Jay Collins pollster pushes back on Florida Politics’ latest Salt Shaker Test

The pollster who conducts surveys for Lieutenant Governor and gubernatorial candidate Jay Collins is addressing criticism of the campaign’s most recent Republican Primary poll. He argues that the results illustrate the normal trend for voters to concentrate their support behind candidates as the Primary draws near, not an artificial change in support.

David Wolfson, the pollster for the Collins campaign, addressed commentary in Florida Politics’ Salt Shaker Test. He argued the analysis dismissed the survey without a full review of its methodology or the data behind it.

“If you look at the toplines, you’ll see the underlying movement is actually quite straightforward,” Wolfson wrote to Florida Politics. “The most important change was that the undecided vote was cut roughly in half — from over 30% of the electorate to just 16%. That is exactly what you expect to see as a Primary gets closer. Voters begin consolidating around fewer candidates.”

Wolfson pointed out that Collins’ level of support had increased from 20% to 23% between the last poll and the most recent one; Byron Donalds rose from 36% to 40%, Paul Renner gained three points, and James Fishback remained at 9%.

Wolfson also mentioned that the Salt Shaker Test did not take into account the survey’s forced-choice question for undecided voters, which is a usual practice in campaign polling.

As Wolfson pointed out, almost all political pollsters ask undecided voters during the final month or two of the campaign which candidate they tend to support since there is no ‘Undecided’ option on the ballot; if a person eventually votes, they have to pick one candidate.

He stated that of the undecided voters, approximately 40% tended to support Collins and 30% tended to support Donalds; when these leaners were taken into account, Collins’ level of support increased to about 30% while Donalds’ reached about 46%.

As Wolfson pointed out, the important thing isn’t that one candidate suddenly emerged. Rather, it is that the race has mostly come down to two candidates. This is a trend that we observe in many competitive Primaries as Election Day draws near.

Wolfson cited a recent poll by Change Research which found Collins with 17%, as compared to 20% in the earlier survey of the campaign. He stated that the difference is within the margin of error and shows a consistent picture of the race.

He also mentioned that campaign polling usually differs from public polling since many companies use voter registration data and likely-voter models instead of depending only on people’s self-reported intentions about voting.

To support his argument for the methodology, Wolfson referred to his more than two-decade experience in Republican politics and campaign research. After his 14-year career as a political consultant in Florida, he founded his own polling firm following the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, he worked in the Florida House while Marco Rubio was Speaker, has taught campaign management at the University of Florida and is currently teaching in Columbia University’s Political Analytics graduate program. His clients have been the National Republican Congressional Committee, the Republican Party of Florida, the Montana Republican Party, PAChase and Airbnb; he also mentioned that he had received the Pollie Award for Best Opinion Research.

Wolfson wrote that he was mentioning all of this since his reputation was the most valuable of his possessions. He did not think that any candidate, any campaign, or any sum of money was worth compromising it; if the polls showed favorable results, he would report that, and if they showed unfavorable results, he would also report that.

“We released the toplines and crosstabs precisely because we wanted people to evaluate the methodology and the numbers for themselves,” Wolfson wrote. “Reasonable people can disagree about interpretations, but I hope next time you’ll give the data a closer look and give it ‘a fair shake.’”