[1][2] James M. Perry, the chief political correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, said this about his book The Ticket-Splitter (1972): "DeVries and Tarrance, scholars who have worked in the political hedge-rows, have brilliantly destroyed generations of conventional wisdom about how America votes and why they vote as they do.
Writing in 1972, Andrew M. Greeley remarked that "Walter DeVries and Lance Tarrance Jr. have apparently pinpointed a change which exists in the real world apart from the 'Op-Ed' page of the New York Times.
Since 1962 the average number of 'incongruences' has been eleven per year..."[3] Significantly, "DeVries and Tarrance ... point out that the 'ticket-splitter' is not the 'independent' described by Angus Campbell and his colleagues from the Survey Research Center – a voter without conviction or commitment.
His company conducted more than 350,000 in-the-home and telephone surveys with registered voters for political, commercial, governmental and media clients.
They were married in September 1950, when de Vries was subsequently recalled for military duty in Korea.
De Vries, an avid sailor and also longing to be near the ocean, moved the family from Michigan to Marblehead, Massachusetts, and then ultimately south to the coastal town of Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, in 1972.
Others credit people like Joe Napolitan, Clif White, Matt Reese, Bill Roberts, Stu Spencer, Joe Cerrell, Bill Hamilton, Bob Squier, Walter de Vries and their peers as the first "true" political consultants.