As I have posted before, polling data are complicated things. There's a big difference between a poll of all americans vs. a poll of registered voters vs. a poll of likely voters. The polling firms have very different algorithms for weighting the raw data to get their results. Rasmussen is the only firm I know of that weights based upon party affiliation, and they happen to be the most accurate poll of 2008. On the matter of weighting polls, the Washington Examiner writes: http://www.examiner.com/article/is-the-latest-washington-post-abc-poll-skewed-for-obama Rasmussen in its Sept. 1 poll wrote: So what happens to the polling data if you use a 37.6% figure as the republican make up of the electorate? This site has taken the raw data and applied the 37.6% figure to the weighting methods of the polls: http://www.unskewedpolls.com/ (Romney leads in all the poll by significant margins, average of +7.8, lowest is +3 in the Fox News poll) And yeah, the site is clearly partisan right wing. Attack the messenger. Or be intellectually honest and curious and explain why their polling data is actually wrong.
So, was Rasmussen's poll of party affiliation 'unskewed', or are we just picking and choosing which poll to 'unskew' here? If you do a similar 'unskewing' of the 2008 polls, what happens? Does Rasmussen still nail it? Or does the 'unskewed' poll in 2008 show McCain winning? Can't have it both ways, Denny. Either skewing is bad, or Rasmussen was right in 2008. Not both. By the way, 37.6% republican is absurd - it would mean the electorate identifies much more with R's than they did at the time of the 2010 election. Not very likely. barfo
Denny, let the left keep thinking that they are sooo far ahead in all the polls. Hell, I want them over confident, I want them to keep thinking that this race is in the bag. I want that small percent of complacent Dems to not even bother to show up at the booth.
Nate Silver, who has a very good track record, provides a stat heavy analysis. Methodology means a lot. For example, likely vs. registered voters. Also, some polls, like ABC, use only land line. About 25% of the population has only cell, and they are generally lean left voters. A national poll can be very misleading because we don't have a national election. We have 51 elections where some count more than others. California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Texas are the biggest. Obama is taking CA, NY & Ill., Romney taking Texas. Pennsylvania officially swing. So you can say "both candidates at 47%" nationwide and it doesn't say a lot. Looking at the swing states, frankly, it's not good for Romney. If he gives up on Pennsylvania, which the legislature promised to him by blocking 750,000 voters, he has to win Ohio and Florida. Neither of which looks good. Winning Wyoming and Alaska can't make up for it.
I would think you ask 1000 people, "are you republican or democrat" and not skew the results of that question whatsoever. And collect that over a large series of polls, so it isn't just 1000 people but a much bigger sample. Rasmussen nailed the 2008 polls, where the number of registered republicans was, in fact, much lower. So here's a CBS News / NY Times poll. It reports 93% of democrats support Obama (5% don't). It reports 90% of republicans support Romney (7% don't), and 51% of the rest support Romney to 40% for Obama. How is Obama in the lead? Think about it.
Two Democratic pollsters discuss the skewing issue here: http://video.foxnews.com/v/1773842238001/campaign-insiders-8-6-2012/ Pat Caddell worked for McGovern in '72, Carter in '76 and '80, Gary Hart in '84, Biden in '88, and Jerry Brown in '92. Douglas Schoen worked on numerous Democratic campaigns, and was a pollster for the Clinton white house. He worked for Hillary's senate campaign.
NFL poll says Romney wins! If Mitt Romney wins the election, you will have read it here first. Going in to last weekend's games, Romney led President Barack Obama four games in two. In other words, of the six rules that involve a game in the first two weeks of the season, four point to a Republican victory while two point to a Democratic victory Three more rules were up for evaluation on Sunday: The Eagles Rule: If Philadelphia scores at least one offensive touchdown per nine first downs in its second away game, the Democrat wins the White House. Otherwise, the Republican wins. The Jets Rule: If the New York Jets win their second away game, the Republican wins the White House. Otherwise, the Democrat wins. The Texans Rule: If the Houston Texans win their second away game, the Republican wins the White House. Otherwise, the Democrat wins. All three point to a Romney victory: Philadelphia never scored a touchdown, and both the Jets and the Texans won. That brings the score, after Week 3, to 7-2 in the former Massachusetts governor's favor.
I see your NFL and raise you a NASCAR... NASCAR viewers prefer Obama http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politi...ney-with-NASCAR-voters-Another-straw-the-wind
Silver is definitely one of the most insightful and useful reads at this point in the campaign as nobody does analysis better than him.
You would think that, but do you KNOW that? Or are you just saying it's that way because that's what you think it should be? And you ignored my point. If you are claiming the polls are biased and must be 'unskewed', then we have to 'unskew' Rasmussen in 2008. Otherwise you are being inconsistent. Hard to say, since you didn't provide any link to the poll. There's no doubt that polling is a complex business. There is quite a bit of doubt that either you or the blogger in your OP link know more about polling than the pollsters do, however. barfo
Turns out Rasmussen's party allegiance data is based upon survey of hundreds of thousands of people. You missed the point. Rasmussen's 2008 poll WAS unskewed, which is why it was the most accurate. As far as what the pollsters know and do, check out the video I posted with an interview of two top Democratic pollsters and their view on all this.
Good in 2008, not so much in 2004, 2006, or 2010... http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytime...rate-quinnipiac-surveyusa-performed-strongly/
Uhm, are you sure about that? I don't believe it. I don't believe any major pollster presents the numbers without any adjustment. To do so is to surrender to sampling bias. Yeah, I watched that, it isn't news. Different pollsters make different assumptions about things. Rasmussen assumes that everyone is a Republican just like him. So naturally you think he's great. Some pollsters have a similar bias towards Democrats. Some are all over the map. Some pollsters cheat. Some pollsters have bad methodology. Some pollsters go "wee wee wee" all the way home. barfo
Rasmussen’s polls — after a poor debut in 2000 in which they picked the wrong winner in 7 key states in that year’s Presidential race — nevertheless had performed quite strongly in in 2004 and 2006. And they were about average in 2008. But their polls were poor this year. (That's from your own link)
I don't think Rasmussen is great because he tilts republican. I think his methodology is sound and he's been quite accurate more than the other pollsters. I'm having trouble figuring out how you don't get it. Unskewed means "use today's ratio of republicans to democrats vs. using the exit poll results from 2008." You know that due to Democratic Party voter suppression that republicans didn't turn out that year.
