The Baylor grad behind the well-known Gallup Poll

Leading up to what is perhaps the most important election of our time – as 71% of voters believe – polls about the public’s stances on issues and how they plan to vote are a major topic of conversation. Since 1936, the well-known Gallup Poll has accurately predicted the winner of the presidential election 17 out of 20 times.

And the person who oversees those Gallup polls? Dr. Frank Newport, Baylor Class of 1970, who has served as the poll’s editor-in-chief since 1991.

Newport’s Baylor ties run deep. Many of his family members attended Baylor; his uncle, Dr. Frank Leavell, was a long-time English professor (and a favorite among students); and his father, renowned Baptist preacher John P. Newport, taught religion at Baylor in the 1950s. Interested in social interaction, public opinion, status and hierarchy, Newport earned his degree in communications from Baylor in 1970 before earning his master’s and doctorate at Michigan.

The newly minted doctorate initially followed his father and uncle into higher education, teaching sociology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He later spent time in Houston as a news director and talk show host at KTRH Radio and as a partner at a market research and public opinion research firm before joining Gallup in 1991.

Today, Newport manages and analyzes Gallup’s widely respected polls, which together make up the country’s longest running continuous monitor of American public opinion. He has written two books — Polling Matters: Why Leaders Must Listen to the Wisdom of the People and God Is Alive and Well: The Future of Religion in America — and appears weekly on the radio show “What Are We Thinking?”, produced by Philadelphia NPR affiliate WHYY-FM.

Sic ’em, Frank Newport!