The Gold Standard in Latino Political Polling
Most frequently, our clients are interested in the voter behavior. Accordingly, our surveys employ rigorous social science standards and precise information about Latino demographics to make sure our respondents reflect the Latino electorate. Clients and the larger public can be confident in the accuracy of our survey results. Sound methodology and appropriate protocols are essential to a survey’s validity, here we highlight the most important aspects to our approach that make Latino Decisions “the gold standard in Latino American political polling”.
- Best practices are paramount to our approach. Our samples are drawn randomly from the most recent (state-specific) list of registered voters and further narrowed to Hispanic households, as verified by different commercial vendors.
- Our respondents include only self-identified Latinos who are registered voters.
- Using a registered voter list is far superior to a simple random digit dialing (RDD) of Spanish-surname households because a large percentage of Latinos are not registered to vote, yet many will say they are in RDD samples, resulting in a high percentage of non-registrants in the sample. Latino Decisions avoids this simple error by using the registered voter list as a starting point.
- Both landline and mobile numbers are included because a disproportionate share of Latinos relies exclusively on cell phones relative to non-Latinos. Omitting mobile numbers is a common industry practice, but compromises reliability when attempting to measure Latino public opinion.
- About 20% of our respondents in national surveys are cell-phone only registered voters, though the share may vary by state.
- Households are drawn using the Census Bureau list of 12,000 commonly occurring Spanish surnames and additional commercial market data.
- Approximately 90% of respondents typically have a Spanish surname and 10% do not. This is consistent with published academic research and Census reports indicating 90 to 95% of all Latinos in the United States have a Spanish-surname.
- Respondents confirm both their voter registration status and Hispanic identification with an interviewer. We never robo-call.
- Bilingual interviewers conduct our surveys. Respondents are greeted in both languages, and surveys are conducted in either English or Spanish, at the discretion of the respondent. Other firms frequently rely on an inefficient callback sequence to match respondent and interviewer languages.
- Our team of political scientists with sharp expertise (see books and journal articles here) in Latino politics, research methodology, and public opinion measurement create all of our survey instrumentation.
- Survey translations are carefully evaluated to make sure the translations are technically and conceptually accurate, measuring the same issues, opinions, and concepts that can be lost in direct language translations.
- Individual survey interviews range from 10 minutes to 25 minutes, depending on content, and specific client needs.
- Final sample size ranges from a minimum of N=400 to N=2000 or above, based on the exact needs of our clients.
- Survey are administered in cooperation with Pacific Market Research, in Renton, Washington, and performed using a Computer-Assisted-Telephone-Interviewing (CATI) protocols. CATI software offers a superior ability to exercise tight sample control and maximize response rates.