The UMass Amherst Poll combines cutting edge online polling with academic and professional expertise in the science of politics. The result is accurate, affordable, innovative, and timely polling data that provides insights on the civic health, vitality, and public opinion of citizens of Massachusetts, New England, and the nation.
The UMass Amherst Poll is housed at the Commonwealth’s flagship research university, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and is led by a team of researchers with extensive academic and professional experience and expertise in local, state, and national politics. This expertise helps the team at UMASS Poll to provide accurate snapshots of citizen’s attitudes, beliefs, and vote intentions in order to better understand future trends, both in the Commonwealth and around the country.
The UMass Amherst Poll has fielded national surveys, surveys and exit polls of Massachusetts and New Hampshire voters, and polled residents of the Boston metropolitan area. The results of these polls have been featured in prominent local, state, and national media outlets, including WGBH, WBZ Radio and News, The Boston Globe, MSNBC, Politico, CNN, and the Washington Post.
Who We Are
Director of the UMass Amherst Poll
Tatishe Nteta
Tatishe Nteta is a leading expert in the area of polling and public opinion. Nteta’s research on public opinion has been published in top peer-reviewed journals, including Public Opinion Quarterly, Political Behavior, Political Psychology, and Political Communication. His work has also been cited in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, NPR, Vox, and Fox News.
Co-Directors
The UMass Amherst Poll’s Co-Directors offer additional expertise on public opinion and a range of political topics.
Ray La Raja
Ray La Raja is a leading authority on political parties, interest groups, elections, campaign finance and state politics. He is the founding co-editor of The Forum, a journal of applied research in American politics, author of Small Change: Money, Political Parties and Campaign Finance Reform, and co-author of the award winning Campaign Finance and Political Polarization: When Purists Prevail. His commentary has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and The Atlantic.
Jesse Rhodes
Jesse Rhodes is a leading expert in social policy, voting rights, inequality, and political behavior. He is the author of An Education in Politics: The Origin and Development of No Child Left Behind and Ballot Blocked: The Political Erosion of the Voting Rights Act, and his work has appeared in Public Opinion Quarterly, Political Behavior, Political Research Quarterly, Quarterly Journal of Political Science, and Presidential Studies Quarterly, as well as in popular venues such as the New York Times and Washington Post.
Alexander Theodoridis
Alexander Theodoridis is a leading expert in American electoral politics, with a focus on political behavior/psychology, campaign effects, policy attitudes to understand the ways in which citizens interact with the political world in an era of hyper-polarization. He published in the Journal of Politics, Political Analysis, Political Behavior, the Journal of Experimental Political Science, Political Psychology, Election Law Journal, Environmental Politics, The Forum, and PS, and has been recognized by the John Sullivan Award, the Elections Public Opinion and Voting Behavior Best Paper Award, and the Society for Political Methodology's Warren Miller Prize. It has also been featured by the New York Times, Washington Post, Scientific American, Time, CNN, The Hindu, The Economist and many other media outlets.
Graduate Poll Fellows
Adam Eichen
Adam is a PhD student in political science and serves as a graduate fellow of the UMass Poll. He assists with the creation, analysis, and dissemination of all national and Massachusetts polls, and manages undergraduate projects associated with the poll. His polling analysis has been featured in The Washington Post, Newsweek, and The Conversation.
Adam’s academic interests span American public opinion, political psychology, and American political development. He is the co-author of a number of working papers. These include investigations of racial biases in constituent responsiveness in state legislatures, the usage of family imagery in gubernatorial campaigns, and the roadblocks to de-democratization in the American South. His dissertation examines the spread of state policies that empower citizens in the political process.
Undergraduate Poll Fellows
Kaitlyn Soper
Kaitlyn is a member of the class of 2025 majoring in political science. Her academic interests revolve around American politics, specifically political behavior and the relationship between public policy and public opinion. Additionally, she is passionate about the political intricacies of prison reform, educational inequality, and voter suppression.
Bel Corder
Bel is a Political Science and Psychology major from New Mexico, graduating in 2025. Her academic interests include political psychology, education policy, and attitudes towards immigration. She also serves as research assistant on the American Multiracial Panel Survey with Professor Seth Goldman, which studies public opinion on contemporary demographic change. Bel is often found at Boyden Pool for repeat practices of UMass Club Swimming and UMass Club Water Polo.
Emily DeGowin
Emily is a class of 2026 political science major with a minor in both French & Francophone studies and women, gender, & sexuality studies. She is currently working towards certificates in international relations and a DAPPLS letter of specialization. Her academic interests center on inequality, exploring and identifying remedies to racial, gender, sexual, and economic disparities. She is particularly interested in applying data analytics, quantitative methods, and political theory in her work and throughout her future professional career.
Graham Backman
Graham is a Political Science major with a focus in Data Analytics for Politics, Policy, and Legal Studies graduating in the spring of 2025. He is interested in political behavior, political communications, and public opinion regarding race in America. His current research explores the behavior of Republican candidates of color, specifically how they communicate about racial issues and how the white majority of the party reacts to said messaging.
CJ Tatsis
CJ is a class of 2025 Political Science major with a minor in History. His academic interests span both American Politics and Comparative Politics. He has a particular focus on political polarization in the United States — its history, causes, impact on our current political climate, and on solutions to reduce hyper-partisanship.