John Zogby featured in President’s Lecture Series

Pollster and political analyst John Zogby discussed the 2012 presidential election results and the changing demographics of the American electorate February 26 before a crowd of faculty, students, staff and the general public in the Student Center multipurpose room.

The founder of a Utica-based polling firm that grew into Zogby International, now a senior analyst with JZ Analytics, Zogby delivered the first 2013 President’s Lecture on the topic of “The political and polling landscape in an era of tectonic change.”

“The electoral coalition that resulted in Barack Obama’s 2008 election was as historically significant as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition in 1932 and Ronald Reagan’s conservative coalition in 1980,” Zogby said. The Roosevelt and Reagan coalitions, he said, lasted two generations each. The Obama coalition held together in 2012, ensuring his reelection, and the coalition’s key demographic elements—Latinos, African-Americans, young voters, and the so-called “creative class”—will help determine the outcome of future presidential elections.

As for the polling industry that he has helped define over the last several election cycles, Zogby told the audience that future success depends on its practitioners being “nimble and flexible” as they adjust to the “tectonic plates of change.” Technology has changed rapidly for polling and analysis, and Zogby said the tools of his trade have evolved from the once common landline telephone survey to the increased use of other techniques, including the social media.

Zogby has a long association with SUNYIT, where his teaching career began at age 26, and where he met his wife, Kathleen. He was awarded an honorary degree at SUNYIT’s 2005 commencement. A Utica native, his rise to national and international prominence was boosted by his work during the 1996 presidential campaign. Since then he has polled for a “who’s who” list of clients, including Reuters, MSNBC, Fox News and many others, and has distinguished himself internationally with polling work in Canada, Mexico, Israel and Iran. In 2012, Zogby joined his son, Jonathan Zogby, and a group of former senior staff members from Zogby International at a new company called JZ Analytics.

Zogby holds degrees in history from Le Moyne College and Syracuse University and has taught history and political science at SUNYIT, Utica College, and at Hamilton College’s Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center. Author of “The Way We’ll Be,” a 2008 book that used his work to forecast future trends, he is also a columnist, blogger (for the Huffington Post), frequent guest on network and cable news programs, and a much-sought-after lecturer around the world.