What’s with those polls?

What's with these Polls?

But just as journalists nationwide were starting to write their landslide stories, in comes this week's AP poll ... with McCain behind by just one point. That might as well be a tie. If you factor in the margin of error, then McCain could actually be ahead.

If the AP poll was the 1 in a McCain 1-2 punch, then in came the IBD/TIPP Poll with it's left hook. It too had McCain down by 1, with the momentum among key voting blocks going to the Republican. This from the polling firm who says they were the "Most Accurate Pollster" of the 2004 election.

The article points out that these 2 polls are the only polls that show McCain close...so...are these polls correct??

Is it possible that these 2 polls will give cover if somehow McCain wins and voter fraud is suspected?

Ofcourse it could be simply poor polling techniques!

According to FiveThirtyEight.com, yesterday was McCain's worst polling day of the year:

Data

[edit on 24-10-2008 by davion]

reply to post by Leo Strauss


Its very easy to determine 'what's with these polls'. It all depends upon the model they use.

Look at the internals, specifically voter affiliation totals. The IBD poll, for instance, I believe only gives the Democrats a 3% edge in voter affiliation. Some are spotting Obama upwards of 10%. Newsweek ran one in August, I believe, that gave him a 14% advantage in this regard.

Gallup has three polls out. Registered voters, where Obama is up 8. Likely voters, where Obama is up 5, and something called Likely Voters Expanded, where Obama is up 7. Apparently even they aren't sure which brand of special sauce is right.

It all depends upon the projections for voter affiliation and turnout. In all cases, Obama seems to be performing either right at his voter affiliation advantage or a few points less.

My advice is to ignore the polls completely until about 5 days before the election.



[edit on 24-10-2008 by vor78]

Polls influence opinion more than opinion influences polls.

I would take them all with a pinch of salt, bearing in mind the amount of people polled, and the demographics involved. Youl only really know when the guys in the white house.

Nate Silver at Five Thirty Eight gives the IBD/TIPP poll the same speculative treatment, only in this case Silver questions the number of young people they say plan to vote for McCain:


"IBD/TIPP has John McCain ahead 74-22 among 18-24 year olds. Who knew the kids were groovin' on J-Mac these days?

IBD/TIPP puts an asterisk by this result, stipulating that 'Age 18-24 has much fluctuation due to small sample size.'"

Also pollsters do not call cell phones. Many of our younger voters are cell phone only!

What is the deal with polls? Who are these people? What's the deal with corn-nuts?

www.youtube.com...

Originally posted by Leo Strauss

Nate Silver at Five Thirty Eight gives the IBD/TIPP poll the same speculative treatment, only in this case Silver questions the number of young people they say plan to vote for McCain:


"IBD/TIPP has John McCain ahead 74-22 among 18-24 year olds. Who knew the kids were groovin' on J-Mac these days?

IBD/TIPP puts an asterisk by this result, stipulating that 'Age 18-24 has much fluctuation due to small sample size.'"

Also pollsters do not call cell phones. Many of our younger voters are cell phone only!

Same can apply to middle aged folks. A lot of people have moved from regular land lines to VOIP and Cellular.

I'm more curious where these pollsters get their pollster lists from. Do they call random numbers?

I must also point out... while not scientific... the Nickelodeon Poll (yes kids network) had McCain and Obama neck and neck. It shows the younger base is a bigger mixed bag than most believe.

[edit on 10/24/2008 by AndrewTB]