Loading ...Pathbreakers of Arab America—John Zogby
By: John Mason / Arab America Contributing Writer
This is the fifty-fifth of Arab America’s series on American pathbreakers of Arab descent. The series includes personalities from entertainment, business, sports, science, academia, journalism, and politics, among other areas. Our fifty-fifth pathbreaker is John Zogby, an internationally known Arab American public opinion pollster, author, and public speaker. Founder of Zogby International polling, John is known for precisely calling several key American elections. He and his sons now operate John Zogby Strategies. While previously highly supportive of President Biden, Zogby has recently criticized the Biden Administration’s military forays into Iraq and Syria and its pro-Israel anti-Palestinian policy on the Hamas-Israel war.
Beginning locally as an upstate New York teacher and pollster, Zogby has become a recognized international figure
John Zogby was born to Lebanese immigrant parents in Utica New York on September 3, 1948. An earlier Arab America interview with John’s older brother, James, quoted him, saying, “Their father was a Lebanese grocer, their mother a forward-thinking proto-feminist who campaigned for women’s suffrage. Afraid of losing her independence, she refused her husband’s first marriage proposal at age 19, and she accepted only when he came calling again 20 years later.”
Jim and John’s father, Joseph, had illegally immigrated from Lebanon to the United States in 1922, according to the Wikipedia Series on Arab Americans. He eventually obtained citizenship through a government amnesty policy and worked as a grocer. The AA interview reported that their mother, Celia Ann, a teacher, “demanded that her sons be informed. Their friends used to joke that the newspaper was required reading for entrance into the family’s home; Celia would sit them around the table and grill them on current events.” The family practiced the Lebanese Maronite Catholic faith.
When their father died his sons were teenagers and Jim supported John and his other siblings in figuring out where they belonged in the larger society. The family had grown up in an ethnic neighborhood, but the dominant ethnicity was Irish. “So, we were the wrong ethnic group,” John, averred. Jim was more of a joiner, and John was an outsider. The brothers played out this distinction for a while, but in time joined forces in asserting their Arab American identity.
John received a bachelor’s degree in history from Le Moyne College in 1970 and a master’s in history from Syracuse University in 1974. He completed doctoral work (all but a dissertation) in 1978. He, then, taught history and political science for 24 years at Mohawk Valley Community College. John serves on the advisory board of the Arab American Institute and on boards promoting upstate New York development. He is the author of four books, the latest of which will be published in the fall of 2024, ‘Beyond the Horse Race: How to Read Polls and Why We Should.’
Zogby’s picks based on his polls have been especially accurate, one being a poll in New York State showing that then-President George H.W. Bush was leading the state’s governor Mario Cuomo by six points in that state. “Governor Cuomo decided not to enter the 1992 presidential race the next day.” John correctly called the New York State gubernatorial race for the ‘New York Post’ for the winner, George Pataki, the only pollster to do so. For the 1996 election between Clinton and George H.W. Bush, Zogby was praised as “All hail Zogby, the maverick predictor,” by Richard Morin, polling director at ‘The Washington Post,’ when John Zogby was the only pollster who called the 1996 presidential election with near precision.
John is a TV star, having been featured as a live television election analyst for ABC (Australia), BBC, CBC, and NBC News, and has appeared in major newspapers. He has held several advisory positions on academic boards, including the Belfer Center of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the Catholic University Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies. John’s polls have been referenced in popular culture, including NBC’s ‘The West Wing,’ Netflix series ‘House of Cards,’ and ‘The Simpsons,’ among others.
Zogby grows the family firm and expands his voice on Arab-Israel issues
In 2016, John set up a new consulting firm with his sons, John Zogby Strategies. The new company’s introduction announced, “U.S. polling legend and author John Zogby has joined his sons Benjamin and Jeremy to form a new strategic planning and consulting firm. His son, Jeremy Zogby, a graduate of Utica College and Union University in Schenectady, NY, taught social sciences at secondary and college levels in Prague, Czech Republic, and locally in Utica, N.Y.; and most recently worked in data analytics for BNY Mellon. Benjamin Zogby is a graduate of the University of Virginia and Georgetown Law School and has worked as a corporate litigation attorney in New York and Washington, DC, as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill, and as an assistant to the Ambassador of Qatar.
John Zogby described the company’s launch: “Companies and agencies big and small need to steer their way through a dynamic and ever-complex world. We employ years of legal, marketing, political, and data-crunching experience to help them build their future.” A sampling of the firm’s services are cutting-edge survey design & services to gather valuable data from focus group testing, market segmentation research, public opinion polling, and other research methods.
On the question of U.S. involvement in wars in Arab countries, John Zogby warns, according to ‘The Washington Examiner,’ the people are against these wars. Regarding the past few years of attacks on terrorist targets in Iraq and Syria in a widening retaliation on an Iran-backed group, John criticized President Biden for responsibility for the deaths of U.S. soldiers.
Zogby’s opinion on the Hamas attacks on Israel in October and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war is clear. John reported, “…this looks like a major escalation and a widening of a regional war that the American people have said they don’t want.” In early July he was more emphatic, urging Biden “to curb his ‘narcissism’ and drop out this week.” While honoring President Bident as a great leader, John nevertheless called on him “to quit the 2024 campaign this week to allow for an orderly transition to a replacement party nominee.”
Zogby was prescient in insisting on Biden’s departure given the President’s stepping down on July 21. John represented many Democrats by stating, “What Democrats need to do is start with a new face right at the time that the Republicans are gathering at their convention in Milwaukee and can steal the thunder away from Trump and away from the Republicans.” Almost to the day, Zogby’s prediction was fulfilled, with Biden pulling out of the campaign, putting his motives aside for the wider good of his party and the country.
John Zogby and Zogby Strategies are at the forefront of the nation’s polling and strategic planning industry. They will continue to plan for and predict the future at a high level of competence.
Sources:
–“John Zogby,” Wikipedia Series on Arab Americans, 2024
–“James Zogby, a Catholic of Lebanese Descent, Works to Dispel Myths bout Arabs,” Arab America, 10/21/2010
–“Zogby and Sons Form New Consulting Firm,” John Zogby Strategies, 6/20/2016
–“Pollster John Zogby warns against a Biden war ‘people have said they don’t want’,” Washington Examiner, 2/3/1024
–“Biden urged to curb his ‘narcissism’ and drop out this week,” Washington Examiner, 7/9/2024
John Mason, Ph.D., focuses on Arab culture, society, and history and is the author of LEFT-HANDED IN AN ISLAMIC WORLD: An Anthropologist’s Journey into the Middle East, New Academia Publishing, 2017. He has taught at the University of Libya, Benghazi, Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and the American University in Cairo; John served with the United Nations in Tripoli, Libya, and consulted extensively on socioeconomic and political development for USAID and the World Bank in 65 countries.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab America. The reproduction of this article is permissible with proper credit to Arab America and the author.
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