FrontRunner – 2016 Presidential Election Poll Tracker

FrontRunner pulls the Huffington Post’s polling data to provide trends lines of candidates’ support in the upcoming Presidential election. When first launching the app, users must choose if they wish to view the Republican or Democratic candidates. Once selected, FrontRunner shows trend lines of support for the selected party’s candidates. With the “Dot” buttons at the bottom of the screen, users are able to control the amount of polling data they are shown. Users can also tap the “Lined” button on the top left of the screen to toggle which candidates’ data they wish to view.

Please Note: Some of this app’s functionalities were limited at the time of its review. Toggling between Republican and Democratic candidates was limited, as was accessing additional information by tapping the “i” button.

Instructional Ideas

1. Teachers can assign students a candidate to track using this app. Students can report weekly about their candidates’ standings. Additionally, teachers can have students research and name reasons for any changes in their candidates’ polling numbers. Students can write their reports using an Office app or teachers can have students create a slide using the PowerPoint or Adobe Voice app that explains their candidate’s polling numbers.
2. Teachers can have students pick a candidate based on the trend lines in this app, and students will have to make a prediction about how long the candidate will remain in the race. Students will have to conduct outside research to support their predictions, and data they can use for support includes the candidates’ campaign funding, recent public comments, and current/past job performance. Students can compose their predictions using an Office app.
3. After viewing the data in this app and conducting additional research about candidates’ performance, teachers and students can review the candidates one-by-one and discuss the “what if” scenarios. Teachers can prompt these discussions by asking questions such as: (1) What would need to happen for Candidate X to raise his/her polling numbers?, (2) Do you think Candidate X’s comments about topic Y hurt or helped his/her polling numbers?, and (3) What advice would you give Candidate X to raise his/her polling numbers? Teachers can frame this discussion as a Think-Pair-Share by first asking students to write a response to one or more of the prompts. Students can then share their response with a classmate before launching into a full class conversation.
4. After becoming familiar with the polling process, teachers can have students view multiple Presidential polls and compare the data. Students can then use an Office app to explain if the data in this app is valid or not as compared to the other polls.

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