Latest Articles
Wick Insights' mission is to accelerate public opinion research's transition to more accurate, more affordable, and more actionable insights. We will post all of our research, insights and progress on this page. Subscribe to our email list and follow us on Twitter to receive updates when we have new content!
The Curious Case of the Kemp-Warnock Voter
According to our recent study, a staggering 9% of Georgia voters backed both a GOP incumbent governor and a Democratic incumbent senator in the 2022 general elections, leading to a Democrat Raphael Warnock victory in the Georgia Senate runoff. What does this tell both parties about the future?
David Burrell
David Burrell
A Pollster’s Guide to the GA Runoff
The Georgia Runoff comes down to one question: At what rate will the Kemp + Warnock ticket splitters turn out to vote? Within our 5 polls conducted in Georgia, we had 354 respondents who answered they would vote for the Republican Governor Kemp and also indicated intent to vote for the Democratic Senator Warnock. This article outlines our findings.
David Burrell
David Burrell
A Tale of 4 Elections
Predicting 2022, Part 5: There are thousands of races on Tuesday, November 8th, but we think the night will be summed up by one of four general outcomes. Part 5 is in video format where our CEO is going to walk through each potential outcome and outline how everything we have discussed in this series act as the forces driving the gap between the polling predictions and voting realities for each outcome.
David Burrell
David Burrell
How the Vaccine Cured Polling
Predicting 2022, Part 4: In our latest battleground polling our team noticed boosted individuals are participating in polls at much higher rates than their counterparts which resulted in a 3% to 5.5% error in polls before our team started correcting for it. This discovery is a symptom of an amplified selection bias that we believe is has been the hidden issue with polling for the last 10 years.
David Burrell
David Burrell
A New Era of Selection Bias
Predicting 2022, Part 2: We are in The Awareness Era of Public Opinion. Technology has led to lots of polling which media outlets have woven into political narratives, and social media has created a world where many are aware of those public opinion numbers and narratives. The result is amplified selection bias that has been the primary culprit of the "bad polls" over the past 10 years.
David Burrell
David Burrell
Shifts in Party Affiliation
Predicting 2022, Part 1: Due to growing selection bias challenges and general difficulties with probability sampling, many pollsters do control, at some level, certain dependent variables such as Party Affiliation in their pre- and post-stratification techniques. But could our assumptions about the percentage of Republicans, Independents, and Democrats that define “representation” be wrong?
David Burrell
David Burrell
The Voter Turnout Guess
Predicting 2022, Part 3: Pollsters often evaluate different turnout models when conducting their research, but they are more guesswork than the product of data science. In part 3 of our series, we discuss voter turnout models and unveil the most reliable data point that we have seen to help make this guess a more educated one.
David Burrell
David Burrell
The Generic Ballot Rollercoaster
In the run-up to the 2022 midterms, various organizations issue a new generic congressional ballot poll seemingly every day. One day, Democrats are up by several points and look to have the momentum. The next day, Republicans are up by several points and they appear ready to take back the House and perhaps the Senate, as well. It’s simply not logical for the country to swing like a pendulum one way on a Monday and the other way on a Tuesday, so what gives?
David Burrell
David Burrell
2 years later: Our COVID-19 report and predictions
In April 2020, our agency released our initial report on the public's reaction to the arrival of Covid-19 as well as our 4 predictions on how public opinion would change forever. It was one of our most labor-intense projects ever and we even brought in our co-founder and head UX designer to do the graphics and data visualization for the slides. In this article, we are going to take a quick look back at the report and predictions.
David Burrell
David Burrell
The Truth about GA Swing Voters
Biden’s Approval Rating, Political Distancing from Trump, and GOP Culture Wars are common explanations to the current Republican polling boom. But what are the forces that are truly moving swing voters to the right? Our research suggest that a Republican Governor's handling of Covid-19 is by far the most important driver of these critical votes.
David Burrell
David Burrell
Wick’s 2022 Methodology
Forecasts will favor the bold this November. There is a need to challenge current perceptions about what constitutes as a representative sample. 2022 will present new strains of bias sources for pollsters, and accuracy is going to come from the agencies who recognize that yesterday’s secret sauce is today’s Achilles heel- and that good methodology starts with a culture that embraces a little curiosity.
David Burrell
David Burrell