Thursday, October 09, 2008

On Why I Don't Blog About or Follow the Polls...

Creative Minority Report posted an excellent rundown of why I have been suspicious of election-year polling data.

He notes, in part:
"For example, according to The Politico, "Democrats picked up 31 seats in 2006 with an 11.5-point lead in generic ballot tests, and the party actually won 53.6% of the general election vote, a 7-point margin." So to put it plainly there was an 11.5 lead in the generic ballot polls but only a seven point margin on election day.

Now, an oddity is that just last month a USA Today/Gallup survey of the generic ballot had the Democrats leading the Republicans by just 3 percentage points, 48% to 45%, in voters' "generic ballot" preferences for Congress. Yet, some pollsters seem to still be polling more Democrats than Republicans at a difference of 5% or higher.

And get this, Gallup, in a poll done less than a month ago Republicans were more enthused about the 2008 election and outscoring Democrats in likelihood to vote in November. As a result, Republican candidates led Democratic candidates among likely voters by 5 percentage points, 50% to 45%.

So there were about 3% less Republicans than Democrats but they were more likely to vote by 5%. Seems almost a wash, right? But for some reason pollsters are still giving heavy preference to Democrats in their polls. Why?...

...Gallup, on the other hand, does not weight for party. And they're the ones right now with Obama up 11."


Read the whole thing here.

1 comment:

DimBulb said...

Polls are for Pollocks. (My apologies to ethnic Poles)