Winpoll, who are the pollsters who pumped Letizia Moratti into the newspapers
The polls of the Winpoll by Federico Benini, dem councilor of the Municipality of Verona governed by a center-left council, had offered a counter-narrative that gave Moratti the winner or above Majorino, denied by reality. But who had commissioned those surveys? Here are names, numbers and reconstructions
"The polls that have come out are fake: I have polls that are much more positive." The somewhat informal video with which Letizia Moratti abandons her proverbial calm and rails against the polls that gave her defeat is still on her social networks, photographing what would soon become the real situation at the polls. "Don't trust the polls", the claim accompanying the short recording: a warning that he should have made his own, given that the polls available to him were not found to be reliable.
WHOSE IS WINPOLL
Above all, those Winpoll of Federico Benini , dem councilor of the Municipality of Verona governed by a centre-left council, who at every opportunity, since last October (Moratti would have run for office at the beginning of November), gave the ex exponent of the force in the lead on the former ally of the Lombard government, Attilio Fontana. And where he didn't win, he still finished ahead of Pierfrancesco Majorino , a candidate from the centre-left.
THE FILO MORATTI SURVEYS
“A poll by Winpoll for Repubblica crowns Letizia Moratti . Only the former councilor for welfare has a chance of beating Attilio Fontana in the race for the presidency of the Lombardy region . Indeed, more: according to the survey, the "doctor" would reach 49% against 43% of the Northern League", underlined last November the Open newspaper founded by Enrico Mentana, which headlined: "The survey that crowns Letizia Moratti: only she can win against Fontana in Lombardy”.
THE RESULTS (THE REAL ONES)
We know how it went: Fontana swept away with 57.7% of the votes, Majorino stopped at 33.9% and Moratti was in fact irrelevant , failing to even reach the psychological threshold of 9.9% and contributing to affirm, with a similar result, the crisis in which the center of Renzi and Calenda finds itself, which seemed to grow enormously and instead turned out to be a doily. Rivers of ink have already been spilled about the reason for such a sensational defeat: abstentionism, the alliance between Pd and 5Stelle (in a region that has never loved pentastellati), however, it is curious that none of this emerged from certain polls.
Especially in those of Winpoll Srls, a statistical company that carries out public opinion and market surveys throughout the national territory founded in 2014 by the dem Federico Benini , born in 1989, graduated from the Don Bosco Scientific High School and graduated from the Faculty of Economics in Verona and in marketing enterprise with the degree thesis entitled "Political polls: from knowledge tool to propaganda tool", historical exponent of the Democratic Party in Verona.
On the Winpoll Internet page stand out the satisfied judgments of some customers: Andrea Bassi and Roberto Fasoli, Regional Councilors of Veneto, Paolo Bambagioni, Regional Councilor of Tuscany, Claudio Ricci, Mayor of Assisi, Marco Taietta, Municipal Councilor of San Giovanni Lupatoto.
WHO COMMISSIONED THOSE SURVEYS?
“Since last August – wrote the newspaper Domani in mid-January – a total of nine polls on the elections in Lombardy have been published: six by the Veronese company Winpoll, three by Izi spa and one by BiDiMedia. As published in the mass media, these surveys were collected on the site of the information and publishing department of the Prime Minister's Office. Over time, an entire industry of small and very small companies has arisen in which the boundaries between statisticians, the companies that carry out polls, the political consultants who use them to develop strategies and the politicians themselves are very blurred”.
But who paid for the outlier polls in favor of Moratti, which at market prices could have cost up to 100,000 euros? Il Domani always replies: "In the case of Winpoll's polls on Moratti, except in one case, the client is Scenari Politici, a consultancy company that is part of the same Winpoll group". But then it is added: “Tomorrow he spoke to various people involved in the Lombard electoral campaign and in political consultancy and they all maintain that the Winpoll polls were commissioned by Moratti's staff. […] Federico Benini, political consultant, owner of Winpoll and today councilor for the municipality of Verona elected with the Democratic Party, rejects the accusation. Neither Winpoll nor Scenari politici would have ever received money from Moratti or his staff to carry out polls or other consultancies. The different results, he explains, are simply due to the fact that, unlike the other companies, Winpoll asks questions only about the vote for the candidates and this would favor Moratti, who is much better known than Majorino”.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/winpoll-chi-sono-i-sondaggisti-che-hanno-pompato-letizia-moratti-sui-giornali/ on Tue, 14 Feb 2023 10:02:12 +0000.