Fall 2025: NYC Mayoral Race

Short Description:

In this project, we will practice making surveys, gathering responses, and analyzing data. As a class, we will construct a survey together using questions that we come up with about the 2025 NYC mayoral election. We will create the survey online and post it on our class site so that everyone else in the class can take the survey, and then we’ll gather more responses by asking people we know to fill it out. Once we’ve collected enough responses, we will review and analyze the results together. Each student will turn in a brief analysis paper based on the findings of our survey, in which you will reflect upon the survey results and make predictions about the upcoming election.

Turning it in: 

• Take our survey during class after we create it on 10/16
• Get at least 10 people you know to take our survey by 10/23
• Turn in your 1-2 page analysis on Brightspace or by email by 10/30

Detailed instructions:

Part I: Making the survey

• In class, we will create the survey together, as a Google form. The form will be open-access so that anyone can take the survey after we make it. 

Part II: Sharing our survey and getting responses

• By 10/23, your task will be to get at least 10 people you know to take our survey. Try to get people outside of the Guttman community to take the survey – this will help us make sure that the same people don’t get asked more than once to fill it out, and it will also help us get a more diverse sample of participants. 

Part III: Analyzing Data

1. Generating our survey response data.  In our Google Form, go to the “Responses” section (at the top, between “Questions” and “Settings”). You can peruse our response data here by toggling between the graphics in “Summary” and the individual responses in “Question.” 

2. Analyze the data.  In no more than 1-2 pages, write a short analysis of the results of the survey. In your analysis, you might respond to any of the following the prompts:

• What patterns, themes or conclusions can you draw from the data?
• How surprised are you by the data? What is your reaction to how people responded?
• What are your reflections on the questions we asked in the survey? In hindsight, would you have asked different questions? What would you have changed about the questions we asked?
• What are your reflections on how you collected data? Was it hard to get people to respond to the survey? Did your survey prompt you to have any conversations about the election with your respondents?
• What are some things you learned from doing this project? Do you feel like you have a stronger understanding of how politics works, or how people feel about the mayoral candidates? 
• Anything else you’d like to discuss…