The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Quinnipiac focuses polling outside state
HAMDEN » If you’re a close follower of the widely referred to Quinnipiac Poll, you may have noticed that there is one state that has been prominently missing from its polling in the past year: Connecticut.
The last “Connecticut” polling the Quinnipiac University Poll did was more than 14 months ago in June 2016, when it asked voters whether the state had more Boston Red Sox or New York Yankee fans.
The results of that poll, by the way, showed that Connecticut is still a “Yankee” state with 44 percent stating they follow the Bronx Bombers versus 36 percent Red Sox fans. Connecticut fans of the New York Mets were at 13 percent.
But that poll and two others done on Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s popularity, and how Connecticut voters felt about presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton five months before the November 2016 election, are the most recent Connecticut polls done by Quinnipiac.
All three of those polls were done in early June 2016.
By contrast, the Quinnipiac Poll has done 46 nationwide polls since then. Those polls have mostly been on national issues, ranging from President Trump’s popularity to feelings about legalizing recreational marijuana, the Affordable Care Act, and whether transgender people should serve in the military, to name a few topics.
Asked why Connecticut hasn’t been surveyed about its opinions on these issues in more than a year, Doug Schwartz, director of the Quinnipiac poll, would only state: “We do not discuss our poll plans.”
The polling institute has done at least four or more polls per year based on the feelings of Connecticut voters over the past decade.
However, Connecticut is not the only state that the Quinnipiac Poll has been ignoring lately.
The states of Florida and Pennsylvania, which have been regular Quinnipiac Poll states, haven’t been polled since November 2016.
Other states like New Jersey and New York have been polled: New Jersey as recently as June 15, 2017, and New York as recently as July 13, 2017.
The Quinnipiac Poll began in 1988, growing out of a marketing class. It became formal in 1994. It subsequently focused on the northeastern states, gradually expanding during presidential elections to cover those, as well.
The poll is funded by the university. Quinnipiac University is widely known for its poll; the publicity it has generated has been credited by many with increasing awareness of the university’s brand and also growing the school’s enrollment.