept hearing reports, uh, from the Monmouth university polling Institute about this race or that race or whatever else was going on in the, in the country. And uh, you know, I always found that quite quite interesting. And then when the search consultant reached out to me and said, you ought to, you ought to look at this job, Monmouth university, I said, is that the place with the polling Institute? And they said, yes, it is. And uh, so I said, I would like to take a look at that. So I, uh, credit you Patrick, uh, for helping to bring me here. Um, we'll either have you to thank or you to blame. We'll see how things play out over the, over the coming years. But, um, uh, yeah, really, really proud of course of, uh, what the polling Institute, um, does not only to, to contribute to national dialogue around really important issues first and foremost, but the way in doing so that it helps to shine a spotlight on our university. Matt Harmon: And here I was working under the idea that you, you took this job back in, in August of, uh, over a year ago, just so that you could say that I was president in a Monmouth university during the upcoming pandemic, you, you pulled us all. And now we know it was the polling Institute, it Patrick Leahy: Was a polling Institute and the, and the shore had something to do with it too. Matt Harmon: And the shore absolutely. You know, president late before we, we dive in with Patrick and talk about, uh, the, the polling Institute. Um, I, I thought maybe it would be nice for us to reverse what we normally do, which is end with Monmouth updates. Why don't we start with that today? That way once we get up and running into the conversation, um, we, we, we won't be diverted at all from our attention of talking about the polling Institute, if that's okay. Patrick Leahy: Yeah. Thanks, Matt. You know, as you pointed out, we started this 20 episodes ago back in March to provide regular updates to the campus on the state of the pandemic. So, uh, let me do that first. Uh, I'm proud, proud to say I don't have a lot of updates for you this time around, uh, our caseload on campus is very manageable. Uh, as I always say, I take every single, uh, positive case of this COVID 19 virus very seriously, because you just don't know how any one case, uh, could create complications, not only for that person, but for, you know, their network of people. So we take 'em all seriously, but we're way down in the twenties in active cases. Um, our university has become quite, uh, skilled at managing these cases and managing the contact, tracing the isolation and the quarantine requirements. Um, my hope is that, uh, with the increased testing that we're doing and the constant reiteration of the proto healthcare protocols that we have in place that we'll be able to successfully, uh, get through this week and into next week. And then as, uh, you know, all of our, uh, academic programming will be going online after Thanksgiving for the last, uh, couple weeks of the semester that gives us a chance to settle the campus even a little bit more. Um, and, uh, hopefully we get through this unprecedented semester sort of in, in one piece. So, um, feel really proud of the work of the university to, to manage through this pandemic. Matt Harmon: And in addition a, as we had talked about last time, but it had not been, uh, completely decided or, or deciphered that the spring calendar will, will be altered just a little bit. Correct. Patrick Leahy: Yeah. In fact that announcement's gonna go out to the university community in the next day or two, uh, with our plans for the spring. And, you know, the, the short, the short story is, uh, the spring. Semester's gonna look a lot like the fall semester, a, a mix of academic programming, uh, probably some reduced number of students living on campus, uh, uh, some reduced activity, although we are gonna try to, as you think, as you know, Matt fit all of our, uh, varsity athletics, uh, competition into the spring, if it's possible. So that'll, that'll be a lot more active than in the fall, but more or less the spring will look and feel a lot like the fall did, we are starting a semester, a week late. We'll get back that time by, uh, canceling the week long spring break, uh, so that we can, uh, finish, uh, pretty much on time and then roll right into what is, uh, an increasingly robust summer session here at Monmouth. So we wanted to make sure that we get that spring semester in, in the most responsible way possible and, uh, try, try not to upset, uh, that, that summer session. So, uh, that's the plan. And, uh, I think we feel good about where we are, but you just never know, as we've said, all along, those plans will change, uh, as public health, uh, uh, protocols, uh, uh, warrant and, um, you know, given what you hear around the country just don't know what's gonna happen come late January. Matt Harmon: Well, clearly we have the right person on as our guest today, and we can figure out whether or not starting the spring semester, uh, a week late and, uh, not having a traditional spring bake is the right move, because I'm sure somewhere Patrick Murray, there is some sort of backdoor poll going on amongst the university community. to see if this is the right move, um, or not. And, and, you know, you think of the idea of, of polling, which has been around for so long and the Monmouth polling Institute from, from when it began in 2005. Um, I I'll ask you quite candidly. Have you ever seen anything like what is taking place right now in, in the current presidential, um, election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden? Patrick Murray: Uh, in a word? No. Uh, and I think, you know, one of the things I've been polling in the polling business for, uh, over 25 years now, and, uh, we've seen a steady erosion of kind of this, uh, idea of comedy, uh, uh, not, not with a D but with a T uh, this idea that in the end government is supposed to compromise and we still wanna have that. Uh, but, um, we're having a lot more partisan, uh, differences in, in our polling than, than we've ever found before. Uh, and people kind of digging in, uh, and that kind of is, is why the reason I got into polling to begin with is not about elections and who's ahead of who's behind in a horse race, but really trying to understand about why people view themselves, uh, the way they do, uh, in the political context, how they behave and what makes them kind of come to the table in politics and, you know, what sparks their interest, what, uh, and, and also what sparks, uh, their particular political point of view, whatever that may be, uh, looking for areas where, you know, your own identity gets tied up into it. And I think that's kind of an interesting thing. I started out focusing on political psychology when I was in grad school. And I think we're at a point where that is much more important, uh, in terms of a kind of a framework for understanding where we are today than, you know, a typical political science kind kind of literature, you come to it and, you know, people vote long rational choice, and I don't think that applies anymore. Uh, so it's, um, an absolutely interesting time for someone like me, who's interested in, in that that kind of study, but it's also one of the most challenging times because sometimes it makes it hard for us pollsters to break through, uh, what people really are thinking and, and believing people are starting to put up their guard a lot more, uh, in terms of expressing their political point of views, because they're, they're worried about how other people will think of them if they express 'em, Matt Harmon: You know, when you think of it. And the, and the polling Institute here at Monmouth, as I mentioned, started in 2005, um, so about 15 years running here in 2020, but you said you've been involved with it for, for more than that. What, what was it from your background, um, and your different stops along the way that, that led you to the idea that Monmouth would be, um, in need of the area? The country would be in need of another pole, because there are so many of them out there. Um, but, but what was it that made Monmouth a place that you felt like you could, you could gain the reputation that ultimately you have? Patrick Murray: Well, I mean, I, I wasn't here at Monmouth, uh, when that decision was made, um, I actually came to Monmouth because, because of that decision, um, I was at Rutgers, uh, for many years, that's where I went to graduate school. Um, I started out there working at the, uh, Eagleton pole, uh, just as a graduate student and that's, you know, I thought I was going to be a, a political science professor, uh, when I went to graduate school. Uh, but I was taking a lot of practical policy courses because I found that that was much more interesting to me than, uh, some of the theoretical approaches, uh, in political science. And of course, Rutgers had a poll, the Eagleton poll, which is one of the oldest, uh, university based polls. It's been around since, uh, 1971, I believe. And, uh, you know, I just walked in there one day, um, and said, do you have anything for me to do? I just wanted to try it out. Cause I found that that's what was interesting me, interesting me in my studies, uh, as a graduate student was, uh, a lot of the work that I was looking at was based on polling. So I wanted to know how it worked, um, ended up staying there and, uh, ended up working and, and running the Eagleton poll for a bit and ended up helping to start, uh, the public policy school, uh, polling, a center or a survey research center at, uh, at Rutgers as well, uh, before, um, this opportunity opened up at Monmouth in, in 2005. And I think that goes back to, uh, a guy named, uh, Jules plan year who's, uh, memorialized here on campus, um, in the building and, and where my office sits. Uh, and, uh, Jules was, um, a trustee of, of the university, but also had been a longtime publisher of the Asbury park press and, uh, felt that, you know, polling would be one good way for Monmouth to kind of, uh, put its stamp out there. And, uh, were when I came to Monmouth, uh, cuz they had, they had actually had a national search, uh, for, uh, the polling Institute director and ended up hiring the guy who lived, you know, 40 miles up the road. Uh, but, uh, part of it was, you know, I had a lot of contacts in New Jersey. Uh, I was used to working with the press and uh, we actually had an association with the Asbury park press to do New Jersey polling when I, when I first came here and, and started out and that's kind of how we started. Uh, and you know, there was a real opportunity here, uh, because it was kind of wide open. What kind of polling Institute did you, did you want to have, uh, here at Mammouth? What did you want to do? And so we, we did a lot of public polling. Um, we did a lot of early work helping out, uh, nonprofits, um, and also some of, of the local business entities in Monmouth county with some, some market research with some image research, with some needs assessments, program evaluations, that kind of thing, which was all in my background as well. Uh, but somewhere around 2015, uh, decided to make the leap, uh, into, uh, a national profile. Uh, I had been dabbling with that in our public polling of going outside of New Jersey and doing some work there in 20 twelve's presidential election, we did some and then decided to make that commitment that that's where we were going to go, because, you know, we had this reputation within New Jersey and there's no reason why we couldn't carry that reputation out across the country. Uh, and, uh, you know, the opportunity was there to do that. And what's great about that is it, you know, not only helps to raise the university's profile as a whole, but you know, gives us opportunities to give students opportunities to a wide range of things. As you may know, we don't have a, a, a social science graduate program per se, here at, uh, a Monmouth university. So the like kind of the training grounds that, that polling institutes do in some of, of the other universities, we, we don't do that, but we do it for, for undergraduates and for graduate students in different, um, in different fields. So we have graduate students in undergraduates who have worked for us either as interns or as graduate assistants, or just as student workers from, uh, not only political science, but communication, psychology, social work, psychological counseling of computer science, uh, English and history as well. And we find different things for them to do because of our high profile. We can, we can do things, not just, you know, running numbers and checking numbers, but also doing background research. How do you do that? Uh, writing, uh, blogs. We have students who write blog posts for us. They take some piece of, uh, what we've done and apply it to their own area of expertise as they are, you know, working through their students, their studies, whether they're, you know, a senior, uh, or a graduate student. Um, and so we have some, you know, great historical blogs right now about, you know, you know, this is what's going on right now, but historically this is what's happened from a history student that's working for us. Um, so that has provided us the opportunity to, to have that platform to do things like that. Um, and one of the, the things that I started a few years ago, um, that I'm most proud of is we started this class called survey research consulting where it's, uh, usually about a dozen students and I teach it every other year, um, or hopefully can do it again when we can get all back together. But the, the class is actually a practical class, uh, in that we have a quote unquote client, a nonprofit, um, who needs some work done. And, uh, we, uh, the students actually become their survey consulting team with my guidance, uh, in the class. So I teach 'em the, the precepts of survey research, but also how do operate an management structure on a consulting team. And they do everything from soup nuts from creating the survey to giving a professional presentation of the results at, by the end of the semester. So we've worked for habitat for humanity, for example, doing a, a survey of a neighborhood that they were doing some redevelopment in, in long branch. Uh, we worked for the boys and girls clubs of, uh, Monmouth county did a survey of the parents of the, of these students who, uh, are members of the boys and girls clubs there to about, you know, the kinds of things that they are seeing and, and need and, and like about the clubs. Uh, so, you know, these are things that the students can put on their resume at the end of the day, while after they take this class, because they have actually done a professional job, a professional and had that kind of real professional experience. So these are the kinds of things we're able to do because of our high profile Matt Harmon: President Lehe. When, when you hear, uh, Patrick talk about that, the one thing that strikes me in terms of, you know, not just what the polling Institute is all about, but how it involves the students on campus and the students of different disciplines on campus, which is so important, uh, to what Monmouth has, has always been about. Patrick Leahy: Uh, you know, I'm glad to hear to, to, uh, to hear that because, uh, I was gonna comment on that as well, that in a funny, kinda way, I'm glad that we don't have a specific graduate program in political science because, uh, it seems to me, Patrick, that, uh, most of those student opportunities would then be limited to those graduate students in that field rather than opening up all of those opportunities to undergraduate and graduate students alike from different, uh, fields of study. I, I just think that is, that is, uh, a sort of perfectly emblematic of what we're trying to offer here at Mammouth, which is, you know, sort of the, the opportunities, the big time opportunities of a much bigger place, but to make those opportunities available to, uh, a wide range of students. And, uh, I, I think that that's, uh, as I said, perfectly emblematic of what we're trying to do. One other thing I wanted to mention too, Matt, based on, uh, something Patrick said, um, I think it is fantastic as I mentioned, that it, uh, provides, uh, exposure for Monmouth university, but, but let's remember what we want is the right kind of high level credible exposure. And, uh, it was amazing to me to learn just in my first year here, that there are something like over 400 entities of some kind around the country that, that, uh, do polling, uh, scores and scores of colleges and universities have tried to adopt this model of doing polling of some sort in order to, to help them burnish their reputation. But, but only six as I understand it. And maybe you can correct me Patrick, but only six have the highest, uh, a plus rating from 5 38, which is the group that, that rates, uh, polling institutes, uh, only six have that. And mammoth, uh, has it, and has had it for the last, uh, number of years. So not only do we want exposure for Monmouth university and that opportunity to shine a spotlight on who we are, but we want highly credible, really professional exposure. And that's what our polling Institute brings. So for that, I'm, I'm very grateful to you, Patrick, as well. Patrick Murray: Uh, thanks. Patrick Leahy: We have the numbers, right? Isn't it like over 400 or so Patrick Murray: Something that, yeah, it's, that's true. Yeah. We're six out of over 400 who get that have gotten that a plus rating, which we've gotten for the past four years, um, now, uh, who knows after this election, uh, it might go down, but of course everybody's would then go down because we were all on the same boat in terms of what happened in this election. Patrick Leahy: Matt, can I just jump in real quick, like sure. Patrick, what did happen in this election? Is it, as you mentioned earlier that, uh, you know, the, the, the, the individuals whom you are polling, or just that much less candid, uh, in providing their preferences or how, how would you assess, uh, what, what did happen given that, you know, I know that the polling in general has sort of been under fire, not necessarily ours, but, uh, polling in general has been under fire as a result of, Uh, some of the projections. Patrick Murray: Yeah. And, and part of it is simply, um, an a, a misperception of what polling can actually do something that I've personally and through, through Monmouth, we've been trying to fight, uh, breakthrough with the media to, to do a better, uh, picture of the uncertainty that always surrounds polling and, and increases whenever we're doing an election polling, but, you know, I'll explain why back in 2016, we also had a polling miss. Everybody knows about that. And we, we did an autopsy in our industry. Everybody was, was pretty open with their books and then saying, Hey, this is, this is how we did it. And a group called the American association of public opinion research, which is really the foremost group, uh, for our industry, did an autopsy and came up with some reasons why the miss existed, uh, which included some things that we could fix in polling, uh, but also included, you know, analysis that look 2016 was a very volatile election. One of the things that we were looking at in 2020 was that it wasn't as volatile. And that means we had fewer people who were undecided fewer people who disliked both candidates simultaneously, which is something that we had in 2016. You, in this time around you either liked one, or you liked the other. Um, we had fewer voters who said they were thinking of voting for a third party candidate, all those things that contribute to late deciding or late shifts. We had more enthusiasm this year for the election that we did four years ago. So we weren't expecting a big miss, uh, this time around, but, uh, you know, I'm on the record. Um, and for, you know, I, I put myself on the record, anytime I talk to a reporter in the last couple weeks of saying, look, I'm looking at our polling. And this was our polling says, you know, Joe Biden is ahead in these key states, but understanding the uncertainty of polling, you need to prepare yourself for anything that goes from a big Biden and win to a, a, a Trump squeaker, uh, as it were, um, because the polling there's that much uncertainty in the polling, even though we don't see as much volatility in what we're doing. And that's because we're going to have record high turnout, we don't know whether that turnout's going to skew. And one of the things, when we do election polling is it violates one of the first principles that of, uh, probability sampling, which is, you know, who your population is before you start. We don't know who's going to vote. We don't know who the two thirds of America, of the American public, uh, of American adults who are going to show up to vote before it actually happens. And polling tells you that in order to draw a probability sample, you need to know who that is before you start drawing the sample. So what we do is we come up with what's called these likely voter models to try to figure that out. But once you start doing that, you start introducing more and more uncertainty. The fact that polling in the past has been fairly accurate over time is because things usually don't change all that much from the time a poll has taken to like the last few days of the election. So they're not predicting what's gonna happen in the election. It's just that there's a lot of stability there. But if we look at what happened in 2016, um, versus 2020 and in 2016 versus prior years, is that we've always had this ki kind of error in polling. It's just usually you don't, you don't notice it because it's, it's kind of a little bit all over the place. In the past two election cycles, presidential election cycles, it's been in one direction and that's why people start noticing it. Cuz it's was all in one direction. There was a narrative that said Joe Biden was going to win by a bigger margin than he did. Um, although when I looked at our last national poll that we did at the end of, um, uh, September, um, we had Joe Biden up by five points in that national poll. And he ended up winning by four points. So, uh, our national poll was an off, it was our state polls in the end, we noticed some things. And, and this is, you know, to your, my long winded answer to your question, pat was, uh, in the end, we started noticing in the last two weeks, an uptick in people who refused to tell us who they were going to vote for, that could have been skewed. And that's something that we can actually look at because we have the records of people who refused to tell us, uh, how they were voting. And we can see if that might be a skew. Um, when we looked at it, as it was happening, demographically, it didn't, but these could be people who were going against their typical demographics or going against what they, uh, what their social circle was doing. Um, and this is that, that theory of this shy Trump vote, which really didn't exist in 2016, but may have increased. Uh, what I'm worried about is we're gonna do this election autopsy. And I have, I, I worry that we're not gonna really come up with the answers as we did in 2016, because I think there's something larger at work. And I've been warning people about this for the last four years is that this increase in our partisan tribalism in this country where we're digging down into our trenches of whether we're, uh, you know, identify with the Democrats or the Republicans or, or the trumps and the not trumps or whatever it happens to be has increased during this presidency. Um, and I think in part, because one of the things that I started seeing in our polling were questions that I usually had nothing to do with partisanship in terms of the way people answered it, suddenly lining up along with people's partisan identities, whether we ask them whether their financial situation at home is stable, or if they're struggling or improving. That's a question that had limited correlation with partisanship in the past, but started to really correlate very heavily with partisanship. And we noticed it when the pandemic hit because people were telling us, oh, I've, you know, if somebody in my householder bread, breadwinner in our household has lost their job, our income has gone down. And then we ask 'em whether they're stable or struggling, they're gonna give us an answer that that's more in line with their political views in terms of how it looks for their party or their side, uh, rather than how it actually reflects their own perceptions. We ask that in a question, we ask people whether they're planning a vacation and we've got these incredible partisan splits, because they didn't want to, if they had to say that they were going to cancel the vacation, we've got, we had Democrats who increased the number who really were going to plan a vacation, went up, then it really is simply cuz they could say that they canceled that vacation. And we had Republicans who send that went down. So we had on both sides, we had people basically lying about whether they're planning a vacation because of how that would look or be perceived mm-hmm in, in terms of theirs reflection on the political world. Another thing that we've been seeing is, uh, something that we we know all along, uh, in polling is that we can't measure objects that have to do with social desirability, uh, meaning that, uh, you know, if, if there's like this kind of norm out there that people know that society expects them to, to hold to that they, when we poll them about that, they might not give honest answers because of how their answer to that question will reflect on them. So there's, you know, questions about religion, questions about race, all these things. Um, we have to be very careful about when we're asking people their opinion of, because we know that there's a social desirability bias in P way. People will answer that question. What we started seeing over the last four years is that bias started applying to the president himself. And when we asked the, just asked the simple question of, do you approve or disapprove of the job, uh, that the president is doing for past presidents that simply meant that, you know, his policies overall approach, whatever it was, that's how people answered the question. And there was certainly people who dug in partisan wise, but it, we didn't feel that people were embarrassed or, or felt that that somehow, uh, their answer would reflect upon them negatively if they gave it. And we started seeing that in some of the work that we were doing, uh, when we started asking a question about president Trump. So he's actually kind of changed the dynamic of how we measure public opinion, not just for elections and for 2020, but for other things as well. And I think in our industry, that's something that we need to be a lot more concerned about. Have we now gotten into this phase where people view their political views through a lens in which they have to be much more careful about what they say to others because of how others will view them. And that makes it harder for us to break through, uh, that, that, that kind of wall that they've created in order for us to get an honest answer about that. And I think we're gonna spend a lot more time looking at that if we really wanna, uh, make sure that polling is working than, than worrying as much about the size of this particular election, miss Matt Harmon: It is mammoth weekly, episode number 20, uh, your host, Matt Harmon, university, president Patrick Lehe, N university polling Institute, director, Patrick Murray, uh, talking about a variety of, of issues. Patrick, I want to ask you this from a perspective of whether it's you, those who work with you at the polling Institute, but I'm sure ultimately it it's it's you that looks at all of them. How do you pose a question? Um, looking, looking for whatever the answer might be, but keep the word bias out of it. Cuz I'd have to imagine. And I spent some time last night and, and again, this morning looking at, um, that 5 38 pollster rankings and, and there is a, there's a bias measure in there as well. Mm-hmm Mon Mout is pretty close to zero, but there are some that are very skewed, whether it's Republican Democrat, but how do you frame a question so that people don't look at it and say, oh, that's, that's a bias question. They're they're just looking for whatever the answer is that they're trying to figure on. Patrick Murray: Sure. Um, you know, so the bias measurement in, um, uh, in 5 38 has to do with, you know, kind of, where do you tend to show up on election polling it's from year to year, it changes. So we've gone from a slight, uh, Republican to a, you know, uh, no bias to a slight Democrat. I mean that, that shifts around from election to election. What you're looking at is some of them, as you mentioned, have big biases. So, you know, you're gonna take them with a grain of salt. But the question that you asked, which is a different measurement, is how do we ask a question? That's not going to introduce bias, that's gonna try to get people to give their honest answer. And, uh, you know, there's a, there's an art form, uh, to wording a question in, um, in the polls. And, and in fact, I tell the media, anytime journalists report on a polling question about an issue like legalizing marijuana say, um, you have to look at the way the, the question was wording. Most, most of them won't do that. They'll look at the things that they were told to look at, which is what's the margin of error for the poll, what's this. And, and so all those things line up, so this poll must be good. I said, no, you have to look at how the question was actually worded. Did the question, introduce information or frame the topic in a way that would suggest to the respondent who's on the phone, taking the poll that there's a right answer or a wrong answer to this question. And that's what you have to do when you frame a question about a policy issue is give people the opportunity to say, you know, there, there is no right answer to this question. Your opinion is, is the only answer that I'm, I'm thinking and whether your opinion is approved or disapprove or agree or disagree, whatever it happens to be that that's as valid in it. That's a valid answer on either side that there's no, um, there's no judgment of what your answer is going to be. Um, so that's one thing that we really try to pay close attention to that we're not introducing some piece of information that would suggest to, uh, the people that we pull that one answer is quote unquote, better than another. Another thing that you have to be careful of is not introducing information into the question that people don't have. And I'll give you an example of this that happened in a, um, in a Senate race that I pulled many, many moons ago is that there was an, a Senator in his eighties who was running for reelection. And we were finding that most people were saying that his age didn't matter to them when we asked, we said, you know, is, is so and so too old to effectively serve as a us Senator. And, uh, you know, only about one third said, yes, well, another, uh, academic P based pollster who will rename nameless, uh, was consistently finding a majority of, uh, voters in that the same state said that this person was too old. The difference between their question and my question is that their question started out with, at, at age 84, is this Senator too old to be effective? Whereas my question didn't mention the age at all. So, you know, the media loved to run with that other poll number because I said a majority said that this is gonna be an issue in the election. And I said, no, it's not. And the reason why is because most voters didn't know how old the Senator was. In fact, I followed up our poll question with another question, which says, oh, by the way, how old do you think the Senator is? And the average age was 10 years younger than he actually was. That was the average guess. And that's why they didn't think he was too old. So the other poll was an erroneous measurement of public opinion because a hundred percent of the people in that poll knew the age of that Senator because the pollster told them in our poll, we got a much lower number because we didn't introduce that information. And we found that only about a quarter of, uh, those voters out there in the real world, didn't know, uh, excuse me, knew how old that Senator was. And that was, you know, a key, if you, are you measuring public opinion as it exists, or you're measuring public opinion, if a hundred percent of the public had this piece of information. And that's what I try to get through to, um, to the media who, who cover us, uh, is that you really have to pay close attention to what the pollster might be introducing and what they're actually measuring. Are they me measuring public opinion as it exists right now, or they measuring public opinion under this hypothetical situation. If people thought about this issue in a certain way, Matt Harmon: President Lehe, I'm, I'm curious to know how often, um, if, if you could share, how often do you talk with Patrick about the different polls that maybe Monmouth does and, um, the, the results do, are you ever struck by what you see on, on Twitter and on social media, uh, to the point where you, you know, maybe you pick up the phone and say, wow, that's a, that was a good one. Patrick Leahy: No, we, you know, one, we don't get a chance to talk enough, Patrick. So I, I, I hope our relationship develops as time goes on, but Patrick Murray: Yes, I know you've been a little busy over the past seven or eight months, but, Patrick Leahy: But part of it too is, you know, I, I wanna make sure that Patrick knows he has the he's, he's got the independence that he needs. I mean, he doesn't need the president calling him and suggesting, uh, polling questions and, and all that. Uh, I follow very closely. I, I, I of course get all of the releases and I follow very closely, uh, what, what, uh, Patrick is reporting. And, uh, I find it fascinating. I mean, I, I just, uh, you know, and then I'm so comforted by the fact that the New York times often picks it up and the Washington post and the LA times, and, you know, MSNBC and everyone, I mean, that, that not only is the information itself, uh, fascinating to me, maybe it's because I'm in part of, uh, you know, a political junkie, but, but also the traction that it gets, uh, in major media outlets, uh, across, uh, across the, the country, including Monmouth weekly, I mean, a major media outlet here on this podcast. , Matt Harmon: Um, that is correct. We've got the, we have, we have the pulse of the people without question. Patrick Leahy: So I, I, um, I, I just, uh, I, I hope, uh, Patrick knows, you know, I, I sit idly by, on the sidelines, applauding everything that happens at the polling Institute. Uh, but again, wanna make sure that we're doing what we can to support, uh, what he does from an int, you know, from an institutional standpoint. But, but I don't want him to feel that we're interfering in any way, you know, with, with, uh, his polling program. So, um, that's the sort of integration we're trying to create here. Yeah. Patrick Murray: Perfect. Matt Harmon: That's Patrick, I've got two things I'd like to, to finish with. And, and, and if president Lehe has anything that he wants to add, um, O O obviously he, he can, what's the best. Um, I'm trying to think of the best way to say this, and I'll say it in its simplest form, what's the best compliment that the Monmouth university polling Institute has, has gotten? Is it the, a plus rating, or is it the fact that's president Lee just mentioned, you get mentioned in the New York times, the LA times, MSNBC, CNN, Fox news, whatever, whatever viewing spot or whatever readership, uh, that you'd wanna be associated with Monmouth has, has been there. What, what's the, what's the gold standard for you in terms of the Mout polling Institute? Patrick Murray: Um, well, I, I think some of, some of the best feedback, or, or some of the most satisfying is, is from my peers who I, I respect some of the top, uh, some of the top organizations, some of these other, a plus organizations, you know, come to us and say, well, I really liked your approach on how you, you tried to ask about this issue. Um, you know, you, I, I really like the way that you frame, you know, what's going on here and try to add some analysis. That's not just, you know, the, the typical who's ahead, who's behind in the horse race, but actually, you know, you know, the way you ask a question or the way you look at the data and try to draw a larger story out of it. So those things that you don't hear about, but I hear about from my peers is, is certainly, um, satisfying, uh, when the media come to me, not because they just want, you know, a quick hit on what's, uh, you know, the, the horse race numbers are, or the job approval ratings are, uh, but they actually want, um, an analysis of what's going on, uh, including with the polling industry itself. They know that they're gonna get an honest answer from me, uh, that, you know, I, you know, when we have a miss I'm, I'm the first one to, to raise my hand and say, Hey, we missed this and we need to take a look at this. And this is why, and this is why it's important. And it's important, not just because of our reputation and, and whether people trust or distrust polling around elections, because all these people right now who are crying about the election results being off, uh, and they'll never trust a poll again, they're the first ones who are going to look at the next poll that comes out. Uh, so I take that with the grain of salt, uh, but, uh, you know, out in the outside world, that's what, um, really, uh, you know, that that's, what's most satisfying to me when I hear from, from my own peers internally in the university, what's satisfying to me because, you know, we have a lot of other things that are going on here. And, and, and my staff, in addition to supporting what our public role is, they support our students and keep the, their students on track. Um, they also support faculty and other students who are doing all sorts of research out there, uh, that, that need support, you know, doing online surveys and, and maybe some advice or, or, or going into classes and, uh, you know, giving lectures on, on research methods and survey research methods. And, um, you know, I'm not able to do a lot of that. They have to do that. So I really wanna give a, a, a, a shout out and of appreciation, uh, to my team of Carol and Tina and, and Vicky who have always made this thing run, but particularly over the last eight months, you know, as soon as, you know, we shut down at the university back in March, uh, you know, my, my team did not miss a beat. Uh, we kept going and rolling as if nothing, you know, if you were looking at, from the outside world, you would've thought nothing had changed, um, in terms of, of what we were doing. Um, and so, uh, you know, I'm really thankful, uh, for that core team that I have at the polling Institute, you know, for making this just a seamless operation, uh, during this past, uh, eight months in particular. Matt Harmon: And then, and then the last one for me would be, um, Mo moving forward, you mentioned kind of breaking down what worked, maybe what didn't work with this latest 20, 20 election. What's the, what's the future looking ahead for the Monmouth polling Institute. Patrick Murray: Um, I think we're gonna take a lot of, um, uh, a deeper dive into what is actually going on in the public, uh, in terms of our partisan divide and understanding what this means for us as, uh, as a, as a public, uh, you know, can the Republic stand? What does, what does, what kind of public trust does does the Republic need, uh, in order to survive and, and to thrive? Uh, do we, are we able to, to get that back, because it does seem in our polling that, that we've lost that, but that people still, you know, are able to kind of voice those, those words that, that, that give support, you know, they want compromise, they want, you know, they want government to work. I mean, this is what we keep telling. They want government to work. The problem is, do do our, those in power, uh, you know, hear those voices and take them seriously. And that's what I wanna try to kind of measure because when I got into polling, uh, public polling, you know, the thing that I wanted to do, and I think it's, it's, it's on our webpage is kind of part of our mission is that to make sure the voice of the people is at the table, uh, when, uh, our political leaders are making decisions when our public leaders are making decisions and thinking about things and, and really take those voices seriously. Uh, and that's, that's what we do as pollsters. Uh, the best is, is give those, uh, voices a, a force of, of their own that they might not otherwise have. Um, and so hopefully that will continue to do that and, and, and take a higher profile, um, and moving forward and, and trying to, to help kind of move this country forward as well. Matt Harmon: President Lehe final word from you, sir, Patrick Leahy: Just a couple things. Um, I'm so glad to hear Patrick, uh, talk about, uh, where our efforts are going to focus in the future, because, you know, here we are, what 250 years into it as a country. And, um, we're still figuring it out. It seems to me, and we need to try to dig into, um, how can we, uh, make this democracy work even, even more efficiently for, for all of us Americans. And I think we're at a critical juncture in that experiment. So I'm thrilled to hear that. The other thing is so satisfying to me to hear Patrick say, is that the great compliment is, you know, gaining the respect of his peers. And I think, uh, there are a few things more satisfying than gaining the re you know, the respect of, uh, your peers. And, uh, I appreciate you saying that Patrick, uh, that coupled with all the things that you said, Matt, about the a plus rating and all the recognition that we get, I think, uh, again, is very satisfying for me as the president. Patrick Leahy: I just wanna share a quick anecdote to finish, and that is, um, I don't know when it was, uh, maybe you remember Patrick way, way back in the last spring or something. NJ biz came out with its, uh, education power 50, I guess. And, uh, I was home one evening and my 14 year old son saw on one of his social media feeds that his, his dad, his old man, me, I was, I was named in that, uh, whatever, whatever it is, the education 50 in the state of New Jersey. And, uh, so we had, you know, a little chuckle about that and he's scrolling through the list and he sees at number 10 way above where, wherever I Speaker 4: Was Patrick Leahy: Patrick Murray and my 14 year old son says, who's Patrick Murray. And I said, oh, he, he works at Monmouth. He directs our, our polling Institute. And he said, isn't that a little embarrassing for you, dad, that, uh, Speaker 4: He outranked you, in this, Patrick Leahy: In this listing. And I said, no, not at all. I mean, he's a, he's a treasurer here at Monmouth and he's been added a lot longer than I have. And, uh, he has a lot more standing in this state than I do so, no, it doesn't embarrass me at all. So, uh, I just wanted you to hear that directly from me, Patrick, that even the four, the youngest in my house now understands, uh, uh, my relative position, my relative standing, uh, to you. So, uh, I think that's yet another way that the state recognizes, uh, the incredible contributions that, uh, not only the Monmouth polling Institute makes, but that you personally make to, uh, to our state. So congratulations to you on that recognition. Thank you. Appreciate Matt Harmon: That. Nothing like being brought back to earth by your teenage son, I can relate very well. Uh, president Lehe is always appreciate your time here this morning, Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth polling Institute. This was fascinating stuff. Feel like we, um, I'm sure at some point we'll be able to do this again, um, and, and not have to wait four years to do it, but, but your efforts to get Monmouth in the national landscape and to have such a great reputation as someone who's worked at the school for so long and is a graduate, uh, times two, I, I applaud you for your efforts in, in terms of what you do at the polling Institute. And thank you so much for coming on this morning. Speaker 5: Oh, my pleasure. Matt Harmon: Patrick Murray university, president Patrick Lehe, Matt Harmon, we say goodbye from episode number 20. We'll be back after the Thanksgiving holiday for more updates going in to a busy December as mammoth finishes up the fall semester. Looks ahead hopefully to winter sports and the spring semester for all of us at Monmouth weekly. Thanks as always for listening. Enjoy the rest of your day.