A Q&A with Zac McCrary on Polling as a Deep South Democrat
I interview one of the Democratic Party’s leading pollsters.
This week, I’m continuing my series of Q&A pieces with key political practitioners. My aim is to gather insights and wisdom from experts, including some friends and acquaintances, who have established themselves as key voices in the world of politics, polling, and campaigns.
Up next is an interview with Zac McCrary, partner at Democratic polling firm Impact Research. Zac has worked in politics for over two decades, becoming one of the premier Democratic pollsters in the nation. A native of deep-red Alabama, Zac has been a key part of victories for Southern Democratic candidates, including Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards and former Alabama Senator Doug Jones. Being a Democratic pollster who grew up in a deeply conservative area gives Zac a unique perspective on politics and party messaging. Zac was a natural fit for our next Q&A in the series.
Here’s my interview with Zac McCrary…
Kevin Shafer: Why did you choose to pursue a career in politics? Were politics and polling things you were always interested in or was there a particular moment where something clicked and you knew this was what you wanted to do?
Zac McCrary: As a kid I was a voracious reader of anything I could get my hands on and, over time, seemed to gravitate to books about history and found I was very interested in reading about U.S. Presidents – especially the presidential campaigns. And in Junior High, I ran across the Almanac of American Politics in my school library – which is meant to be a reference book. The librarian bent the rules to let me check out a reference book, and I read it like it was a narrative. For all Senators, Governors, and House members, there were a few pages each on their political history, legislative history, and the basics on the political DNA of their states and districts. I was a sponge with that and eventually figured out I could track down previous year’s Almanacs and learn about every important elected official across the country going back decades and decades. In that window I went from one of any number of kids around who were interested in history to being obsessively interested in anything I could find on U.S. elections.
I didn’t come from a family with a connection to politics and didn’t have an elaborate plan to get my foot in the door – but I knew going back to junior high that my dream job would be connected to working in and around political campaigns.
I came into polling after working in political field organizing a bit and then more substantially in communications. Ultimately, given my long-term interest not just in politics but in election results, political data trends, political maps, polling was a much better fit for me than the more creative elements like ad-making or direct mail design and that content creation part of the business, which I would not have had any particular talent to bring to the table.
Kevin: As polling has changed over the last couple decades, what have you found to be the hardest change to navigate? What methodological changes have improved polling's accuracy?
Zac: In short, it’s never been easier and cheaper for people to poll the wrong way – and never been more complicated and expensive to poll the right way. Polling has absolutely been forced to evolve over the last 15 years. For decades, polling was a pretty static field – starting in earnest in the 60s, through the mid 2000s, the innovations were relatively modest, and it was entirely about calling people on their landlines. As cell phones and then smart phones developed and landlines became an endangered species, we had to adapt and seek to complete interviews via cell phone and now via text, e-mail, and any other way we can secure an interview to attempt to reflect the most representative sample possible. As it became more complex to connect with voters logistically, response rates have been falling as well – adding another layer of difficulty in accurately gauging a population.
Good pollsters are very aggressive in adapting methodologies to adapt to these challenges – but there is nothing easy or simple about it. And even as we solve today’s challenge and find the right approach for the 2024 cycle, there is no guarantee there won’t be new challenges and difficulties in the next election. So constant innovation and testing is vital.
Most people outside of politics probably don’t realize that the chief job of a pollster is to help campaigns develop their message and refine their targets to inform campaign resource allocation decisions. Certainly the goal of any poll is to gauge the result as accurately as possible, but even if a specific poll result trends a bit more Democratic or Republican than reality, if a pollster is using the data to give sound and smart strategic advice, then he/she is still playing a very important role in the structure of the campaign.
Kevin: What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a Democratic pollster in deep red, deeply conservative Alabama?
Zac: As a political operative whose core motivation is to help Democrats win tough races, I do believe that having cut my teeth in Deep South politics is an asset – because no matter if it was a good cycle or bad cycle for national Democrats, we were always having to swim upstream to win races. We were always having to field better candidates and run smarter campaigns because we couldn’t count on a partisan tide to carry us to victory.
Further, any Democratic campaign that is successful in the South will have to build a strong connection with Black voters. In many parts of the country, including many Blue states, Black voters are just not as important a part of the Democratic electorate as in the South – so they can often be an afterthought. For a Democratic campaign in the South to have any chance of success, the campaign must prioritize and engage Black voters – which is an important skill to learn to be successful in other races around the country.
I do believe that “red state” sensibilities are helpful for a Democratic operative, as well as not being so ensconced in the insider DC community that it becomes hard for even smart, talented operatives to not become myopic and lose touch with how average voters think and talk. At the same time, I do have to be cognizant professionally to not be seen as “only” a Southern operative. I’m sure there are times when I’ve missed some opportunities because of that perception, but over 16-17 years in polling, I’ve had clients and conducted polling or focus groups in almost all 50 states.
Kevin: Is there a politician or public figure who inspires your ideology and values, and why?
Zac: As a young person learning about history, I most connected with figures like Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman – elected officials who were committed to making life a little better for people who work for a living. As someone from the South, FDR’s policies really transformed the region – from electrification and industrialization to promoting public schools and of course building a basic safety net that just didn’t exist before the New Deal. I still think of myself fundamentally as an FDR / Harry Truman Democrat.
And of course looking at figures – both elected officials and activists – who took the courageous steps to integrate the South. That runs through names like Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King and John Lewis but also less well-known names like Medgar Evers, Fred Shuttlesworth, Joseph Lowery, Fannie Lou Hamer and many more.
Kevin: You’ve worked on countless campaigns. What campaign victory were you most proud of making possible? And what candidate who fell short were you most proud of working for?
Zac: My current marketing pitch is that I’m the only Democratic pollster in the country who flipped House seats from Red to Blue in both 2020 and 2022 – so I wanted to get that in this interview. Thinking of specific races, this is probably recency bias, but it was a lot of fun working with veteran Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur and her team for the first time in 2022 – as she was drawn into a Trump +3 district and running her first competitive race in a long time. It was rewarding to be part of the campaign as she was able to reconnect with some voters during the campaign and introduce herself to new voters to talk about the leadership she’s shown over the years – especially as it relates to protecting American manufacturing and American jobs. She soundly beat her Republican challenger by double digits and just this year became the longest serving woman in the history of the U.S. Congress.
One other campaign I’m proud of that is a good example of the impact that winning even just one race can have is the election and re-election of Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards in 2015 / 2019. After winning in 2015, with one stroke of a pen, his first official act as governor was to expand Medicaid in Louisiana – a decision that has helped provide health care coverage to over 750,000 working Louisianans who might not otherwise have had access. And of course this has no doubt saved thousands and thousands of lives. Had he not won in 2015, it’s almost a certainty that Medicaid expansion in Louisiana would not have taken place and numerous lives would have been lost.
One race that we did not win but I remain proud to have been a part of was Billie Sutton’s 2018 race for Governor in South Dakota. Billie has a great story of pure South Dakota roots, overcoming personal tragedy, and being a respected leader in the State Senate. A Democrat had not been elected Governor of South Dakota since the 1970s, but we came very close in a very tough state against a well-funded, aggressive Republican in Kristi Noem – who by that point had won several statewide races while Billie had never run beyond his small-town State Senate District. We came up just short, losing by 3 points. The RGA spent a ton of money against us, and Trump made several trips to try to save the race for Republicans. But underdog races are often a lot of fun – and this was an exciting race with a great team and candidate who I was honored to work with.
Kevin: From a purely electoral standpoint, what gives you optimism as a Democrat? What gives you pessimism?
Zac: Though an oversimplification, I do believe the party that – cycle in and cycle out – does a better job connecting with political independents will always have the advantage. And Republicans in the Trump era continue to really struggle with independent voters due to Trump factors, extremism on issues like abortion and election denial, and also simply fielding flawed candidates in important races. The Democratic Party brand, infrastructure, and coalition has been more resilient and has resisted some of the urges to pull the party in a too ideological direction or otherwise marginalize or factionalize the party.
And of course, Democrats are doing very well with younger voters in the last few elections – above and beyond their usual advantage with younger cohorts. That should certainly be cause for concern among Republicans if that trend holds.
I do think the partisan stratification along variables that correlate with educational attainment is worrisome. Democratic victories in most swing states and districts require very strong margins with Black voters, Latino voters, and other communities of color. And these communities are often disproportionately likely to have lower educational attainment – so if this type of (to oversimplify it) educational polarization continues among voters of color, then the electoral math for Democrats in a lot of states gets difficult.
Kevin: You run a very interesting podcast called The Pro Politics Podcast. What do you enjoy most about doing it? And do you have a favorite guest you interviewed?
Zac: First of all, folks should subscribe on their podcast app of choice – my show website is here: ProPoliticsPod.com. I'd recommend people scroll through episodes, and anyone interested in politics will be interested in a lot of the people I've talked to.
I started it during the Covid lockdown when we were all hostage in our homes, but the idea had been floating around my head for a while after I sat next to Senator Richard Shelby on a flight and he was nice enough to let me pepper him with questions for 2 hours about his career and interesting people he'd known. Also I'd had some off-the-cuff conversations around the same time with veteran campaign operatives I work with. I'd be in a cab with them or at a dinner and instead of talking about whatever current client we were working on together, I'd ask them about some of their early races and experiences. So during Covid I thought it'd be a good time to start it up, research the nuts-and-bolts of how to launch a podcast, start asking people to participate, and throw them out in the world to see what people thought.
The premise is not to pore over the current political minutia - there are plenty of places to get that information. Instead I talk with successful people who've had interesting careers in and around politics and dig into how they got interested in politics in the first place – how they got a foot in the door, early inflection points, fun campaign war stories, and advice and insight to make us all smarter about politics. Because the episodes aren't usually too predicated on what's going on in the political world at any given moment, I like to think of them as time capsules of interesting political lives that are evergreen and have a long shelf life for other people to discover, enjoy, and learn from. As someone who started in this field by being a political junkie at a young age but without a real entre or understanding of how any of it actually worked, I also like to think it's a good resource for people in school or early in their careers to hear from veteran operatives and political figures and how they have navigated a career in politics.
It's by definition a very niche offering, but I've been pleasantly surprised it's found a meaningful listenership and is in the top 1% in terms of downloads of all podcasts. More importantly, I've had a lot of fun with it and learned a lot about some people I've known for a long time and had the privilege to talk to some of the dominant political figures of the last several decades - several U.S. Senators, Governors, House members, big city Mayors, plus some of the most important political observers, pundits, and authors; and the lifeblood still remains talking with veteran political operatives of both parties like campaign managers, ad makers, pollsters, digital experts, direct mail gurus and a lot of working stiffs in politics who aren't always household names but play incredibly important roles in who wins and who loses elections.
I'd recommend people scroll through the archives to see who piques their interest as a starting point, but then folks should look at some of the names they are less familiar with as well since they often have just as interesting backgrounds and stories. I talk to both Democrats, Republicans, and nonpartisan folks. Some of the more prominent names that I've talked to that give a good flavor of what to expect would include David Axelrod, Mike Murphy, Haley Barbour, Carol Moseley Braun, Tom Daschle, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lis Smith, Tim Miller, Jeff Greenfield, Ellen Malcolm, Maggie Haberman, Antonio Villaraigosa, & many more.
Kevin: Switching away from politics, as a diehard Alabama fan, what is your prediction for how the Crimson Tide will do this coming football season?
Zac: When I was in school in the early and mid 00s, the football team was very mediocre - a couple of respectable years punctuated by plenty of lows. There were four different coaches while I was there so I am very appreciative of what Nick Saban has done and don't take anything for granted. Alabama has a really tough schedule this year and is replacing both their most important offensive and defensive players in Bryce Young and Will Anderson, so I'm steeling myself for Alabama losing 2-3 games in the regular season but I do think they have the talent to make a run for the SEC Championship if they get a couple of breaks in the big games.
Kevin: On a personal note, is there any show you’re binging or a book you’re reading that the readers may find interesting?
Zac: I really enjoyed the BBC documentary series last year on the Tony Blair / Gordon Brown years in the UK, and the new Richard Norton Smith book on Gerald Ford was good. I learned a lot about Ford, and he has a more interesting and important legacy than I realized. In non-political areas, A&E has a documentary series about pro wrestlers from the 80s and 90s which is fun for me as a kid from that era. And I find that Shark Tank on Hulu is good for binging when I just want to zone out or have other work going on - it's been on forever so there are hundreds of episodes and each show is divided into 5 or 6 segments about a new product or business - so it's easy to tune in and out without missing much. And it's a very positive show about people having an idea and working hard to try to make a new product or business a reality - so most of the stories are uplifting and inspiring, with real people working to make their dreams come true. That's a nice change of pace from most of the media out there we all consume.
Kevin: Finally, where can the readers find you on social media or listen to/read your analysis/commentary?
Zac: I'll plug my podcast again at this link and the show's Twitter and Facebook pages. Other than that, my personal Twitter is @ZacMcCrary. My DMs are open and happy to hear from anybody and I can be contacted via my firm's ImpactResearch.com as well.
I’d like to thank Zac again for taking the time to provide his valuable insights on polling and his career. Readers can follow Zac on Twitter at @ZacMcCrary and check out his podcast here.