Jacob Ogles
A Chicago-based polling firm is expanding into Florida, and hopes polling of an open Manatee County House race impressed consultants.
M3 Strategies called the winner of a Republican Primary in House District 72, and landed about a percentage point off from his final vote share. Based on a poll of early and mail-in voters, the firm predicted that Kimley-Horn shareholder Bill Conerly would win with 30% of the vote. Results show Conerly took the nomination with 31% support.
“We did really well with our proof concept,” said M3 Strategies partner Matthew Podgorski.
The firm decided to do a poll in the open House race about four weeks out from the election, which also showed Conerly leading. But Podgorski hopes the exit poll done immediately before the Primary Day shows the predictive power of its polling.
Polls are snapshots, after all, and events can change the dynamic of a race within weeks. But Podgorski said the exit polling model could help drive final spending decisions in the tail end of an election season. He hopes battleground campaigns consider that before the Nov. 5 General Election.
Of course, the polling wasn’t perfect. In both the month-out surveys and the results released before the election, M3 found marketing consultant Alyssa Gay in second place for the HD 72 seat. In reality, Manatee County School Board member Rich Tatem came in behind Conerly, with 28% support. Gay came in third with 22%.
Podgorski stressed that the poll had a 4.5-percentage-point margin of error, which covers the spread on Gay’s and Tatem’s standings. And as assessments of polling tend to go, the most valuable data point tends to be whether a pollster called the winner correctly, which happened here.
Conerly heads to a General Election against Democrat Lesa Miller, and walks into that race a heavy favorite in a deep-red district previously represented by Republican Rep. Tommy Gregory.
Podgorski credits a polling process that meets voters where they are. In 2024, it’s on their smartphones. The pollster does no cold calls, and collects all results using text-to-web outreach.
“The best delivery method for polling for most normal people is text to web,” he said. “We don’t do robo-dials for seniors, and have found older people respond even more than young people. And we don’t do live calls.”
The web surveys that respondents fill out are more true to the voting experience than having names read over the phone anyway, Podgorski said.
He also said surveys are brief, with the knowledge that most voters won’t spend 20 minutes going through a lengthy survey on their thoughts on all things political.
Pollsters also screen voters for honesty. The exit poll involved reaching out to those who already voted early by phone or in-person, and if someone lists themselves as undecided after turning a ballot in, the pollster tosses those respondents out.
Beyond accuracy, Podgorski said his firm’s best selling point is its low cost. Some high-end polls can cost a campaign $25,000 or more, he said. But M3 offers rapid results at a cost of between $5,000 and $10,000, depending on the constituency size.
Toward the end of a campaign cycle, such cheap polling can help campaigns with limited resources. He also said that could be especially valuable for caucus leaders deciding which battlegrounds to invest in as the final election nears.
M3 works exclusively with Republicans in partisan races, as well as some nonpartisan races. The company has worked primarily in Chicago, where it accurately predicted Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s ouster last year, along with the two candidates who would advance to a runoff instead.
Now he hopes the HD 72 results in Florida show the firm can predict outcomes as well in the Sunshine State.
