AAPOR Presidential Address AAPOR Presidential Address 2026: Bearing Witness to This Moment

When I first became AAPOR’s vice president/president-elect in 2024, I thought I might focus my presidential address on something like “the business of research,” reflecting my perspective as chief business officer of a research company and considering how the association might think about its financial stability and growth. Then in 2025, a little something happened… A new administration arrived and took a chainsaw to the statistical and scientific institutions of this country. A national leader sued and threatened some of the most public faces of our industry. And the economic fallout of these and other actions shook our industry to the core. Once I got out of the fetal position, I had to grapple with new priorities for my AAPOR presidency. So today, what I want to do is bear witness to this time we are living through and provide hope for the future. There are four things I will reflect on: the moment we are in; the work we do; the community that makes that work possible; and how we respond to these times. I want to present not just my own voice, but those across our community. To do so, I have talked to members from a wide variety of fields, experiences, and circumstances. I share their views, along with my own, and I thank them for the honesty, vulnerability, and inspiration they gave me. We are living through a period of profound instability in the systems that produce and protect evidence. The federal statistical system—one of the pillars of how we understand this country—has faced extraordinary pressure. Programs have been halted. Funding has been threatened or withdrawn. Statistical leaders have been dismissed. Institutions designed to operate independently have faced increasing political pressure. Many of us have lost our jobs or found our work threatened. The American Statistical Association reported that all 13 federal statistical agencies lost staff in 2025, with some, like the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)—at least temporarily—almost totally demolished (American Statistical Association 2025). The shuttering of USAID halted critical research projects and is projected to lead to a staggering number of avoidable deaths (Cavalcanti et al. 2025). These systems were built over decades. The people who have dedicated their lives to these objectives have created a body of knowledge that is essential to understanding the way we live and how that changes—the statisticians and survey methodologists, analysts and researchers, project managers and directors, contractors and subcontractors. There has been messaging through DOGE actions and other high-level communications that the work of these individuals is biased, wasteful, unneeded, or worse. Many of those people are members of this community. And this rhetoric and these actions are having a profound effect. One experienced federal researcher told me she was considering getting out of the field altogether. She couldn’t see a path forward for herself. We are losing some of our greatest assets and future leaders. For those that remain, we bear witness to their integrity, persistence, and quiet professionalism as they continue to produce evidence when the environment around them is uncertain and unsupportive. We see and empathize with the “survivors’ guilt” many experience. We also recognize the disruption in the lives of many who have lost their positions and now face remaking their careers. They must do so at a time when uncertainty and trepidation have affected the entire industry, making it a less-than-hospitable place for job seekers and career changers. A displaced federal worker I spoke to said she feels a sense of grief and loss. Grieving not only for her own personal losses, but for the bigger picture of what is happening to federal government data collection, to public health research, and to the scientific community. I spoke to a small business owner who saw critical work that she and her colleagues had done shelved, to possibly never see the light of day. A graduate student shared with me the challenges she has experienced—having her research funding terminated, seeing fewer placements for her fellow students at universities, and being forced to grapple with new worries about her international student status. She said, “When I was coming to the US, I didn’t think that I would have to worry that scientific research could be compromised in a country like this.” Others shared: “The last 18 months have felt like a ticking countdown clock”; “The institutional knowledge we have lost will take years to recover”; and “The foundation is shakier than I thought.” I want to acknowledge the extreme stress that has characterized our field and so many of our members in 2025 and 2026 and bear witness to the professional and personal toll this has taken. Next, I want to talk about the importance of our work. At its core, what we do is deceptively simple. We ask people about their lives—how they live, think, work, and experience the world. We do so carefully, systematically, and with the goal of understanding more than just the loudest voices. The importance of that work becomes clearer in moments like this, when increasingly, we are living in a world where the idea of shared evidence itself is contested. Where data can be dismissed because it is inconvenient. Where research can be labeled fraudulent if it challenges power. Some specific examples of this are the lawsuits against Ann Selzer (Doyle 2024); the litigation threats to the New York Times (Svirnovskiy 2026), CNN (Grynbaum and Haberman 2020), and their research partners; the demand for cancellation of programs deemed focused on DEI (Exec. Order No. 14151 2025; Hsu 2025); and the removal of nonbinary gender categories from federal research (Exec. Order No. 14168 2025), to name just a few. This runs counter to everything our field stands for. We may never measure perfectly. But through rigorous methods and transparency, we highlight the experiences, hopes, and fears of everyday Americans. In a democracy, that matters. Because governing without understanding the public is governing in the dark. What we produce is not just data. It is a record. A record of what people think, what they experience, and how society is changing. We must protect that, celebrate it, and feel pride in the importance of the work that we do. A researcher at the Census told me that she was most proud to be part of a system where, despite current narratives, the goal is to “measure truth, to the best of our ability, across time, across administrations, and across events.” Through all of this, the work continues. A statistician at a large research company spoke of his pride in what we do. He said, “Linking what people are thinking and saying to policy has never been more important.” I now want to reflect on the community, because this work does not happen in isolation. It depends on a diverse and interdependent community. The work we do is the product of government, academia, nonprofit organizations, and the private sector. Each plays a distinct role. Government statisticians establish benchmarks. Academics develop and test new ideas and train future researchers. Nonprofit and election researchers help us understand civic life. And commercial researchers innovate—finding ways to make data collection more scalable and accessible. We often approach problems differently. We use different methods. We operate under different constraints. We do not always agree (looking at you, AAPORnet). We debate probability and nonprobability sampling (boy, do we debate probability and nonprobability sampling!). We debate qualitative and quantitative approaches. We debate new tools, new data sources, and, more recently, artificial intelligence. These debates can be intense. They can feel divisive. But they exist because we are all trying to answer the same questions: How do we understand people accurately? How do we do this work responsibly? And how do we do it within real-world budgetary and time constraints? Our disagreements are a sign of a healthy scientific community—a community that makes our work possible, improves it, and, at times, helps us bear it. Multiple people I spoke to talked about the importance of having people to turn to that believe in the work that we do, to bounce ideas off of, to call when we need questions answered. A sympathetic human to talk to, not an obsequious chatbot. The government employees I spoke to remarked on how important this community has been in making it possible to keep going when they felt disparaged, and in helping make connections in the search for a new opportunity. A private-sector researcher reflected on how we share expertise to improve the work for us all, even when there could be commercial reasons for not doing so. A multicultural researcher noted that perhaps our recent struggles have brought us together. She said, “I have co-pollinated with so many others that I wouldn’t have before, because we’re working through the same struggles.” A methodologist at a start-up company noted that through all this craziness, he is seeing more acceptance and creativity in our community; more openness to the wide variety of practices and innovations. I can see frustration among our ranks as we debate how to respond to today’s challenges, how to move forward, how to value and publicize what we do. Some have called for the community to have a stronger voice. Some have expressed that doing so would put their membership at risk. Some have suggested our separating ourselves based on method. Some have felt marginalized, seeing the work that they do categorized as lesser. I urge our community to recognize that what unites us is more important than our differences. Remember that your fellow researchers are seeking to do just what you are doing—increase our understanding of a given population or issue. They may be doing it with different methods, budgets, and styles, but we are united in seeking clarity, and we are family in this enterprise. Be kind to each other. Seek to understand and empathize. Show respect for your fellow researcher, even if the work that they do seems only marginally connected in our big Venn diagram of the research industry (see figure 1). Humorous Venn diagram depicting our shared commitment to research. Now, what do we do with all of this? How will we respond to this moment—not just endure it, but build a more resilient, innovative, and inclusive future for our field? This is why AAPOR is so important. Through AAPOR we can support the work and strengthen the community that makes it possible. AAPOR facilitates the critical work of public opinion research by creating task forces, providing forums for debate and discussion, educating on best practices, and evolving standards for the industry. Our work on cell phone samples and text messaging has paved the way for the wide use of new methodological tools. Our pre-election polling task forces have changed the way we conduct and talk about election research. Our reports on opt-in and probability panels have given us frameworks for transparency and a shared language for these sample sources, to name just a few examples. Our response to these times should be to keep driving forward. We must continue what AAPOR has done for 81 years—help the industry understand itself, improve what we do, and identify new challenges and opportunities. In the past 18 months, through these challenging times, AAPOR has released major resources on pre-election polling (American Association for Public Opinion Research 2025a), establishment surveys (American Association for Public Opinion Research 2025b), texting for research (American Association for Public Opinion Research 2025c), linking survey and nonsurvey data (American Association for Public Opinion Research 2025d), and, most recently, on responsible AI integration (American Association for Public Opinion Research 2026). We have updated our code of professional ethics and practices, hosted webinars and short courses, organized new workshops, and put together two major conferences. Table 1 highlights a small selection of these achievements. Selected AAPOR resources and activities produced during 2025–2026. All of this is carried out by volunteers, supported by a small staff, who work collaboratively, from their different vantage points and experiences, to express the latest information about our field. Keeping this collaborative enterprise going is what will keep our industry vibrant and resilient through these times, and it is what AAPOR does best. AAPOR’s response is also to foster the community doing this important work. We are A Meeting Place (American Association for Public Opinion Research 2020). Every year, through our conference, we provide an opportunity to come together to share ideas and network. If lately the conference has felt like a therapy session (as in figure 2), it is needed for us to support each other during these times. Cartoon highlighting AAPOR’s annual conference as a place for mutual support around the emergence of AI. Created by author using ChatGPT. We also need to ensure that our industry is expanding and inclusive. AAPOR’s commitment to diversity has helped reshape the field and made this organization stronger and better able to respond to today’s challenges. We must continue to prioritize this. The AAPOR Affinity Groups give us more ways to connect and share our challenges. As shown in table 2, today we have 11 Affinity Groups, including ConsultPOR, formed in early 2026 in part as a reaction to the movement of practitioners out of traditional employee settings into business for themselves, and the Global Research Affinity Group, inaugurated at our May 2026 Conference. List of AAPOR Affinity Groups as of May 2026. We need to provide tangible, practical support to our community as well. Last year, when so many faced layoffs, travel restrictions, and financial hardships, we rallied as a community and raised a record amount of donations to support conference travel grants. We also provide upskilling sessions, professional development, job coaching, and networking opportunities, all led by volunteers in this room and beyond. In terms of our individual responses, the people I spoke with offered a clear message: steady on, stay curious, and do this together. One academic said, “We need to keep doing what we have always been doing—learning, innovating, and using evidence-based approaches.” A business owner urged us to “lean into the unknown.” And a student reminded me that when we multiply our efforts with others, “it’s way stronger than we can imagine.” My call to action today reflects these sentiments. Stay the course, seek help when you need it, and provide a hand up to another when you can. And don’t give up. Because what we do is important. The industry has faced challenges before: shifts in methodology, new technologies, declining response rates, new forms of data, and now a double whammy of a federal administration hostile to research and the rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence. What do we do? We engage with these challenges. We communicate our values. We set standards. We adapt our practices. And we continue the work. Get involved. AAPOR needs each of you. Join a committee. Say “yes” if I ask you to run for council! Ask me, or any of us on council, how to participate. Be a deeper part of this organization that provides a voice, a space, and a framework for what we do. Get involved outside of AAPOR, too. Write local op-eds, contact your representatives, reach out to colleagues in need, and support causes that support the industry, including AAPOR. Join us in this moment, in this community, and in being the way forward. As I close, I want to return to where I began. How do we bear witness to the moment we are living through? And how do we ensure that this work and this community can thrive in the years to come? AAPOR has existed for more than eight decades. Through profound change, the purpose of this work has remained remarkably consistent: to create valid and transparent data about behaviors, attitudes, and characteristics that enable informed societal decision-making. That work is not always easy. But it remains essential. Because no society can understand itself without evidence about the people who live within it. When we do this work well—carefully, ethically, and openly—we create something larger than a dataset, report, or publication. We create a record of the public’s voice. In that sense, this field helps our society bear witness to itself. One of the people I talked to said, “We are writing history right now.” How we respond to this moment is something future researchers will examine. They will seek to understand the foundations of our systems that produce evidence. They will ask how those systems were challenged. And they will ask what we did in response. Our responsibility is to strengthen what we do, improve our tools, defend our standards, and support one another. We continue by doing what this field has always done: help the public be heard, help society understand itself, and strengthen the democracy that depends on both.