OUR APPROACH TO WINNING CAMPAIGNS
Over 40 years, no polling and strategy firm has succeeded in more races and issue campaigns than GQR. Over and over, in the toughest, most competitive races, we have helped our clients campaign, win, govern and win again. Starting with Joe Lieberman’s election to the Senate in 1988 and President Bill Clinton’s historic campaign in 1992, we have elected 17 members to the US Senate, over 50 members of Congress, 12 Governors, 22 mayors and worked with 13 state legislative caucuses.
We’ve been a strategic partner in winning campaigns in 49 states and over 100 countries. We have helped elect a generation of Democratic leaders at the national, state and local level. Our record in US Senate races is 25-1 – we don’t lose Senate races. Period. From Sen. Mark Kelly to Sen. Maggie Hassan to Sen. Richard Blumenthal to Sen. Michael Bennet to Sen. Gary Peters to many more, we’ve helped our clients beat republican incumbents and win open seats.
We have proven that elections matter by helping our clients on the path to victory in statewide office, including the election of Gov. Katie Hobbs in Arizona, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, and Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania. Our committee work with the DNC, DSCC, DCCC and the pro-Biden Super PAC, Unite the Country, has played a role in securing victories in key battleground states from coast to coast.
GQR’s global reach has included some of the world’s leading political figures, including Nelson Mandela, former President Joyce Banda (Malawi) and former PM Tony Blair. We have worked with Bahamian Prime Minister Brave Davis, former Prime Ministers Julia Gillard (Australia) and Enda Kenny (Ireland), former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and the former People’s Deputy of Ukraine, Svyatoslav Vakarchuk.
GQR’s commitment to democracy and progressive ideals reaches into Canada. We have helped elect progressive governments from the municipal to the federal level and worked extensively with unions and advocacy groups to provide them with the strategic insights to better communicate and achieve their goals.
We have conducted polling on issues ranging from reproductive rights and gun violence to climate change and LGBTQ+ rights. Our research has impacted legislation for workers’ rights and protections and reform to human rights. We don’t shy away from the hard stuff either – from monopolies and Big Tech, to healthcare, caregiving and childcare, to the evolving role of faith in our country.
We pride ourselves on the accuracy of our data and the depth of our strategic insights; we are continually on the cutting edge of new technologies and innovation to help our clients get the answers they need. We are experts in research among hard-to-reach populations and bilingual research.
The first step in accurate polling is talking to the right people. We determine our sample frame at a granular level – because who you talk to matters.
We offer:
Phone Polling: Live calling on landlines and cell phones, Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) and Text-to-Web (TTW or SMS). While much of survey research has moved online, phone polling is still the gold standard for representative random sampling and accurate measuring. We design each project for the right proportion of surveys conducted live or self-administered (e.g., TTW). We work with voter files and random digit dial samples.
Online Polling: Online research is cost effective, allowing you to reach hard-to-find populations, conduct experiments and use advanced analytics such as MaxDiff. We work with panels and membership lists, as well as recruiting participants with advanced techniques like addressed based sampling.
Focus Groups and In-Depth Interviews: Qualitative research is an invaluable research tool allowing in-depth, open ended exploration of issues and behaviors. We offer in-person live focus groups, focus groups using Zoom technologies and chat-based focus groups. Using zoom and chat allows respondents to be recruited across diverse geographies and makes it easier to conduct research with hard-to-reach populations. In-depth interviews are indispensable tools to dig into individual stories, especially among elite and niche audiences in government, politics, civil society, religious institutions, media, academia, or business.
Ad Testing: Polling informs messaging, but the creative execution in paid communications is just as important. We use a wide range of ad testing technologies including online ad tests and ad testing focus groups to make sure that messages are believable, straightforward and move the voters we’re targeting.
Big Data and Advanced Statistical Analysis: Advanced analytic techniques like regression analysis and MaxDiff provide a deeper level of understanding of attitudes, vote choice and turnout than crosstabs alone. For clients with large amounts of historical data, we can aggregate and build databases to increase the power of quantitative data through secondary data analysis and time series.