Thursday, September 25, 2008
Putting polls in perspective (say that ten times real fast)
This post from Red State puts polls in perspective:
On November 1, 2004, the day before the election, polls showed Kerry winning comfortably. The polls in 2004 all over-sampled Democratic voters in every single battleground state. There seem to be a significant percentage of people who vote Republican but either don’t like talking to pollsters or don’t have time to talk to pollsters.
Obama should listen to the "hand-wringers" in his party. Any state where polls show him with a lead of 1% to 4% should be considered a toss-up at best, or, more likely ... "leaning McCain."
From Rolling Stone magazine (June, 2006):
On the evening of the [2004] vote, reporters at each of the major networks were briefed by pollsters at 7:54 p.m. Kerry, they were informed, had an insurmountable lead and would win by a rout: at least 309 electoral votes to Bush's 174, with fifty-five too close to call. In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair went to bed contemplating his relationship with President-elect Kerry.
As the last polling stations closed on the West Coast, exit polls showed Kerry ahead in ten of eleven battleground states -- including commanding leads in Ohio and Florida -- and winning by a million and a half votes nationally. The exit polls even showed Kerry breathing down Bush's neck in supposed GOP strongholds Virginia and North Carolina. Against these numbers, the statistical likelihood of Bush winning was less than one in 450,000. "Either the exit polls, by and large, are completely wrong," a Fox News analyst declared, "or George Bush loses."
But as the evening progressed, official tallies began to show … disparities -- as much as 9.5 percent -- with the exit polls. In ten of the eleven battleground states, the tallied margins departed from what the polls had predicted. In every case, the shift favored Bush. Based on exit polls, CNN had predicted Kerry defeating Bush in Ohio by a margin of 4.2 percentage points. Instead, election results showed Bush winning the state by 2.5 percent. Bush also tallied 6.5 percent more than the polls had predicted in Pennsylvania, and 4.9 percent more in Florida.
UPDATE (from GillReport.com):
The Washington Post-ABC News poll released on September 24 has received a lot of media coverage as the mainstream media reports that Barack Obama has a 9 point lead over John McCain! CLICK HERE.
Now those of us who actually know something about politics are not easily deceived by these bogus polls. For example, if you will scroll down to question #901 in the poll you will find that the internal poll information reveals that the Democrats had a ten point edge in the makeup of those polled! 38% of the respondents said they are Democrats, versus just 28% Republican...yet Obama only had a nine point lead?! Just a month ago the poll oversurveyed Democrats by 13% among likely voters! This thing is simply intended to bolster the propaganda that Obama has turned things around.
Oh, and among the so-called independents polled, when asked towards which political party they lean the numbers were about 18% in favor of the DEMOCRATS. Check out question #904.
Most of the the other polls like Zogby and Rasmussen also tilt toward the Democrats by giving Democrats a six point advantage in the internal make up of the polls, but ten points is ridiculous and laughable! But see how many other talk hosts and pundits catch the real story of this "push poll." All this poll tells us is that Democrats are tending to support their nominee, but just barely.
On November 1, 2004, the day before the election, polls showed Kerry winning comfortably. The polls in 2004 all over-sampled Democratic voters in every single battleground state. There seem to be a significant percentage of people who vote Republican but either don’t like talking to pollsters or don’t have time to talk to pollsters.
Obama should listen to the "hand-wringers" in his party. Any state where polls show him with a lead of 1% to 4% should be considered a toss-up at best, or, more likely ... "leaning McCain."
From Rolling Stone magazine (June, 2006):
On the evening of the [2004] vote, reporters at each of the major networks were briefed by pollsters at 7:54 p.m. Kerry, they were informed, had an insurmountable lead and would win by a rout: at least 309 electoral votes to Bush's 174, with fifty-five too close to call. In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair went to bed contemplating his relationship with President-elect Kerry.
As the last polling stations closed on the West Coast, exit polls showed Kerry ahead in ten of eleven battleground states -- including commanding leads in Ohio and Florida -- and winning by a million and a half votes nationally. The exit polls even showed Kerry breathing down Bush's neck in supposed GOP strongholds Virginia and North Carolina. Against these numbers, the statistical likelihood of Bush winning was less than one in 450,000. "Either the exit polls, by and large, are completely wrong," a Fox News analyst declared, "or George Bush loses."
But as the evening progressed, official tallies began to show … disparities -- as much as 9.5 percent -- with the exit polls. In ten of the eleven battleground states, the tallied margins departed from what the polls had predicted. In every case, the shift favored Bush. Based on exit polls, CNN had predicted Kerry defeating Bush in Ohio by a margin of 4.2 percentage points. Instead, election results showed Bush winning the state by 2.5 percent. Bush also tallied 6.5 percent more than the polls had predicted in Pennsylvania, and 4.9 percent more in Florida.
UPDATE (from GillReport.com):
The Washington Post-ABC News poll released on September 24 has received a lot of media coverage as the mainstream media reports that Barack Obama has a 9 point lead over John McCain! CLICK HERE.
Now those of us who actually know something about politics are not easily deceived by these bogus polls. For example, if you will scroll down to question #901 in the poll you will find that the internal poll information reveals that the Democrats had a ten point edge in the makeup of those polled! 38% of the respondents said they are Democrats, versus just 28% Republican...yet Obama only had a nine point lead?! Just a month ago the poll oversurveyed Democrats by 13% among likely voters! This thing is simply intended to bolster the propaganda that Obama has turned things around.
Oh, and among the so-called independents polled, when asked towards which political party they lean the numbers were about 18% in favor of the DEMOCRATS. Check out question #904.
Most of the the other polls like Zogby and Rasmussen also tilt toward the Democrats by giving Democrats a six point advantage in the internal make up of the polls, but ten points is ridiculous and laughable! But see how many other talk hosts and pundits catch the real story of this "push poll." All this poll tells us is that Democrats are tending to support their nominee, but just barely.
# posted by Joltin' Django @ Thursday, September 25, 2008 
