How Academic-Based Survey Research Organizations Inform and Influence the Development of Subnational Public Policy

Abstract

This field note describes how public polling produced by academic-based survey research organizations provides state and local policymakers with information regarding public preferences. Utilizing a case study from Maryland, we describe how one such organization—the Goucher College Poll—informed the policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic in realtime. Although the American Political Science Association was founded with an eye toward applied research, academic-based survey research organizations are among the few institutions in the discipline that continue to carry out this mission in earnest.