Here's What I Know: The return of real polling in South Dakota

The polls are back.

It’s a byproduct of our short attention span, or a fascination with sports metaphors, but every election cycle we get drenched in polling.

This dude versus that dude. Up, down, sideways, trends, subsets, gender, race, age, etc.

Everything you’d want to know on this issue or that.

It’s all quite fascinating.

And potentially dangerous.

I got my first insight into polling many years ago while working in Des Moines.

The late and legendary Tom Fogarty was a reporter for the Des Moines Register who worked on one of the most influential political polls in the country. The Iowa Poll covered more than politics, however, and had for decades by that point.

I was lucky enough to spend some quality time with Tom during the quiet moments in the Iowa Senate, where we both worked as reporters. I was young and learned a lot just watching him and reading his stories.

He was smart, funny, a great writer and unimpressed with people in power. It was like getting a master’s degree in how to be a real reporter.

(He also pulled a masterful prank on me, related to the visit of then President Bill Clinton, a story that is retold in some circles to this day. But sadly, not here.)

What I learned from Tom about polling was the importance of the questions, how they are constructed, how the words you use matter.

I took that background into later jobs where I wrote about polls and then supervised them, working directly with professional pollsters to get the most-accurate results possible.

The world has changed immeasurably since those early days.

There are myriad ways in which groups or politicians gauge sentiment. They use this information to guide their actions and to influence the public.

Which means that accuracy and credibility are more important than ever.

So I’ve been pleased to see the polling conducted in recent months by South Dakota News Watch. News Watch is a nonprofit newsroom founded by a couple of my former bosses at the Argus Leader and staffed by some former colleagues.

Forum Communications, the parent company of Sioux Falls Live, is a supporter and we use News Watch content on our site and the Mitchell Republic.

One of the reasons I’m happy to see News Watch taking up the mission is because of who they choose to do business with, specifically Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy.

That’s the same firm we used at the Argus Leader for many years, including through the highly contentious campaigns for U.S. Senate in the early 2000s.

They are thorough, professional and maintain incredibly high standards for independence.

It’s never an exact science, rather polling is just a snapshot of a moment in time. Many factors can and do influence the outcome.

The results have a margin of error, an important footnote when you’re examining the coverage of a poll. If there isn’t information on sample size, margin of error and methodology, don’t trust it.

Also, remember the further you dive into the numbers – the subgroups of geography, gender, age or race, etc. – the less accurate they become.

There’s a lot of bad information out there, including pollsters experimenting with various digital methods to extract information. We’ve seen time and again wild claims that end up falling flat on Election Day.

I can say without hesitation that Mason-Dixon was solid in service of our reporting and believe them to be so today.

We’ve recently published stories from News Watch on their latest round of polling.

We’ve seen results on ballot measures related to abortion, the sales tax on groceries, recreational pot and open primaries.

The results have prompted responses from politicians and commentators, some dire warnings and other exaltations of glee.

That’s not to say things won’t take a turn.

The questions on this year’s ballot have major implications for how South Dakota is run. Direct democracy has been part of the collective heritage in this state since the early days.

While recent years have seen increasing efforts to thwart voter influence in this way, it remains a powerful tool for change in a state where change is rare currency.

News Watch has stepped into a vacuum of polling in South Dakota. What was once the purview of daily newspapers and broadcasters had fallen into a hole of neglect.

I found it notable enough that I rang up Stu Whitney, my former colleague and reporter for News Watch.

Whitney said working with Mason-Dixon has history in the state and the ability to track trends – such as approval ratings for the state’s top politicians – over time. News Watch partners with the Chiesman Center for Democracy at the University of South Dakota to produce the polling.

“It seemed natural in 2024 with such an impactful election, to gauge some of the candidate races but also the ballot measures,” Whitney told me. “Not just the numbers, but to get inside the polling numbers in South Dakota and talk to both sides and get at some of the intricacies of what the impact would be if a measure were to pass.”

Polling gives us a guidepost, a starting point for digging into the public consciousness on an issue.

All of us live in a bubble. It’s easy to let yourself plunge down the waterslide of assumption, that what your circle of friends believes is true reflects the facts on the ground.

It’s not always so.

In fact, it’s rarely so.

A well-executed measure of public opinion, we hope, is fodder for a deeper discussion about the issue or candidate at the center of the question.

Do South Dakotans, for instance, support stringent restrictions on a woman’s right to have an abortion?

Current poll results would suggest no. Why is that?

Should the state reform the sales tax when it comes to consumables – a.k.a. groceries – as proposed on the November ballot?

The News Watch poll indicates that residents do support that.

It’s the next question, the follow-up discussion, that matters, Whitney said.

“Regardless of the feedback, it’s important to enlighten people on these issues,” he said. “When you see the talk about turnout, the low voter engagement, this is going to be on the November ballot and it’s going to affect your life. We want to give you as much information as possible to go to the polls with. Anyone who reads them will see there is not just pure poll numbers, there is perspective in there as well.”

News Watch has plans to continue polling through this election cycle and beyond. There’s a lot we can learn, not just the head-to-head nature of electoral politics, but what’s at the core of our beliefs in South Dakota.

I’m excited to learn more.