Note: This is an interview between Fernando Guerra and a member of NOlympics LA from December 2018. To read more about Guerra’s relationship to LA2028, please read our piece on boosterism at LMU here.
Fernando Guerra: I am professor and director for the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at LMU.
NOlympics LA: We’re expecting Garcetti may announce soon on his presidential run. What about him does or doesn’t make him a good or bad candidate? How will this announcement play?
Guerra: I think first and foremost I’d take a look at it from a symbolic and substantive perspective. From a symbolic perspective Eric Garcetti is like the perfect background to be mayor of Los Angeles. He’s latino, Jewish, Italian last name. He grew up in the Valley. His grandfather was from the southside. His parents live on the Westside. And he lived on the eastside. When you start looking at it from that perspective, you’ve got a majority of the geography covered in Los Angeles. He clearly, intuitively understands what it means to be an Angeleno.
NOlympics LA: And what is that? Can you elaborate on that? What does that mean to you?
Guerra: Sure, absolutely. First and foremost it means you’re optimistic about the city, yourself, and the future. That’s not only an intuitive sense. It’s overwhelmingly in a lot of the work that we do at the center regarding public opinion.
Angelenos come out to be so much more optimistic than other big city urban dwellers in America.
He picks that up. He’s a reflection of that. All the symbolic feel good stuff, and he represents the city quite well from that perspective and is very good at it.
Then you go to the substance, right? What can any mayor or any city do on the big picture issues that are really impacted by national and international economic trends? That’s where mayors have to come up with innovative approaches and kind of will their cities either ride those international/national waves or mitigate them. That I think is what really marks a good local leader. When i think of the two or three major issues that continue to impact LA – one is about housing insecurity and a second one is mobility. Under housing insecurity – i’m obviously referring to homelessness, the affordability crisis, the accessibility to housing, the building of housing, all of those different things.
And while that challenge hasn’t been met, it certainly has been addressed and there’s a strategic plan that has been put in place. And funding that has been put in place.
NOlympics LA: Right…
Guerra: And so from that perspective, he’s taken all the right steps.
NOlympics LA: Yeah?
Guerra: And number one, he’s taken ownership over it by talking about homelessness and saying he is responsible. Number two: he’s received funding from both of those major initiatives. Number three: he has coordinated regionally, which has always been difficult, but he’s really been able to do that, you know? He’s put together all the right elements, and now it’s about implementation. And of course that’s difficult itself.
I’d give him high marks on acknowledging the issue, taking ownership, and beginning to address it effectively. And the same thing with mobility. He put together a coalition – a regional coalition – and got measure M approved. So there again: he acknowledged the issue, put together a coalition, put together a strategy, and has gotten the funding. Those are pretty proactive developments and initiatives that he has been able to accomplish.
So when you try to look at it objectively and say, “What makes success?” You need all those elements. Now I’m not saying it’s been successful yet, but he’s created all the fundamental elements for a foundation of success.
NOlympics LA: On the issue of housing and homelessness, i was wondering…have you been tracking LA residents’ public opinions on those or issues or specifically on how he’s addressed those issues in the polling you’ve done?
Guerra: Absolutely to the first part. We’ve been tracking the opinions and perceptions of LA residents for the last five years on housing, housing affordability, homelessness. That’s all on our website. That survey is the largest general social survey of metropolitan Los Angeles. It’s actually the largest general social survey in urban America. And we interviewed 2,400 Angelenos every year asking them about a variety of quality of life issues.
NOlympics LA: I’ve read some of your polling over the years. I don’t think I’ve read everything per se. On the question of I think it was about a year ago – it was about Garcetti’s viability as a presidential candidate? I feel like that was right around the time that the LA Times reported he had been out of the state I believe for one out of every three days and he’s still been out of town a lot. Do you track that? If he ramps up his out of town campaigning that that will affect his favorability locally?
Guerra: I would frame that question we asked as more about general support for him running – not necessarily his viability. So the way we asked the question, we aren’t asking whether residents would vote for him. We asked whether people would support him running for president, right? The reason we asked that question is we wanted to measure the political cost to him running? Our conclusion or our takeaway is that not only would there not be a political cost to him running, it could actually be a political positive for him, right? That was one aspect of it. Was there a political cost? The answer is no.
The second is about the narrative. You know, us political junkies start talking about a certain thing that people don’t want you to run for a higher office or whatever. I’ve always – in talking to people and in focus group – have picked up the opposite, in that voters and residents – often times when they think about their elected officials. They treat them not exactly like sports stars or celebrities but they treat them as someone they identify with them and they want them to do well. And the idea that they would move on to higher office actually fits quite well with them
Contrary to the political class which says, if you run for higher office while you have one, there could be a cost et cetera et cetera when nothing can be further from the truth. Now there is a threshold where you run for too many offices. I agree with that. But in this particular instance, Angelenos would love to see their mayor run for governor or higher office. California would love to see their governor run for higher office. Now all of it has to do with timing. I don’t think many people would be very happy the day after Newsom wins for governor that he declares for president. give it a year or four years, or whatever, it’s not a negative. But yet the political class says it’s a negative.
That poll showed overwhelmingly [sic] support for him running for president. Now what will it do? It will obviously create exposure for him, and the city of LA, and a lot of his initiatives, both negative and positive. What also makes him viable, is his ability to communicate the following: number one, he is an executive running for an executive position and most of the people he will be running against are legislators. He is an executive of a jurisdiction that is much larger than the state of Arkansas, where Bill Clinton came from. Or the state of Delaware where Biden came from, etc. that’s number one that he’s got to be able and say: i’m the executive of a very large, complex, multi-ethnic economically diverse entity and nobody else has that experience that’s running against me. [???]
He also has to be able to communicate that he has been able to bring consensus together both when he was a legislator as a president of the council and as a mayor in his ability to bring coalitions together countywide. I think that’s very important for him to be able to communicate.
NOlympics LA: I have a question about that – so you ran a poll last year that we were just discussing about if he ran. Is that the only one of that time?
Guerra: Correct.
NOlympics LA: There was another – last year or I guess in 2017 with the Olympics, you ran a poll and one survey, correct?
Guerra: Yes, no actually we did two. We did one where we had just one question about the survey of the Olympics. And one in the summer where we asked maybe two or three questions about the Olympics.
NOlympics LA: Right. So one was a poll and one was a survey, correct?
Guerra: Correct. Well they’re both surveys.
NOlympics LA: I thought a survey was a multiple-part questionnaire? Or is that incorrect?
Guerra: That’s incorrect. Both a poll and a survey are basically the same thing. They’re interchangeable.
The question on the Olympics and support was within a survey of 100 other questions.
NOlympics LA: OK, gotcha. But for the purposes of the subject of the Olympics, and to be clear – one was about the 2024 bid and one was about the 2028 bid, correct?
Guerra: Exactly. Yes.
NOlympics LA: So technically there was only one for each of the bids.
Guerra: Correct. Correct.
NOlympics LA: In a technical sense, do you as a researcher whether it’s Garcetti running for president or the Olympics coming to LA, do you think one survey is enough to give you a robust picture of any issue?
Guerra: Oh, absolutely. It’s a snapshot in time. Without – with absolute certainty I guarantee you that Angelenos on that date were extremely supportive of the survey. You have to understand –
NOlympics LA: Sorry, you said they were ‘supportive of the survey’? Or supportive of the Olympics?
Guerra: Supportive of the Olympics.
NOlympics LA: Right, but –
Guerra: This survey has 2,400 residents, OK? 2,400. OK? It has an error margin of 2 or 3%, OK? It is done both by cell phone and landline.
NOlympics LA: Yeah, I looked into the methodology and it seems to me that the questions did measure the strength of support as in detail as they could have?
Guerra: Ummm, yes. You could say that about every question. There’s limits to surveys, OK? Every single question no matter how it is written has a bias into it. Every question wherever it’s put in the order of the questionnaire creates a bias, OK? There’s no doubt about that. And so that just how you ask the question can determine an answer, right?
We try to be as objective as possible. And of course, we rotate the questions often times. And the fact that it was overwhelmingly supportive irrespective of the group or geographic region shows very little bias in the question. Often times a bias can be picked up in terms of the wway different groups might answer a question. That didn’t happen in this particular survey. I mean it’s pretty clear in our survey that Angelenos are overwhelmingly supportive.
NOlympics LA: But they weren’t – sorry to interrupt – but they weren’t given the option of being neutral, right, on that survey? and there wasn’t strength of support. So I think critics of the survey have said that a lot of that support was lumped into people not having the option of choosing neutrally.
Guerra: Often times, you know. You don’t – for instance in an election, you want to drive someone – in a survey – you want to drive someone to say yes or no.
NOlympics LA: Right but there’s no election for the Olympic, right? There isn’t a referendum.
Guerra: There is an option of don’t know/no response, so there was an option of neutrality.
NOlympics LA: Not in the original one there wasn’t. The 88% one. It was “do you support the Olympics” not “do you support or oppose the Olympics?” To your point it seems that there’s obviously bias in any tool like this, but that there was clearly more incentive for there to be favorable results than there not to be favorable results, right?
The point is the Olympics are supported overwhelmingly by the political, civic, and economic class, and the Olympics are supported overwhelmingly by the residents of Los Angeles.
NOlympics LA: Were there any unhoused or undocumented people included in that survey?
Guerra: We do not ask the question for undocumented. It’s something that is not necessarily – we would be potentially liable to have to give up those phone numbers, and we don’t do that.
NOlympics LA: So you don’t know if there were any undocumented people who were a part of your surveys or not?
Guerra: Correct. But that is such a small percentage of the population.
NOlympics LA: 800,000 undocumented people live in LA County.
Guerra: I don’t think it’s that high.
NOlympics LA: Well, it’s hard to say because what you just described it’s hard to report on officially because it’s a difficult population – like the unhoused – to track.
Guerra: What is your source for 800,000?
NOlympics LA: Organizers we talked to for this piece. Again, there’s no perfect number, but it’s believed to be over half a million people.
Guerra: The American Community Survey – they asked the question.
NOlympics LA: We know it’s in the hundreds of thousands of people at the very least, so I don’t think it’s statistically negligent.
Guerra: I’m trying to get a sense of what – are you trying to make the argument that Olympics are not supported?
NOlympics LA: Yeah, one of the people we talked to was an organizer with a group that ran a survey that says that it’s not as overwhelmingly supported as the poll has shown.
Guerra: And that survey would probably get a D- in my methodology course. Have you seen how they did they survey?
NOlympics LA: Yeah yeah yeah, we did.
Guerra: So what was the methodology?
NOlympics LA: I believe they used Survey Monkey.
Guerra: Correct.
NOlympics LA: They got over a thousand respondents. The respondents were randomized.
Guerra: How many respondents did they have in LA?
NOlympics LA: It was about a third, I believe.
Guerra: So 350.
NOlympics LA: Uh-huh.
Guerra: It was online, opt-in, there were no lists used, so it wasn’t weighted for the appropriate demographics. It’s like – to compare that survey to our survey is like comparing an article that you write to some online crazy blogger.
NOlympics LA: Right?
Guerra: To compare those two methodologies is like –
NOlympics LA: I’m not trying to compare methodologies but do you think there’s maybe a case for there to be more detailed – one of the things that the survey.
Guerra: You’re talking about detail in that survey? Where there’s no transparency?
NOlympics LA: No, I think the raw data is available and you can take a look at it.
Guerra: Yeah, we looked at it. It’s not a random º it’s not a random representation of Los Angeles in any stretch of the imagination.
NOlympics LA: Well, it’s about California because this a California-wide issue.
Guerra: It’s not random for California either, dude. It’s an opt-in online survey. If that survey was done, nobody that would want to market their products or campaign or any serious person would do a person like that.
NOlympics LA: Do you think they were limited by their resources they had?
Guerra: Of course! That’s the whole point!
Do you know how much it costs for our survey? It costs over two hundred and fifty-thousand dollars a year.
NOlympics LA: Right. That’s a lot.
Guerra: You know much it probably cost them? A couple thousand!
Why would I do the survey the way they did it if I could?
NOlympics LA: I think less about the methodology which you have more resources to do – but some of the questions they asked the detail to which – what I think it showed more than anything – it doesn’t prove anything – but what it illustrated is that most Angelenos have not been super well informed on the consequences – whether it’s taxes, housing, policing issues.
Guerra: Let me tell you something, OK?
The question ordering on that survey was horrendous from a survey methodological perspective. If you ask a bunch of negative questions and then ask someone to support something – and you don’t rotate the questions or what have you – you’re automatically biased in terms of question selection, all right?
Listen, academics work extremely hard to be transparent, to do the methodology correctly.
It’s like you being a journalist saying that anybody could just write something and it’s of equal value, even if they didn’t do any research etc. It’s actually kind of upsetting that you as a journalist would equate these two products even being equal.
NOlympics LA: I think you’re putting words in my mouth to be honest. I didn’t say they were equal. I was just bringing it up because it raises interesting questions about why wasn’t there any independent media polling on the issue?
Guerra: Because you guys can’t afford it.
The Los Angeles Times used to have the most robust polling in the world. And it’s been devastated because of – as you well know – because of what’s happening?
NOlympics LA: Why is that? I don’t know why polling has disappeared but other departments haven’t. I’m a journalist. I can’t answer that for you.
Guerra: I’ll tell you why polling has disappeared. It’s getting extremely extremely expensive. More expensive every single year. Polling has declined tremendously for the media. They just can’t afford to do it.
It’s increasingly costing more and more for other universities to do it.
And then some group does a SurveyMonkey without any weighting without anything else and then someone like you starts using it, the state of polling is in disarray because of lazy work and lazy analysis and people going “oh, I surveyed ten people” and that’s a survey? “I surveyed 300 people in LA County, not random, not weighted.” Come on! It’s upsetting!
NOlympics LA: So do you think there should be more polling on the Olympics?
Yeah, but who’s gonna pay for it!?
NOlympics LA: That’s not my world. I don’t know.
Guerra: You would be writing a piece on how much money was spent on that poll, etcetera etcetera, I mean you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Let me tell you with academic certainty that the vast majority of LA County and LA city residents are supportive of the Olympics.
NOlympics LA: From last year or this year? Today?
Guerra: Yeah! There’s no reason to expect that things would change that dramatically without events causing those things to happen.
NOlympics LA: But plenty of things can happen over the next ten years, right? Like an earthquake? An economic event?
Guerra: Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
NOlympics LA: Yeah, OK. So nothing is set in stone. Nothing is concrete, right?
Guerra: I don’t think you need me to tell you that.
NOlympics LA: I know. But sometimes the way other people have reported on, say, polling you’ve done – which is in some cases – one poll of Garcetti – and this isn’t a critique of you per se but of other people in the media – is that they’ve often treated one poll on any subject is the end-all-be-all where, as far as I know, as more of a lay person. If it’s science and it’s replicable you should be able to see the same results over time?]
Guerra: Absolutely. And that’s exactly what transparency is. We put our methodology online so anyone can replicate it at any particular time.
NOlympics LA: But so if some – not just you – anyone, a person does a survey on an issue one time, it may be an indication of a direction but the fact that it has not been replicated many times means that you can’t say with any sort of certainty it’s this or that. If you’ve only done one sampling, that can’t give you a robust picture of anything, right?
Guerra: I can give you an incredibly robust picture of the way Angelenos were thinking on that day. Without a doubt.
If you’re asking me if this poll tells you what people think a week later, a month later a year later —
NOlympics LA: No, that’s not —
Guerra: Of course not.
NOlympics LA: To circle back to Garcetti’s presidency, are there more plans – for the purposes of this let’s assume he’s going to announce his presidency. If he does, will y’all run a similar poll to the one you did last year?
Guerra: Probably not.
NOlympics LA: OK.
Guerra: I mean, it depends on what – it’s not as interesting as other things.
NOlympics LA: I’m a little unfamiliar of how the process works. When an idea that comes about, where does that generate from?
Guerra: Us. We have six researchers who are focused on this survey, OK?
NOlympics LA: Which one?
Guerra: On our annual survey.
NOlympics LA: The StudyLA… or general survey?
Guerra: We do multiple surveys. We’re about to go out on the field on election day and we’ll probably collect something like 2,000 surveys of voters out in polling places, OK?
So we do multiple surveys throughout the year. Our annual LA survey of 2,400 residents is our signature survey with six researchers working on it year round, all right?
Some faculty who are a part of it are only a part of it for that year. Others have been a part of it for all five years. And we generate questions based on academic research based on issues facing urban America and facing Angelenos.
NOlympics LA: OK. I know I kept you a little longer than planned. Is there anything else you wanted to generally say about Garcetti before I let you go? Anything you missed?
Guerra: No.
NOlympics LA: OK, take care.