PA Election: WCU 2022 RAM POLL - "Students favor Fetterman, Shapiro; abortion is top issue"

[BumRushDaShow]

Heard this yesterday afternoon on the local news radio station (KYW) and again early this morning with a note at the end of the broadcast that more about it would be at KYW's website, which of course it isn't.

So after much digging I researched and found what this was, and how/why it was started.

POLL DATA (including methodology, crosstabs, etc.) is here (PDF).

First - the same station did a podcast back in 2020 about the same poll and conducted an initial interview with Laura Pyott, the West Chester University stats professor who spear-headed this effort (and a new interview was done this past week that is MIA on KYW's website) -

How the 2016 polling kerfuffle inspired the West Chester University Ram Poll
November 02, 2020

(audio player at the link to listen)
https://www.audacy.com/podcasts/kyw-newsradio-in-depth-229/how-the-2016-polling-kerfuffle-inspired-the-west-chester-university-ram-poll-349232638

Link to tweet

Laura Connell Pyott 📊
@collprof
·
Follow
The 2022 Ram Poll Report is here! We asked over 900 PASSHE university students across Pennsylvania about the election, voting, and issues. Want to know who they will vote for? How they will vote? What issues are important to them? It's all in the report!
https://wcupa.edu/sciences-mathematics/mathematics/documents/Ram%20Poll%20Report%202022.pdf
Image
10:48 AM · Nov 3, 2022

Below is the link to WCU's announcement of the poll -

November 1, 2022
2022 Midterm Election Poll Conducted by WCU Statistics & Political Science Students Indicates Majority of PA State System College Students Will Vote on November 8

Living in a battleground state with highly contested elections, PA college voter turnout is expected to be historic. A Qualtrics survey was sent to a random sample of more than 15,000 students who are at least 18 years old, are permanent residents of Pennsylvania and attend one of the schools that comprise Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education (PASSHE); students from 9 out of 10 PASSHE schools responded to the survey. The second statewide election poll for State System undergraduates was conducted by West Chester University Professor of Statistics Laura Pyott; statistics majors Gianna Lafrance, Emma Laughlin, Connor McKee, Jaiden Neff, Evan Parker, Julia Randazzo, Jack Ross, Ian Vanwright, and Kyle Weber; computer science majors Jessica Gorr and Hayden Kanak; and political science majors Veronica Yeakel, Katelyn Samples, and Elizabeth Seravello.

The poll generated some interesting results among the 948 total student respondents:

56 % of students favor John Fetterman (D) as a candidate for US senator

21% of students favor Doug Mastriano (R) as a candidate for governor of PA

22% of students favor Mehmet Oz (R) as a candidate for US senator

56 % of students favor Josh Shapiro (D) as a candidate for governor of PA

Students said the following are their top issues:

Education

Abortion

Healthcare

Economy

50+% of students said abortion ranked in their top three issues, more than any other issue

87% of students said they are registered to vote

89% said they will certainly or probably vote in the 2022 midterm election

70% of students will vote in person

Students self-identified as liberal (36%), moderate (36%), conservative (17%), & not sure (11%)

https://www.wcupa.edu/communications/newsroom/2022/11.01vote.aspx

Local PA (community) newspapers group story -

Students favor Fetterman, Shapiro; abortion is top issue

By MediaNews Group |
PUBLISHED: November 2, 2022 at 7:18 p.m. | UPDATED: November 4, 2022 at 11:05 a.m.

WEST CHESTER — In a poll that was conducted by West Chester University that went to students across the state who attend PASSHE universities, the results favor Josh Shapiro as the next governor and favor John Fetterman over Doug Mastriano by a wide margin, according to a recent survey..

A Qualtrics survey of students was sent to a random sample of more than 15,000 students who are at least 18 years old, are permanent residents of Pennsylvania and attend one of the schools that comprise Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education (PASSHE); students from 9 out of 10 PASSHE schools responded to the survey.

The second statewide election poll for State System undergraduates was conducted by West Chester University Professor of Statistics Laura Pyott; statistics majors Gianna Lafrance, Emma Laughlin, Connor McKee, Jaiden Neff, Evan Parker, Julia Randazzo, Jack Ross, Ian Vanwright, and Kyle Weber; computer science majors Jessica Gorr and Hayden Kanak; and political science majors Veronica Yeakel, Katelyn Samples, and Elizabeth Seravello.

The poll generated some interesting results among the 948 total student respondents:

• 56 percent of students favor John Fetterman (D) as a candidate for US senator

• 21 percent of students favor Doug Mastriano (R) as a candidate for governor of Pennsylvania.

• 22 percent of students favor Mehmet Oz (R) as a candidate for US senator

• 56 percent of students favor Josh Shapiro (D) as a candidate for governor of Pennsylvania.

Students said the following are their top issues: Education, Abortion, Healthcare,, Economy
More than half of the students said abortion ranked in their top three issues, more than any other issue[

(snip)

https://www.dailylocal.com/2022/11/02/wcu-students-favor-fetterman-shapiro-abortion-is-top-issue/

[Lovie777]

1. K & R . . .

[Amishman]

2. Those likely to vote percentages are astounding!

If remotely true, this will be huge for us - and is exactly the kind of unexpected turnout shift that expert data models probably do not factor in.

Most encouraging thing I've seen in a week or more.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. And this was just done with the consortium of the state schools

Hopefully the public non-state affiliated, community college, and private colleges will help add to some turnout too, and here in Philly, we have a bunch of those (e.g., Penn, Drexel, University of the Sciences-now-part-of-St. Joseph's University, etc).

[ColinC]

17. If they vote on Election Day it could actually be an early night for us!

[BumRushDaShow]

19. If only the GOP loons would allow pre-canvassing of mail ballots

then it could be an "early night". Otherwise the election workers have to wait until the polls open on election day to start pulling mail-in ballots out of envelopes, reviewing, and prepping them for tabulating.

[JohnSJ]

3. Then vote vote vote

[Indykatie]

4. Thanks for Posting This Information. It Was Great to Read.

I'm more hopeful about our chances after reading this and other articles on student engagement across the country for this election.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. You're welcome. With all that went on here in 2020

I didn't really pay attention (or couldn't because of all the ridiculous "fraud!!1111!!!" and lawsuits nonsense that drowned out some underlying things going on in the electorate).

But I think this was a good exercise for this professor to engage students in this exercise - not only because they dig deep into the ins-and-outs of statistics, but can also do some "fun" polling. And if anything, they actually would have a better handle on how to reach their peers for any future polling, should any of them actually go into the field as an occupation.

[unweird]

6. Obama/Fetterman/Lee Rally today across the street from the Cathedral of Learning

Rally location is in Oakland between the Pitt and Carnegie Mellon campuses. Looks like they are plugging into that collegiate crowd for enthusiasm.

[Demsrule86]

7. Awesome...going to watch hopefully on youtube or whereever I can!

[unweird]

9. We planned to attend in person...

But wife isn’t well and up to it. And I’m not moving at full speed either. Dammit.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. Obama/Biden/Fetterman/Shapiro are due to be here in Philly later today!

I know that over the past month, Shapiro's calm and steady discourse and campaign emails are bolstering our hopes that "he's got this" (just like how he handled all the ridiculous lawsuits against our election in 2020 as AG).

[unweird]

10. Well Mastriano is a bonafide whackjob

And a good chunk of the Commonwealth recognizes that.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. He needs to be reactivated

court-martialed, kicked out of the state Senate, then tried for sedition, convicted, and thrown in prison.

[Demsrule86]

16. Matriano is an f'ing disgrace and needs to be tossed into prison...and ironically like Oz if he vote

at all in 20, he voted in Jersey.

[BumRushDaShow]

18. Yes I did see that story recently

about Mastriano voting in Jersey!

Doug Mastriano Was Registered to Vote in New Jersey Until … Last Year

The MAGA diehard is only the latest high-profile Republican running for office in Pennsylvania with deep roots elsewhere


September 16, 2022


Doug Mastriano — the Trump-loving, Confederate garb-wearing, unhinged-religious-prophet-affiliating Republican gubernatorial nominee in Pennsylvania — was registered to vote in New Jersey until 2021, the New Jersey Globe reported on Friday. Mastriano, who was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and raised in Highstown, New Jersey, voted in the latter town for nearly 30 years — from 1982 up until 2010. The New Jersey Globe notes that Mastriano never informed Mercer County, New Jersey, that he moved from the state, and continued to receive sample ballots until his mother died last January. Mastriano has been registered to vote in Pennsylvania since 2012, and there is no indication he voted in both states simultaneously.

One would think Mastriano would be a little more fastidious about his voting status, as he has long alleged without evidence that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump, and that fraud was rife throughout Pennsylvania. He’s said that if elected he would push to make everyone in the state re-register to vote, which many have argued would be a violation of federal law. “There’s still a lot of dead on the rolls, and what have you, and there’s ghost phantom voters that we found, as well, at various addresses,” he told Newsmax earlier this year. “So we’re going to take that very seriously and move really hard. Basically we have about a year to get that right before the 2024 presidential election.”

Mastriano isn’t the only high-profile Republican running for office in Pennsylvania with deep ties to New Jersey. Mehmet Oz, the Trump-endorsed TV doctor running for Senate in Pennsylvania, only recently moved to the state he’s running to represent in Congress. Democrat John Fetterman has routinely attacked Oz as a carpetbagger disconnected from the people of Pennsylvania.

Mastriano’s New Jersey voter registration is only the latest in a string of troubling developments surrounding Trump’s pick to run the swing state.

(snip)

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/doug-mastriano-new-jersey-voter-registration-1234594423/

The paper that first reported this was here - https://newjerseyglobe.com/national/pennsylvania-gop-gubernatorial-nominee-was-registered-to-vote-in-n-j-until-2021/

[madville]

13. Poll based on an email survey

When I saw that 87% said they were registered and 89% planned on voting I had to see where they got their data. 948 respondents for 15,000 emails sent out to in-state students, so about a 7% response rate.

I don’t doubt that 89% of the 7% plan on voting, they obviously have a great enough interest in politics to respond to an email survey. I wouldn’t use it as an indicator of what the other 93% plan on doing though.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. What is the difference between "email" and "phone calls"

I have the entire RNC set of (202) 9xx-xxxx exchanges on BLOCK for my landline. These students have cell phones and most likely ditch phone calls of people who they don't know but might at least respond to an email coming from a state school looking to survey them.

How else would you propose to "poll" or "survey" someone that is the equivalent to "in person", where in the latter, they might bat you away trying to get to class? And did you look at what was in the OP as the impetus behind this as a "teaching" tool for new math & statistics majors? They did similar in 2020 as a response to the failure of the 2016 election polls.

[Demsrule86]

15. It is a great deal more accurate then phones...but please proceed to knock down every

bit of good news.