dagblog - Comments for "PEW Claims An 8% Lead By Obama?"

538 rocks! In 2008 he was so

Richard Day — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 20:18:10 +0000

In reply to I've concluded TPM's

538 rocks!

In 2008 he was so damn close to the results.

Rasmussen and Fox are never to be believed.

With the exception of the results for the last ten days!

Anyway, I have seen nothing comparable to 538 and that geek is a genius!

From Nate's blog

Elusive Trope — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 18:29:56 +0000

In reply to I've concluded TPM's

From Nate's blog today

Following the polls on Wednesday reminded me of the aphorism: “If you don’t like the weather in Chicago, wait five minutes.” When there are twenty or more polls published in day, as there were on Wednesday, there are necessarily going to be some stronger or weaker ones for either candidate.

There are also going to be some outliers — sometimes because of unavoidable statistical variance, sometimes because the polling company has a partisan bias, sometimes because it just doesn’t know what it’s doing. (And sometimes: because of all of the above.)

I've concluded TPM's

acanuck — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 18:10:30 +0000

In reply to PEW Claims An 8% Lead By Obama?

I've concluded TPM's PollTracker is far from the gold standard, Richard. In the days immediately following the Democratic convention, it actually showed a big increase in Romney's share of popular voting intention.

This was such an outlier that I thought the site had simply got the Obama and Romney figures reversed. Enough readers wrote in that Josh Marshall wrote an entry trying to explain (unsuccessfully, I think) how different methodologies yield different results over the short term. I don't know how, but I think their model is simply flawed. I'd trust Nate Silver's 538 blog over TPM any day.

Obama?s Lead Looks Stronger

artappraiser — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 00:20:54 +0000

In reply to PEW Claims An 8% Lead By Obama?

Obama’s Lead Looks Stronger in Polls That Include Cellphones
By Nate Silver, Five-Thirty-Eight @ New York Times, September 19, 2012, 5:24 pm

[....] We keep track of which polling firms include cellphones in their samples and which do not. So on Monday night, I decided to run two alternate versions of the FiveThirtyEight forecast. (Note that all results are based on polls that were in our database as of Monday night, and so will not include Tuesday morning’s New York Times polls or others published on Tuesday.) [....]

Cell Phones and Election Polls: An Update
Pew Research Center Publications, October 13, 2010

[....] It is possible to estimate the size of this potential bias. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducts surveys with samples of landline and cell phones, which allow for comparisons of findings from combined landline and cell interviews with those only from landline interviews. Data from Pew Research Center polling this year suggest that the bias is as large, and potentially even larger, than it was in 2008 (See "Calling Cell Phones in '08 Pre-Election Polls," Dec. 18, 2008) [....]

Thanks Doctor. I was hoping

Richard Day — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 22:22:00 +0000

In reply to Pollsters use different

Thanks Doctor.

I was hoping for some reaction.

But PEW is so outside the 'normal' that I was astounded, to say it again.

Anyway, I follow this crap like some football gambling beer drinking idiot follows ESPN and gambles in Vegas via the web....

I was just taken by this one poll that was taken before the video epiphany.

We shall see!

Pollsters use different

Doctor Cleveland — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 22:03:26 +0000

In reply to PEW Claims An 8% Lead By Obama?

Pollsters use different methodologies, Richard. They have different sampling methods, they have different predictions about what the electorate will look like on election day so they poll different proportions of people. And then there's randomness built right into polling. Hence, "margin of error." A 5% lead means, "If our model is right, Obama is ahead between 2% and 8%. An 8% lead means, "If our model is right, Obama is ahead between 4.5% and 11.5%"

Poll averages and prospective electoral maps also differ, because they include different polls, weight specific polls differently (How much weight to give an everyday tracking poll? How much to give other polls?) and so on. The electoral maps have to decide how far ahead a candidate has to be to move a state's votes out of the "tossup" column.

Thanks Art....I just am

Richard Day — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 21:57:25 +0000

In reply to Here is the direct link to

Thanks Art....I just am amazed!

If it changes in a day or two it will eventually hit 9/18/12.

We shall see!

Here is the direct link to

artappraiser — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 21:48:34 +0000

In reply to PEW Claims An 8% Lead By Obama?

Here is the direct link to Pew's poll report (rather than just the Pew home page, which will change in a day or two):

http://www.people-press.org/2012/09/19/obama-ahead-with-stronger-support...