The Official Election Polls thread - Put all poll related material HERE! pt.2

[superdave]

Attacking, here's how we got on this.


You don’t know what a tracking poll is, do you? It's specifically designed not to move unless the movement is real rather than statistical noise. It's designed to show shifts rather than provide accurate "snap shots". It's smoothed out to show trends.


No, a tracking poll is just a poll that polls every night, and "tracks" (thus the name) trends
How'm I wrong??? Or are you saying Rasmussen is better than the other guys because of the higher sample size? If so, you're essentially saying that every poll that ever had Bush up by a substantial margin is crap, plus, you're saying that all polls that call the same numbers as all of the other polls are crap.

I don't know WHAT is screwy about Rasmussen, but the swings are too small. And I don't mean the swings from this week to the next, I mean the swings over larger periods. The parity in that poll makes MLS looks like Scotland.

[Nogra Rover]

The politics forum really does need a zero tolerance policy for guys like you.

If there was a zero tolerance, BigSoccer would come over to your dorm and take away your keyboard.

[Attacking Minded]

Attacking, here's how we got on this.




How'm I wrong??? Or are you saying Rasmussen is better than the other guys because of the higher sample size? If so, you're essentially saying that every poll that ever had Bush up by a substantial margin is crap, plus, you're saying that all polls that call the same numbers as all of the other polls are crap.
Yes. that's exactly what I'm saying. In your exasperation you've finally figure it out. The polls are crap. Crap. The pollseters hope they get polls that are shocking one way or the other until the final poll the day before the election. That's how the story goes. Kerry has a bad convention? We have a poll for that. Bush has a good one? We have a poll for that. Kerry won the debate? We have a poll for that. Polls feed the story. They are a way for newsies to push a 'fact' as part of the story then push it further by asking for comment. It's all a show.

Tracking polls are specifically designed to track opinion. Micheal Deaver was the first to use them in 84, IIRC. They are design to measure SHIFTS in opinion rather than absolutes because they are a decision making tool for the campaigns to know if their message is working, i.e. are they manipulating the story. Rasmussen is special because it's the first totally automated poll and shown on the internet. That's why it's the first time you are learning this. Some of us read newspapers in addition to blogs. You could learn from us.

I don't know WHAT is screwy about Rasmussen, but the swings are too small. And I don't mean the swings from this week to the next, I mean the swings over larger periods. The parity in that poll makes MLS looks like Scotland.
Yes. That's it. The poll is DESIGNED not to swing. Get that in your head.

Admit it. You didn't know something. We each don't know a lot of things. It happens to me and it just happend to you. The dumbest things humans can do is let pride get in the way of their betterment. So get over it.

[Ian McCracken]

Survey USA (http://www.surveyusa.com/currentelectionpolls.html) post-debate state polls:

FL: Bush 51, Kerry 46

NV: Bush 50, Kerry 46

NJ: Kerry 50, Bush 45

AL: Bush 62, Kerry 34 (not sure why they bother polling here)

[SoFla Metro]

Gallup doesn't assume anything in regards to party identification. They take a completely random sample and make small corrections to ensure proper demographics by age/gender/income, etc. Party affiliation is not a demographic as it can change with events over time. It is pollsters like Zogby who is making assumptions based on party preference, which limits his ability to capture a shifting political landscape.
This post is factually inaccurate. Gallup indeed corrects his sample by party affiliation.

[Ian McCracken]

This post is factually inaccurate. Gallup indeed corrects his sample by party affiliation.

Please post your source for this information. It has been well established that Gallup does not correct for party affiliation.

[SoFla Metro]

This post is factually inaccurate. Gallup indeed corrects his sample by party affiliation.
Unless he's changed his polling sample, as Ian claims, which would make his polls pretty much irrelevant.

[Garcia]

Capital Report on CNBC just reported that as of the close of new voter registration in FL today, Reps had turned in 270,000 new voters, Dems 265,000, so the new voter drives may prove to be a wash in some states.
I read that the state of Florida gained over one million new residents since the last election. To think 2000 was so close, who knows what can happen.

I do wonder if they will work with other states to stop the snow birds from voting in say New York via mail and then in person in Fla. :eek:

[Ian McCracken]

Unless he's changed his polling sample, as Ian claims, which would make his polls pretty much irrelevant.


Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll, said the critics don't understand the science behind the polls. "This issue has been the subject of intense scholarly discussion and years of research. We're confident in what we're doing," he said.

Actually, it's what Gallup doesn't do that is at the heart of the debate. The polling firm does not adjust its "pool" of voters to add or subtract Republicans or Democrats in an effort to mirror those parties' estimated make-ups.

Among the reasons Gallup doesn't try to do that:

• It believes there are no reliable data on which to estimate exactly how many Republicans or Democrats there are in the country. Some states, for example, don't require voters to register by party affiliation. Basing an adjustment on previous year's exit polls, "means you're 'weighting' one poll based on the results of another poll, which has its own built-in sampling error," Newport said.

• It believes party affiliation "is an attitude, not a demographic trait" and that voters can change their minds about which party they identify with more than once during an election year, Newport said. That would explain, he said, why the number of people who identified themselves as Republicans went down during this year's Democratic primaries - when Kerry and his competitors were in the news.

Most polling firms use the same methods as Gallup when identifying party affiliations. Among those are the surveys done by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Andrew Kohut, the center's director, said in a statement last week that "important shifts in voter sentiment" could be missed if pollsters tried to apply rigid party formulas to results.

[SoFla Metro]

[b]
Actually, it's what Gallup doesn't do that is at the heart of the debate. The polling firm does not adjust its "pool" of voters to add or subtract Republicans or Democrats in an effort to mirror those parties' estimated make-ups.

If it doesn't, it should. They poll 40% Republicans, which is too high when you only poll 33% Democrats.


Likely Voter Sample Party IDs – Poll of September 13-15
Reflected Bush Winning by 55%-42%

Total Sample: 767
GOP: 305 (40%)
Dem: 253 (33%)
Ind: 208 (28%)


and yet, according to John Zogby:

If we look at the three last Presidential elections, the spread was 34% Democrats, 34% Republicans and 33% Independents (in 1992 with Ross Perot in the race); 39% Democrats, 34% Republicans, and 27% Independents in 1996; and 39% Democrats, 35% Republicans and 26% Independents in 2000.




So Gallup can say what they want, but the statistical data doesn't back up their assertions.

[DoyleG]

That guys website smells. It's clearly a Kerry biased site. He ignores data, doesn't actually use polls averages to award EVs, but mathematic formulas. He gets his data from e-v.com but they still show the race at 295-243 for Bush.

Newsweek had Bush up by 17 EV's a couple of weeks ago (Based on states that were basically decided.)

[heybeerman]

Bush 47.8, Kerry 46.0, Nader 1.5 - » 3-Way Spread: Bush +1.8 (http://www.realclearpolitics.com)

A slim lead according to RCP. This should be a fund run to the end.

[Guinho]

Maybe peledre and I can form a subcommittee on statepoll summary sites. jeez. Let's hear it for the edit button! I'm guessing none of you caught my horrendously innacurate post so I'll just edit it judiciously before I embarrass myself further. In an interesting note, e-v just shifted from a 30 averaging period to a 7 day, so Bush appears to have taken a whopping jump in the EV count, but it's just a restatement using a new methodology.

e.v. has a great article looking at incumbents poll numbers http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8694

I especially liked this table:
Year Incumbent Final Polls (in percent) Actual Vote (in percent)
1996Bill Clinton 51 49
1992 George Bush Senior 37 37
1984 Ronald Reagan 58 59
1980 Jimmy Carter 42 41


The numbers for challengers look quite different. In every case, the challenger(s) -- I include Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996 -- exceed their final poll result by at least 2 points, and the average gain is 4 points. In 1980, Ronald Reagan received 51 percent, fully 6 percentage points above his final poll results.



pel, check out race2004.net for another take. Any others out there we should critique?

D.

[Revolt]

My personal favorite these days is the daily Rasummsen tracking poll. Probably because it tracks pretty closely to my personal spidey sense of what the situation is.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Presidential_Tracking_Poll.htm

It really looks like Bush's showing in the debate is really percolating into the minds of the voting public. Bush has been playing defense ever since and the media, as in Saturday Night Live, did a most excellent job of carving up Bush.

Updated Daily by Noon Eastern Election 2004

DateBushKerryToday47.947.0Oct 448.646.1Oct 349.045.4Oct 248.645.6Oct 148.745.3Sept 3048.546.1Sept 2949.145.3Sept 2847.946.3Sept 2747.846.1Sept 2647.246.5Sept 2547.946.3

[DynamoKiev_USA]

Maryland: Kerry 48% Bush 45%

Survey of 400 Likely Voters

Sept 14-27, 2004

Maryland 2004

Presidential Ballot

Bush 45%
Kerry 48%
Other 2%
Not Sure 4%
RasmussenReports.com


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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September 29--The latest Rasmussen Reports survey finds Senator Kerry with 48% of the vote in Maryland to 45% for President Bush. That's a stunning result in a state that Al Gore won by 17 points four years ago. Before the Republican Convention, Kerry was comfortably ahead in Maryland, 54% to 41%.

Michael Barone has written of a potential "Metroliner effect" that may be hurting Democrats along the Amtrak route from Washington to New York. States along that route were impacted heavily by 9/11 and appear to be less solidly in the Democratic camp than they were four years ago.

As a result of this latest survey, we are moving Maryland to Toss-Up status for our Electoral College projections. We will also check on the state again soon to see if this result is a one-time aberration or a lasting change.

In nearby New Jersey, another surprising toss-up, John Kerry has failed to reach the 50% mark for three weeks in a row. Premium Members receive weekly updates for New Jersey and 14 other states. They also receive daily tracking for Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania

[Matt in the Hat]

Michael Barone has written of a potential "Metroliner effect" that may be hurting Democrats along the Amtrak route from Washington to New York. States along that route were impacted heavily by 9/11 and appear to be less solidly in the Democratic camp than they were four years ago.


Metroliner is for bitches. Real men take Acela

[DynamoKiev_USA]

Only rich republicans can afford Acela :mad:

[-cman-]

Iowa Futures Market tightening back up.

http://128.255.244.60/graphs/Pres04_WTA.png

[eric_appleby]

F*&K the polls.
I wish we could just have the damn vote and get it over with.
The process is way too drawn out in this country.

The Brits have this worked out.
What do general eclections take in the UK, 3 maybe 4 weeks tops?

[superdave]

ABC has an instapoll on the VP debate, Cheney winning 43-35.