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| August 2004
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| ALUMNI
NEWS |
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| D.C. Alumna Taps AU Skills in Hot Election Season Sarah Simmons never really thought she would be using her behavioral research and data-crunching skills when she was a student at AU – neither as an undergrad, nor as a master’s student in SPA. She knew she wanted to work in campaigns, but she didn’t think her statistical coursework would be relevant at all. Then she “tripped into polling.” Today, as a project director for the largest Republican polling company in the country, she has found those research skills to come in pretty darned handy.
“On top of designing surveys and analyzing our results, I do a lot of minutia statistical control to make sure we’re doing an accurate survey. For example, if we’re doing a survey in a Congressional district, I make sure we’re accurate in representing where people live. If there’s a high population of minorities, I make sure we’ve got enough interviews from them.” Simmons also works with the contractors who do the actual phone polling, and once the surveys are complete, she analyzes the data to develop campaign strategies. The job as a whole incorporates many different pieces. “Developing a strategy and trying to figure out how to win is like a complicated puzzle” she explains. “It’s really fun.” The SPA alum got her start in campaign work as a research assistant, in an entry-level spot, during the 1998 election cycle. Then, she “went out and ran a few races,” and ended up working for the Republican Party in Wisconsin for two years. When she returned to D.C., in 2001, she found herself right back at her old firm again for a second “tour.” One thing that continues to amaze her is the number of AU alumni working in politics. “You run into AU people everywhere. When I was in Wisconsin I had a candidate who was an AU alum. I have friends who are lobbyists…you just see all these people doing amazing things.” Currently, Simmons is working with several AU alumni on the Vermont governor’s race, including campaign manager Neale Lunderville, SPA/BA’96, as well as Ian Grossman, SPA/BA’97, and Jim Barnett, SPA/BA’98. “I talk to them daily,” she notes. Perhaps the roughest part of her job is the hours – especially in the coming months as election season heats up and she participates in nightly tracking. “That requires me to be in at 2 or 3 a.m., so I can have the data ready for the client at 7 a.m. To make the decisions they want about changing campaign commercials or adjusting a direct mail piece, the clients need our information very early in the morning.” The thing that Simmons likes best about her job is the reward of knowing she has made a difference in real people’s lives. “It’s really cool when you’ve worked with a candidate and you discover what’s going on after they get elected and they start to accomplish things that you ran campaign commercials about.” When she worked on the campaign for a Milwaukee County Executive, for example, Simmons knew she had made a difference when she saw a simple refrigerator magnet for the candidate’s re-election listing his campaign priorities, “and we had done those four or five things!” “It sounds cheesy - ‘making a difference’ – but to see real public policy solutions put into place that you know solve the problems of regular people in real communities is really cool.” Simmons
adds that while there can be a lot of negativity in campaigns, part of
what she has learned in being strategically involved is that candidates
really care about issues that matter to people. "They don’t
want to do something negative just to win. They realize they do have to
go back to that community and live there... When
you get to work with candidates, you really become committed to them and
put your faith in them. And most of the people you encounter are in it
for good reasons - it dispels a lot of the public’s negative attitude
toward politicians.” |
Simmons,
who got her BA from the School of Public Affairs in 1995 and her MA from
SPA in 1997, researches and designs questionnaires for a variety of clients
at