Arab Americans

John Zogby

John Zogby (born 1948) founder of the “Zogby Poll” and the Zogby companies, is an American public opinion pollster, author, and public speaker. His polling incoporates both phone-based polling and interactive, Internet-based polling. As of October 2014, Zogby is a Senior Analyst with Zogby Analytics.

Early years

Zogby grew up in Utica, New York, the son of Lebanese Catholic immigrants. His brother, James Zogby, is the founder of the Arab American Institute, and is also an independent pollster and Senior Analyst with Zogby Analytics.

Zogby received a Bachelor’s degree in history from Le Moyne College in 1970 and a Master’s degree in history from Syracuse University in 1973.^[1] He taught history and political science for 24 years. A trustee of Le Moyne College, Zogby received the Alumni Award in June, 2000. In 2005, he was awarded Honorary Doctorate Degrees from State University of New York and the Graduate School of Union University. In 2009, Zogby received an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the College of St. Rose.^[2]In 2008 he was awarded the Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellows Award from the University of California Irvine.^[3]

Career

An interpreter of politics, Zogby ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Utica, New York, in 1981. He describes himself as a Democrat, while his polling firm is “independent and nonpartisan.”^[4] He served on the advisory council for Bio-Technology for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and as a Commissioner on the Center for Strategic and International Studies Commission on Smart Power, after having previously served on the Congressional-created Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World.^[5]

Zogby International

Zogby founded the polling firm Zogby International in 1984. Since then, he has conducted polls and focus groups around the world, including the polling of Arab attitudes toward the U.S., particularly in regard to Lebanon. He gained the most publicity for his polls of U.S. presidential elections.^{[citation needed]}

Zogby first gained attention in the 1992 presidential election when he released a survey showing the New York State Governor Mario Cuomo would lose in his home state to incumbent President George H. W. Bush. That poll is widely thought to have pushed Cuomo from the race. Zogby gained more national attention in the 1996 presidential election when his final poll came within a tenth of a point of the actual result. Zogby also correctly polled the cliffhanger result of the 2000 presidential electionwon narrowly by George W. Bush, in contrast to most other pollsters who had expected Bush to win easily.^{[citation needed]}

Zogby International also achieved success with elections in countries outside the U.S. Zogby correctly called the 2001 Israeli election for Ariel Sharon, the 2000 Mexicanelection for Vicente Fox, and again in Mexico with the victory of Felipe Calderón in 2006.^{[citation needed]}

In 1998, Zogby began developing an interactive online polling methodology using a massive database of respondents that closely represents the national population at large.^[6]

In January 2010 a majority interest in Zogby International was sold to IBOPE Inteligência, a subsidiary of the IBOPE group, a Brazilian multinational company specializing in media, market and opinion research. Zogby remained in the role of chairman of the board, with a nine-year option to sell his interest.^[7] The company was renamed “IBOPE Zogby International” in 2011, before Zogby sold his remaining interest in January 2012.^[8]

Zogby Analytics

In February 2012, Zogby joined with his son, Jonathan Zogby, as well as a group of former senior staff members from Zogby International, at a new company called Zogby Analytics. As of October 2014, Zogby is Senior Analyst at Zogby Analytics, a public speaker represented by the American Program Bureau of Boston, and is a contributor to the Forbes.com website.^[9][10]

Media appearances

Zogby hosted a weekly show called “Zogby’s Real America,” which debuted on XM Satellite Radio‘s POTUS 08 Channel 130 in September 2007.^{[citation needed]} The show provided commentary and analysis on fresh Zogby polling data though the presidential election in November 2008.^[11]

Between February 2010 and November 2012, Zogby contributed articles to the Huffington Post.^[12] In May 2010, Zogby published an article titled “The Catholic Church: A Failed Institution?”, which featured Zogby International poll results that showed “truly abysmal levels of confidence” in “many historically significant institutions,” as expressed by the American participants. Additionally, the results indicated that a quarter of Americans had “no confidence at all” in organized religion.^[13]

Accolades and awards

In 2014, Zogby was awarded the One To World Fulbright Award for Global Understanding.^[14]

Bibliography

• Zogby, John (1990). Arab America Today: A Demographic Profile of Arab Americans (First edition ed.). Washington, D.C.: Arab American Institute. OCLC 24357334.
• Zogby, John (2003). Public opinion and private accounts: measuring risk and confidence in rethinking social security (First edition ed.). Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute. OCLC 52641051.
• Zogby, John (2006). Iran versus America? (First edition ed.). Utica, NY: Zogby International. OCLC 71340360.
• Zogby, John (2008). The Way We’ll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream (First edition ed.). New York: Random House. ISBN 978-1-4000-6450-2.

References