A national pollster said the pandemic-induced work-from-home trend helped him reach a broad voter cross section in a survey that gave the presidential win to Joe Biden.
David Paleologos, Suffolk University Political Research Center director and Lynnfield resident, sampled 1,000 people from around the country between Oct. 23-27 who said they were “very likely” to vote. Slightly more women than men answered the poll and about one quarter of respondents identified themselves to pollsters as Black or Latino.
In the main question sampling voters about the presidential candidates, Biden was the respondents’ pick over President Trump with 49.5 percent picking the Democrat and 43 percent picking Trump.
Paleologos and the Center conducted the poll for Suffolk and USA Today with responding voters about evenly-divided between Democrats, Republicans and Independent voters.
Getting people to answer polls is one of the toughest challenges people in Paleologos’ profession face. But Paleologos said pollsters reached people working at home during the pandemic.
“It was actually easier reaching more people. Being able to do more interviews is a positive,” he said.
He also said the October poll captured a range of education levels with 50 percent of respondents identifying their education level as “high school, some college.”
More than half of respondents said the country is “on the wrong track” but nearly half said they are “better off” than they were four years ago. The economy ranked highest among respondents’ concerns and seven out of 10 respondents said they are voting for a candidate, not against his opponent.
Four out 10 voters surveyed said they voted by mail or exercised early voting options.
