Discussion: Sampling Designs

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New Harbor, Delaware and Sampling Designs

Instructions: If you chose to use the New Harbor, Delaware simulated city for your applications, please review the following background information on each of the mayoral campaigns. New Harbor is in the middle of a mayoral campaign and each campaign organization is interested in conducting a public opinion poll to assess its candidate’s standing among voters.

After reviewing the background information, please select one of the campaigns and describe the sampling design that would be most appropriate for the campaign to use in conducting a public opinion poll. Provide a justification for why this sampling design is most appropriate.

Mayor Samuel Taylor (R) –

Mayor Taylor is completing his first four year term as Mayor. He is part of the Taylor political family and nephew of five term mayor Reginald Taylor. Mayor Taylor is a Republican and won the election in a landslide with 67% of the vote in New Harbor, which is considered a politically conservative city. He has strong support from the business community and is a business owner himself as founder of NewHAR Health Care. NewHAR employs 600 people in New Harbor.

Mayor Taylor has strong support in the business community, and his campaign has raised a large amount of money for his reelection bid. Unfortunately for Mayor Taylor, he has seen his popularity ratings plummet from a high of 74% to his current approval rating of only 41%. Much of that decline has been attributed to high unemployment rates, housing foreclosures, and increases in crime rates in the most dangerous parts of the city.

Alec Coppel (D) –

Mr. Coppel is a Democratic member of the City Council. He has served on the council for the past 12 years. His major issues are education, the environment, and health and safety. He recently sponsored a ban on smoking in the city and strongly supports fines for polluters. He is supported by Peacetree, which is the primary environmental nonprofit advocacy group in the city. Mr. Coppel has raised a respectable amount of money for his campaign and does have the support of the local Democratic party organization. However, New Harbor is a primarily conservative city and Democratic candidates have provided only token opposition in past mayoral elections.

Mary Davenport (I) –

Ms. Davenport is a former school board member and homeless advocate. She is well- known in New Harbor as founder of Feed the Homeless, a nonprofit homeless advocacy organization. A former Democrat, Ms. Davenport is a lifelong New Harbor resident and is running for Mayor as an Independent. Her major issues are feeding and housing the homeless,

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the environment, education, safety, and fiscal responsibility. She has the strong support of Peacetree and Peacetree’s endorsement is highly coveted by both challengers.

Ms. Davenport’s campaign is underfunded. While she is quite experienced at online outreach and is well-known in the community, she has not been successful at raising money for her campaign. Many of her supporters are not capable of supporting her financially and many of these supporters are not registered voters.