Behind Stagwell’s new political polling website

As the 2024 US presidential election inches closer, Stagwell’s creative agency Code and Theory and news site RealClearPolitics teamed up to debut political polling site RealClearPolling.

The website, which Code and Theory designed, features polling data from RealClearPolitics. The partners also rolled out a newsletter, The Takeaway, to keep users apprised of new analysis.

“The elections are really like the Super Bowl on steroids, if you think about it as a cultural moment. There really is no place of record at the level of the data that RealClearPolitics has on polling and what Stagwell can bring to the table,” Dan Gardner, Code and Theory’s co-founder and executive chairman, told Marketing Brew.

Stagwell’s Gale and Multiview agencies are helping monetize the service for advertisers, he confirmed. He said the polls can help advertisers understand public opinion to make brand-safe decisions on where to place ads, despite “fake news” and media bias.

“It’s just numbers. It’s polling,” Gardner said. “There’s no editorial position that creates potential—whether conscious or unconscious—bias…Obviously elections drive politics, and politics drive points of view. What happens is advertisers then bow out, but you can’t really bow out fully of the biggest cultural moments of next year, because your job as advertisers is get in front of people’s attention.”

Facts and figures

This is not Stagwell’s first political advertising partnership with a publisher. For the 2018 midterm elections, it worked with CNN on the news giant’s Magic Wall, whose touchscreen display showed election polling data that anchor John King explained to viewers. Code and Theory has also inked deals with the BBC, NBC, and Bustle Media.

Up next for the site? Besides further customization, it will integrate AI into RealClearPolling so users can pull older RCP data to get historical perspective on polling data. Stagwell will also be selling ads on the RealClearPolling site, Gardner said.