About : UMass Poll : UMass Amherst

The UMass Poll is led by a team of nationally renowned experts.

Our team is made up of experts in survey research methods, American public opinion, race, ethnicity, immigration, parties, partisanship and polarization, and public policymaking. This expertise enables the UMass Poll to provide accurate snapshots of citizens’ attitudes, beliefs, and vote intentions to better understand future trends, both in Massachusetts and the nation.

The UMass Poll’s co-directors offer additional expertise on public opinion and a range of political topics.

Tatishe M. Nteta

Director of UMass Poll

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.

Ray La Raja

Co-Director of UMass Poll

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

Co-Director of UMass Poll

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

Co-Director of UMass Poll

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.

UMass Poll results have been featured in prominent state and national media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, WCVB, The Boston Globe, Politico, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.