Pollster.com: Our New Partnership with National Journal Group

January 10, 2008

Our New Partnership with National Journal Group

This news has been a bit delayed between the holidays and the early primaries, but we are very excited to announce a new strategic partnership between Pollster.com and the National Journal Group, the publishers of the National Journal, CongressDaily, The Hotline, The Almanac of American Politics, and NationalJournal.com. Pollster.com will remain an independent website, just as it is now, but we will write a column on NationalJournal.com and provide content from Pollster.com to the various in-house polling resources within National Journal Group publications. In addition, Charles Franklin and I will write a column and provide features that will appear on NationalJournal.com.

What has us especially excited here is the opportunity to work with the top notch journalists that are a part of the National Journal Group and it's parent, Atlantic Media, including my old friend Amy Walter and her colleagues at The Hotline Ron Brownstein of NationalJournal.com and Charlie Cook's Political Report. The move of our "world headquarters" that I hinted at was to the National Journal Group offices in Washington, which also puts us just a few floors away from our friends at The Atlantic, including Andrew Sullivan and Marc Ambinder.

My first column -- some thoughts about what the success of the Des Moines Register Poll says about the philosophy of behind likely voter models -- appeared earlier this week (and should still be free to non-subscribers).

And as long as we are in a moment of transition, I want to say a big public thank you to both Charles Franklin and Eric Dienstfrey, who of course, are very much involved in this new partnership. If you like the charts and graphics here at Pollster, all credit goes to Charles, especially since his contribution here comes on top of a demanding day job at the University of Wisconsin. Second, Eric Dienstfrey, the hardest working man in show business (or at least at Pollster.com), has been working more or less non-stop for the last few weeks updating our charts and tables and the poll updates on the blog. We are all a bit fried at this point and yes, we have missed a typo or two in recent weeks, but if you appreciate all this site has to offer, you might want to leave Eric and Charles a big thank you in the comments section below.

Finally, a huge continuing thank you to Doug Rivers and YouGov/Polimetrix, for their sponsorship and unwavering commitment to our editorial independence without which Pollster.com would not exist.

It is going to be a long, interesting year and we are looking forward to helping you make sense of polls and polling data the whole way through.

-- Mark Blumenthal

January 10, 2008 in Pollster.com

Comments

John Galt:

Congratulations guys...pollster.com has become an indispensable resource for journalist, blogger, and political consultant alike.

You've done a hell of a job over these last few hectic weeks, and I'm looking forward to more of it. NJ is a quality outfit and I'm glad to see the partnership. Congrats.

Posted on January 10, 2008 4:17 PM

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Hy:

Wow! You guys have sure come a long way in two short years! Glad to see that things are working out for you. Best of luck with everything

Posted on January 10, 2008 4:52 PM

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pop.:

mark,congratulations proud of you.pop

Posted on January 10, 2008 7:29 PM

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sdsteven:

I remember the birth! Congrats! And all well deserved. Don't forget us!

Posted on January 10, 2008 10:51 PM

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Christy Quirk:

This site is great. Congrats!

Posted on January 11, 2008 3:09 AM

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Dave:

Charles -

This sounds like a wonderful development - as long as it has no impact on your ability to help get me through PS 552.

Posted on January 11, 2008 9:24 AM

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Hunter Bacot:

Congrats on the move. The combining of all of this talent is a great stroke of brilliance. I look forward to all the new developments. Best of luck!

Posted on January 11, 2008 11:29 AM

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p.lukasiak:

I have to echo john galt's praise, but would add "political junkies" and "anyone who is serious about understanding public opinion" to the list of groups to whom this site has become indispensible.

Two small suggestions, to make the site better, if I may...

On the statewide polls, it would be great if you could include the date of the primary, and whether its a "ballot" or "caucus".

Change the default Demographic charts to the ones without Gore. I know there is no difference in the polls in terms of the most recent trends (and maybe its just me) but I find myself demanding to see the "without Gore" numbers as if they were somehow different. (and the 'without gore' charts should include all the candidates. maybe you could relable the charts as "all candidates" and "candidates still in" or something...)

finally, I'd love to see some kind of "volatility" indicator on the charts (and mention of level of potential volativity when new polls are blogged about). I really think journalists who write about politics -- especially those obsessed with the 'horserace' aspect -- need to have it constantly hammered into their brains that the primary electorate is highly unstable, and they need to look at the internals to understand what the polls are actually saying. (I make a distinction between people who write about polls like yourselves, and people who write about politics and constantly refer to polls without ever looking at the underlying data.)

Posted on January 11, 2008 11:46 AM

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nimh:

Pollster.com founders and editors, congratulations - and thank you very much for the steady feed of erudite, reliable and always interesting analysis of polls!

Posted on January 11, 2008 4:04 PM

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Beth:

Yes - congrats and a big thank you to the entire team.

Posted on January 12, 2008 9:00 AM

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Myles :

Great site. Great sights. Keep up the great work (and keep it public and free!)

Posted on January 13, 2008 3:58 PM

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