The polls are wrong this year, very wrong. I have been saying this for months, and I have backed up my claim with both statistical and anecdoctal support. The claims I have made have inspired some, caused others to laugh in derision, and brought others to test their assumptions and revisit the hard data. Along the way, there have been a lot of questions about how and why the polls could be wrong. The most common complaint, is that for all of the polls to be wrong, there would need to be some sort of conspiracy, or else an incredibly stupid decision made across the board. Well, I am not a big believer in conspiracies, but I do think that the polling groups have fallen into a groupthink condition. I wrote earlier about the fact that of the major polling groups handling national and state polls, all of them are based deep in pro-Liberal, anti-Conservative territories.
Here’s that list of headquarters again, just to punch in that point again:
Poll Headquarters
ABC News 77 W 66th St, #13, New York City, New York
CBS News 524 W 57th St, New York City, New York
FOX News 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York City, New York
Gallup 901 F St NW, Washington DC
Hotline 88 Pine St, 32nd floor, New York City, New York
IBD 12655 Beatrice St. Los Angeles, California
The Los Angeles Times 202 W 1st St, Los Angeles California
Marist Institute 3399 North Rd, Poughkeepsie, New York
Mason-Dixon 1250 Connnecticut Ave #200, Washington DC
Newsweek 251 W 57th St, New York City, New York
The New York Times 1 City Hall, New York City, New York
Pew Research Center 1615 L St NW, #700, Washington DC
Quinnipiac 275 Mount Carmel Ave., Hamden Connecticut
Rasmussen 625 Cookman, #2, Asbury Park, New Jersey
Reuters 3 Times Square, New York City, New York
Survey USA 15 Bloomfield Ave., Verona New Jersey
TIPP 690 Kinderkamack Rd, Oradell, New Jersey
Washington Post 1150 15th St NW, Washington DC
Zogby 901 Broad St, Utica, New York
As I wrote then, it needs noting that all of the major polling organizations are based in locations where liberals are strongest and conservatives weakest, where ‘democrat’ and ‘republican’ take on meanings wildly different from the rest of the country. The people making the executive decisions at these polls, most likely including the wording and order of polling questions, whether to focus on urban or suburban areas, the weighting of political affiliation, and the definition of ‘likely voter’, are most likely in regular contact and association with the most liberal factions of politics. It does not mean that they have deliberately skewed their decisions to support Obama, but it is obvious that there is an apparent conflict of interest in their process modality.
I want to stop here and direct the reader back to the ethics of polling. The National Council on Public Polling is, and I got this from their site’s welcome page, “an association of polling organizations established in 1969. Its mission is to set the highest professional standards for public opinion pollsters, and to advance the understanding, among politicians, the media and general public, of how polls are conducted and how to interpret poll results.”
NCPP members identified on the front page include ABC News, CBS News, Gallup, Hotline, Ipsos, the Los Angeles Times, Marist, NBC News, Pew, Princeton Survey Associates, and Survey USA, along with many others. This effectively promises that the major polls will abide by NCPP rules, something you should consider when matching the principles against the polls’ actual statements.
The NCPP has also posted a list of “20 Questions a Journalist Should Ask About Poll Results”, which I strongly recommend every one to read and memorize. Those questions include these very important queries, that I fear most people do not often consider:
2. Who paid for the poll?
In many cases, the poll we see in the papers and on television, was paid for by an agency known to be biased. For example, does anyone really expect CBS News or the New York Times to be even-handed, especially in light of their behavior since 2002?
7. Who should have been interviewed and was not? Or do response rates matter?
This is a sore spot for polling groups, because frankly most people do not have the interest to stop and take an 8-to-10 minute interview, especially from someone they do not know calling them up when they are likely to be busy doing something else. It’s been established as well, that democrats in recent years are more willing to take part in polls than republicans, possibly due to perceived bias on the part of the media. But it is quite important to know if the pollsters were getting one person in ten to take the poll, or only one person in fifty, because the people not interviewed matter just as much as those who do participate. Yet I have never yet seen a poll this year that publishes response rates.
14. What questions were asked?
This is a big one that a lot of folks miss. I have noticed in the details, that all of the polls are asking about the public’s opinion of the economy, and of their opinion of President Bush, even though he is not running this time. Also, I have noticed that many polls ask a question about John McCain just after asking about the voter’s opinion of President Bush, subtly linking the two men. For comparison, no questions have been asked about approval of the specific performance of either Majority Leader Reid or Speaker Pelosi, and no other politician is linked to Barack Obama in the same way that polls link President Bush to John McCain. This is a clear violation of the NCPP’s guidelines, yet it is done in absolutely every poll I have seen. Further, polls taken since Labor day have not mentioned foreign policy at all. There are no questions regarding Russia’s invasion of Georgia, nor of Iran’s nuclear weapons programs, nor about China’s intentions viz a viz Taiwan, even though these are current events which have great significance in a presidential race, yet all of the polls are ignoring them. Again, the economy-only focus betrays a bias which violates the principles of the NCPP.
I have already written extensively about polling groups manipulation of demographic weights, so I will only summarize here that in addition to party affiliation, various polling groups this year have produced polls out of demographic balance with Census norms for urban/suburban/rural participation, minority race representation, age, employment status, and income range. It should not be difficult to imagine how these manipulations might invalidate the results published by the polling groups.
When people reach this point in the discussion, an obvious question comes up; surely the polls want to be accurate, and they would have to understand that this fiddling with internal data to create a false image would destroy their credibility? And the answer to that can be phrased in a two-reminder of just how stupid people can be – “New Coke”.
In 1985, the Coca-Cola company dominated the beverage industry around the world, and it’s flagship product was its first, the Coca-Cola soft drink, literally an icon of Americana. It would seem to be the most obvious of strategic decisions, to leave the base of the company alone. Instead, in a move never explained let alone justified by the company, Coca-Cola announced that they were eliminating Coca-Cola, and replacing their number 1 product with a new formula, called “New Coke”. Everything about the promotion was an unmitigated disaster, and later that year Coca-Cola re-introduced what they claimed was the “original formula”, named “Coke Classic”. The company tried to push “New Coke” on a public that never wanted it, and eventually gave up the next year. The “New Coke” strategy and promotion have become textbook lessons on the worst possible way to listen to customers and meet their expectations. Pretty much everything was done the wrong way, especially the arrogant way that Coca-Cola assumed their customers would accept the elimination of their favorite drink. Near as I can figure it, the essential problem came down to the fact that the company’s marketing people made all the key decisions internally, without once stepping out into the real world to test their assumptions. What seemed a great idea in development, failed miserably in Reality. Obviously, Coca-Cola never wanted to enrage its customers, to drive them to Pepsi, or to put a bullet in their stock value, but that all happened because they made an incalculably stupid strategic decision, and they lacked an effective Deming loop to test assumptions and correct the process.
This is actually not all that uncommon in business. So many people saw Enron as a company made up of crooks, that they failed to notice that Enron did have a Code of Ethics; the problem was similar to Coke, in that too many people never tested their assumptions, and by the time they realized something was wrong, it was too late to repair the damage.
This brings us back to the polls. The thing most folks forget about polls which get published in the media, is that the polls’ first need is not to accurately reflect the election progress and report on actual support levels; it’s about business. A poll needs clients to survive, and the media – always – wants a good story more than they want facts. So polls sell that story, and what would actually be a gradual development of support, with modest changes brought about as the public learned about candidates’ records and positions, is instead sold as an exciting roller-coaster race, careening madly all over the place. If a candidate appears to be popular and charismatic, he might be allowed a strong lead, or the poll might tighten things from time to time just to keep attention on the polls. That’s where that whole “bounce” thing after the conventions comes from – do you really think republicans or independents got more excited about Obama because of his convention, or that democrats and independents were more likely to vote for McCain because of the GOP convention? When you think about it, it should be obvious that these bumps are artificial unless there is a clear cause to show a change in support. And when you take apart the polls and drill down to the raw data, what you find is a close race with a gradually declining but still large pool of undecided voters, which is consistent with the known facts and actions we see from both campaigns.
Obviously, though, the polls want to finish as close as possible to the actual results, but this year they have a problem. There has been unprecedented manipulation of demographics, corrupting even the raw data to the point where effective resolution of public opinion is doubtful. This might be described as an honest mistake, if one is willing to accept greed as an honest motive. Gallup, for example, who has more experience than any other polling group and who therefore should have known better more than anyone else to fiddle with the weights. In several past elections, Gallup and other polls have learned from operational blunders.
In 1948, Gallup screwed with the weighting, assuming the republicans would turn out much in much larger numbers than the democrats, but they were wrong, and badly miscalled the election. In 1952 Gallup assumed the other way, that the race would be tight and down to the wire, but they blew that call as well. In 1976, Gallup assumed the opposite, that democrats would overwhelm republicans because of Watergate, but when it became obvious that republicans would vote anyway, Gallup had to change its model to show their participation more accurately. In 1980, Gallup called Carter ahead until the very end, when they grudgingly granted Reagan a small lead, yet another case where Gallup’s assumptions were well off the mark. In 1996, Gallup overstated Clinton’s support and understated Dole’s support throughout the campaign, and in 2004 Gallup called the race too close to call. This year, trying to gauge the effects of Barack Obama’s ‘rock star’ charisma, Gallup decided to abandon historical norms and overweight urban and youth voters, and to over-sample democrats all campaign long. This model, dubbed the “expanded voter”, has proven a disaster for Gallup, so much so that the group reintroduced a more historically balanced model, which they call the “traditional” model. The problem for Gallup, however, is that their methodology became so skewed throughout the campaign up to now, that it may be impossible for Gallup to correct its procedures before the final election poll. In the light of past blunders, this year missing the call may not be unreasonable at all to expect.
So OK, Gallup is having a bad year, but what about the rest? Well, there the phrase to consider is follow the leader. Gallup has been doing this stuff for longer than anyone else, and the other polls have often fallen into the habit of chasing what they see Gallup do. But for an objective look at their performance, I direct you to another of my past articles, where I noted the NCPP’s record on poll accuracy. From what I see here, if Gallup is having problems, it’s likely just as bad or worse for everyone else.
So, could I be wrong? I have to be honest and admit that I could. But in that case, we’d have to ask why the polls do not generally agree with each other, why Gallup is trying to spin three different models at the same time to get a grasp of the picture, why McCain and Obama are both so interested in Pennsylvania, yet neither is working very hard in Ohio right now. We’d have to explain why McCain-Palin rallies are now attracting thousands more people than Obama-Biden rallies, why Letterman suddenly found it cool to have McCain on his show and SNL decided they wanted Palin on theirs. We’d have to explain why there are not a lot of Obama signs visible, but we hear about his army of lawyers getting ready. We’d have to explain why McCain and Palin appear to be so relaxed while Obama and Biden look like they’re worried.
What I think is happening, is this – the polls’ headquarters were based deep in liberal territory, where the assumption was that Obama’s candidacy would actually create a groundswell of pro-democrat voters unseen in the country since 1932. That McCain is more experienced with the key issues than Obama was ignored, that the historical significance of the debates shows that the effects appear several weeks later was also ignored. That the economy could be as reasonably blamed on the democrat-controled Congress as on the republican President was never considered. That character would be a salient factor in the decisions of voters was rejected out of hand.
The polls are wrong. Make your own mind up, because your vote will matter.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Yahoo, Indeed
Last week, the Associated Press once again proved they are cheerleaders for Obama, rather than honest reporters of fact. This is illustrated in this case by the AP/Yahoo poll released, touted as evidence of Obama’s continued dominance in the election, when in fact the numbers from that poll confirm the tightening race as it nears the end. Of course, you have to go looking for the link to the actual poll detail, and then you have to dig through and find the relevant results. But there are some interesting details indeed in this poll, details which should be considered in weighing the claims made by the Associated P.
Starting with the big question, who folks will vote for, the poll in question VOT3B tells us that Obama gets 42% of the support, and McCain gets 39%. Another 4 percent want someone else and 15% say they are undecided, which tracks with what I have been seeing in other polls. This tells us two very important things. First, 42 percent is not going to win, so both Obama and McCain have a lot of work to do, no matter what the media says. And with only 3 points separating them, the 15% undecided pool means that either candidate could reach a clear majority, or fail miserably. If you want to know why Obama is stressing, I bet it’s because his own private polls are warning him about similar conditions.
Now, I generally don’t like polls which press ‘leaners’ to pick a candidate, since we cannot say how sure they are about someone if their first statement was ‘I don’t know’. But the AP/Yahoo poll notes that when pressed, more went to McCain than to Obama (question VOT3BA).
The poll gets hinky when AP/Yahoo asks again who the respondents prefer in question PRES. The response from “all adults” is 44-42 Obama, but the “likely voters” are posted as 49-44 Obama. The problem here, is that nowhere in the poll does the group explain how they defined “likely voters”, nor are there any questions which clearly define the sub-group, nor do we even know how many respondents are classified as “likely voters”. The top of the poll identifies “1,769 adults; 1,528 registered voters. 873 Democrats; 650 Republicans”, but that’s it. Since we have seen a 3 point separation in the base question, and we know undecideds broke for McCain, it gets a little weird for AP/Yahoo to go from there to expand Obama’s lead to 5, and since they never explain how they got there, the reader would do well to ask why they hid that part of the methodology.
LV5 asks if the person is registered to vote. 86% say yes, so that tells you that unless the question was only asked of registered voters, one of every seven answers is irrelevant.
LV6 asks how often the person votes. 74% say always or nearly always, so another one in eight respondents (and one in seven registered voters) are not sure if they will vote this year, on the basis of their admitted practice.
LV31. goes on to ask if the respondent is “certain to vote” using a 10-point scale. Only 66%, about two-thirds of the respondents, say they are certain to vote. So we must be even more skeptical about the quality of this respondent pool.
VOT3BB asks if the respondent might change their mind, and 14% say they may change their mind.
PID1 notes that the party affiliation split for the poll was 40% Democrat, 27% Republican, 21% Independent, and 12% undecided or other, which actually creates a DRI split of 40/27/33, as usual for this year far out of balance with historical norms.
PARTYID goes further, noting that 49% of the respondents consider themselves Democrats, 37% Republicans, and just 14% other or Independent, a contrast to PID1 which is not explained.
Looking at the end-poll demographics, more information is revealed which helps us see the bias. 22% of respondents are identified as 18-29 in age, versus 17% in that age group’s actual voting in 2004. In this poll, 13% of the respondents did not complete High School, versus only 4% of voters in 2004 who did not complete High School. 31% of the poll respondents have a High School diploma as their highest education, versus 22% of voters in 2004 in that category. The overweight is obvious.
Whites in the poll made up 69% of the pool, versus 77% of voters in 2004. Hispanics in the pool counted for 13%, versus 7% who voted in 2004.
In the poll, 84% of respondents live in urban areas, versus 30% of actual voters in 2004.
In the poll, a staggering 41% of respondents do not have a job.
And finally, 58% of respondents to the poll make $50,000 a year or less, versus 45% of the actual voters in 2004.
This poll is biased in six distinctly invalid ways relative to known demographics, and even then the AP/Yahoo poll admits the race is close, though they do everything they can to hide that conclusion in the press release.
Critics may claim that this is just one poll, to which I invite you to suggest another poll with complete internal demographic data. I will indeed be looking for just such polls, and you can count on a full dissection and report. For here, I consider this poll to be an intriguing example of how spin and deceit are hiding the true state of the race --- that is, unless you expect all of the behaviors of past elections to be completely abandoned this year.
Starting with the big question, who folks will vote for, the poll in question VOT3B tells us that Obama gets 42% of the support, and McCain gets 39%. Another 4 percent want someone else and 15% say they are undecided, which tracks with what I have been seeing in other polls. This tells us two very important things. First, 42 percent is not going to win, so both Obama and McCain have a lot of work to do, no matter what the media says. And with only 3 points separating them, the 15% undecided pool means that either candidate could reach a clear majority, or fail miserably. If you want to know why Obama is stressing, I bet it’s because his own private polls are warning him about similar conditions.
Now, I generally don’t like polls which press ‘leaners’ to pick a candidate, since we cannot say how sure they are about someone if their first statement was ‘I don’t know’. But the AP/Yahoo poll notes that when pressed, more went to McCain than to Obama (question VOT3BA).
The poll gets hinky when AP/Yahoo asks again who the respondents prefer in question PRES. The response from “all adults” is 44-42 Obama, but the “likely voters” are posted as 49-44 Obama. The problem here, is that nowhere in the poll does the group explain how they defined “likely voters”, nor are there any questions which clearly define the sub-group, nor do we even know how many respondents are classified as “likely voters”. The top of the poll identifies “1,769 adults; 1,528 registered voters. 873 Democrats; 650 Republicans”, but that’s it. Since we have seen a 3 point separation in the base question, and we know undecideds broke for McCain, it gets a little weird for AP/Yahoo to go from there to expand Obama’s lead to 5, and since they never explain how they got there, the reader would do well to ask why they hid that part of the methodology.
LV5 asks if the person is registered to vote. 86% say yes, so that tells you that unless the question was only asked of registered voters, one of every seven answers is irrelevant.
LV6 asks how often the person votes. 74% say always or nearly always, so another one in eight respondents (and one in seven registered voters) are not sure if they will vote this year, on the basis of their admitted practice.
LV31. goes on to ask if the respondent is “certain to vote” using a 10-point scale. Only 66%, about two-thirds of the respondents, say they are certain to vote. So we must be even more skeptical about the quality of this respondent pool.
VOT3BB asks if the respondent might change their mind, and 14% say they may change their mind.
PID1 notes that the party affiliation split for the poll was 40% Democrat, 27% Republican, 21% Independent, and 12% undecided or other, which actually creates a DRI split of 40/27/33, as usual for this year far out of balance with historical norms.
PARTYID goes further, noting that 49% of the respondents consider themselves Democrats, 37% Republicans, and just 14% other or Independent, a contrast to PID1 which is not explained.
Looking at the end-poll demographics, more information is revealed which helps us see the bias. 22% of respondents are identified as 18-29 in age, versus 17% in that age group’s actual voting in 2004. In this poll, 13% of the respondents did not complete High School, versus only 4% of voters in 2004 who did not complete High School. 31% of the poll respondents have a High School diploma as their highest education, versus 22% of voters in 2004 in that category. The overweight is obvious.
Whites in the poll made up 69% of the pool, versus 77% of voters in 2004. Hispanics in the pool counted for 13%, versus 7% who voted in 2004.
In the poll, 84% of respondents live in urban areas, versus 30% of actual voters in 2004.
In the poll, a staggering 41% of respondents do not have a job.
And finally, 58% of respondents to the poll make $50,000 a year or less, versus 45% of the actual voters in 2004.
This poll is biased in six distinctly invalid ways relative to known demographics, and even then the AP/Yahoo poll admits the race is close, though they do everything they can to hide that conclusion in the press release.
Critics may claim that this is just one poll, to which I invite you to suggest another poll with complete internal demographic data. I will indeed be looking for just such polls, and you can count on a full dissection and report. For here, I consider this poll to be an intriguing example of how spin and deceit are hiding the true state of the race --- that is, unless you expect all of the behaviors of past elections to be completely abandoned this year.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
God and the Election
Over the past few weeks, I have received more mail than I recall ever receiving since the last presidential election. A lot of it is predictable, but I have also received several missives telling me that I am doing ‘the Lord’s work’ in my posts about the election being a lot closer than the media pretends, and my observations of historical trends, the value of the undecideds and independents in this year’s race, and the fact that we won in 2004 and lost in 2006 largely due to turnout by republicans. Well, I consider myself a God-fearing man, not to claim that I am anywhere the man I’d like to be, so it occurred to me that I need to address where I see God standing with regard to this election. If you’re not a believer, you might just want to give this one a miss – no offense, but it’s a faith thing, you either follow that path or it makes no sense to you.
Now, some folks like to assume that God’s on their side. That’s a bad idea, thinking that God has to go along with us. What we need to do, actually, is make sure we are listening to God and going His way on decisions and actions. In this election, it would be wrong to imagine that God “votes” for someone in the sense that God is brought around to support a human political opinion. But it is valid for us to consider what God wants us to be and do in this situation, and to think and act in accordance with those precepts.
As a follower of Christ (though again I have to make clear that I am poor at the practice), the first precepts are to not judge the hearts of other people but merely their actions, to walk humbly and seek God’s will in all things, and to count freedom ahead of peace, justice ahead of freedom, and mercy above all of those other ideals.
If you’ve read the Bible, you know that God sometimes allows evil men to rule. If you have watched the news for awhile, you know that sometimes evil is allowed to win for a time. I cannot say I understand why that is so, the notion of ‘free will’ seems a pale and shallow concept to explain why innocents should be made to suffer, why injustice should be allowed – even for a short time – to win, or why the people should suffer because of an evil ruler. But it is undeniably so, that this happens at times. So I cannot say that God would not allow an Obama presidency, even if I believed all the evil that some says is ready to spew forth from such an administration, coupled as it would be with near-complete control of Congress and the connivance of a corrupt media. I do not say this to dismay you, but to warn you that our actions matter a great deal in this election, all of us, and I will return anon to this warning. We cannot assume that God will not allow the wrong decision.
We should also learn the lessons from the Bible about the critical value of faith. When Elijah stood up to an evil queen and an army of false prophets, he felt alone and deserted, and even God’s own voice was not enough to console him, until the Lord explained to Elijah that there were thousands of good men in Israel whose faith was true, and who depended on God through Elijah for confirmation that they were right and would prevail. I am no Elijah, but even so I tell you plainly that America is a nation of believers in truth and light, and they do not hold with attacking ordinary citizens for asking inconvenient questions, they do not approve of a media which literally digs into trash to find tools to use to slime one candidate while ignoring legitimate inquiries into another’s character and actions. They do not forget history and they do not embrace the replacement of family and the individual with the government and the collective. Americans who fear God, do not forget duty. Americans who trust God, do not mock sacrifice. Americans who follow Christ, are not impressed with men who would replace God with their own image. Therefore, when we are presented with a situation where one candidate appears to be clearly in line with God’s will and the other major candidate would oppose that will, we must first test our assumptions, and if they hold true we must stand with the one who follow the Lord’s will.
Democrats have long run on claims that they better follow the ideals of goodness, touting concern for the impoverished, the protection of minorities, and standing against greed. Barack Obama is running on basically those same themes. But in times of hardship, it is not McCain but Obama who would increase taxes and create higher unemployment by making it harder for smaller companies to hire and keep employees. It is not McCain but Obama who would increase opportunities for illegals in the U.S., who would principally take jobs held by minority citizens. It is not McCain but Obama who has taken hundreds of millions of dollars from private sponsors, whom he refuses to even identify, since the public would naturally wonder what sort of promises he made to get all that money.
It is not Obama but McCain who has suffered in service to his country. It is not Obama but McCain who has given generously to charity out of his own pocket. It is not Obama but McCain who has fought to protect the lives of unborn children. And it is not Obama but McCain, who when made aware of vicious comments about his opponent, immediately, directly and repeatedly called for his campaign to operate by ideals of respect and courtesy, asking hard questions but refraining from personal smears. These facts are undeniable, and make clear which sorts of character are present in each man.
There will come a day, I believe, when we will stand before the Lord and have to account for all we have done, said, and even thought. It seems to me that it would be far better for me to explain why I supported a man whose actions were aligned with the Lord’s teachings, than why I stood by and deserted him when the campaign became difficult.
My advice to us all is simple: Take it to the Lord in prayer, listen humbly for His answer, then act in faith and hope. We shall not fail to see a good result from that course.
Now, some folks like to assume that God’s on their side. That’s a bad idea, thinking that God has to go along with us. What we need to do, actually, is make sure we are listening to God and going His way on decisions and actions. In this election, it would be wrong to imagine that God “votes” for someone in the sense that God is brought around to support a human political opinion. But it is valid for us to consider what God wants us to be and do in this situation, and to think and act in accordance with those precepts.
As a follower of Christ (though again I have to make clear that I am poor at the practice), the first precepts are to not judge the hearts of other people but merely their actions, to walk humbly and seek God’s will in all things, and to count freedom ahead of peace, justice ahead of freedom, and mercy above all of those other ideals.
If you’ve read the Bible, you know that God sometimes allows evil men to rule. If you have watched the news for awhile, you know that sometimes evil is allowed to win for a time. I cannot say I understand why that is so, the notion of ‘free will’ seems a pale and shallow concept to explain why innocents should be made to suffer, why injustice should be allowed – even for a short time – to win, or why the people should suffer because of an evil ruler. But it is undeniably so, that this happens at times. So I cannot say that God would not allow an Obama presidency, even if I believed all the evil that some says is ready to spew forth from such an administration, coupled as it would be with near-complete control of Congress and the connivance of a corrupt media. I do not say this to dismay you, but to warn you that our actions matter a great deal in this election, all of us, and I will return anon to this warning. We cannot assume that God will not allow the wrong decision.
We should also learn the lessons from the Bible about the critical value of faith. When Elijah stood up to an evil queen and an army of false prophets, he felt alone and deserted, and even God’s own voice was not enough to console him, until the Lord explained to Elijah that there were thousands of good men in Israel whose faith was true, and who depended on God through Elijah for confirmation that they were right and would prevail. I am no Elijah, but even so I tell you plainly that America is a nation of believers in truth and light, and they do not hold with attacking ordinary citizens for asking inconvenient questions, they do not approve of a media which literally digs into trash to find tools to use to slime one candidate while ignoring legitimate inquiries into another’s character and actions. They do not forget history and they do not embrace the replacement of family and the individual with the government and the collective. Americans who fear God, do not forget duty. Americans who trust God, do not mock sacrifice. Americans who follow Christ, are not impressed with men who would replace God with their own image. Therefore, when we are presented with a situation where one candidate appears to be clearly in line with God’s will and the other major candidate would oppose that will, we must first test our assumptions, and if they hold true we must stand with the one who follow the Lord’s will.
Democrats have long run on claims that they better follow the ideals of goodness, touting concern for the impoverished, the protection of minorities, and standing against greed. Barack Obama is running on basically those same themes. But in times of hardship, it is not McCain but Obama who would increase taxes and create higher unemployment by making it harder for smaller companies to hire and keep employees. It is not McCain but Obama who would increase opportunities for illegals in the U.S., who would principally take jobs held by minority citizens. It is not McCain but Obama who has taken hundreds of millions of dollars from private sponsors, whom he refuses to even identify, since the public would naturally wonder what sort of promises he made to get all that money.
It is not Obama but McCain who has suffered in service to his country. It is not Obama but McCain who has given generously to charity out of his own pocket. It is not Obama but McCain who has fought to protect the lives of unborn children. And it is not Obama but McCain, who when made aware of vicious comments about his opponent, immediately, directly and repeatedly called for his campaign to operate by ideals of respect and courtesy, asking hard questions but refraining from personal smears. These facts are undeniable, and make clear which sorts of character are present in each man.
There will come a day, I believe, when we will stand before the Lord and have to account for all we have done, said, and even thought. It seems to me that it would be far better for me to explain why I supported a man whose actions were aligned with the Lord’s teachings, than why I stood by and deserted him when the campaign became difficult.
My advice to us all is simple: Take it to the Lord in prayer, listen humbly for His answer, then act in faith and hope. We shall not fail to see a good result from that course.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
A Few Thoughts About the State Polls
Friday, I posted a review of where things stand right now in the state races. As I wrote at the time, I do not believe they will actually shake out exactly that way in the end, for a number of reasons, but the numbers are valid, even if they are a bit unexpected in places.
Some states have been big surprises for people, which in turn leads to polite requests to explain how I got there, as well as some less than polite suggestions that because the numbers are sometimes surprising, that makes them wrong. So, today’s article is a brief discussion about reweighting polls and the difficulties in finding the “true” numbers.
Let’s start with the fact that there are a lot of polls out there. Besides all the people doing national polls, there are over four dozen groups doing state polling. Some are professional and thorough, others much less so. The trouble is, people generally do not know how to read poll results and so what usually happens is that the polls are all thrown together and an average is taken and that’s what gets fed to the public as the true standings. The problem there, is that this is statistically invalid.
Statistics is a mathematical science, and opinion polls are some of the trickiest statistics to manage, since human behavior is sometimes erratic and even deliberately disruptive. As a result, effective polling is a work still very much in progress. You will hear some people say that polling has gotten very accurate, but that is not really true. As I have written many times, there are a lot of polls before the end of a political campaign which careen all over the place, making moves which appear to have no connection to the actual events. Worse, there are many instances where even the final poll from a respected group turned out to be very wrong. Take 1936, for instance. In that day, the most respected presidential opinion poll was the one done by the Literary Digest. The LD poll was mailed out to literally millions of people at a time, and had correctly predicted the results of federal elections in every year from 1916 to 1932. So, when LD picked Alf Landon to beat Franklin Roosevelt with 57% of the popular vote, using the results from over 10 million respondents (and to think, we are impressed when more than a thousand people answer a poll these days!), it was considered a very bad bit of news for Roosevelt. But a new company, formed by George Gallup, used a different system, using demographic weighting for his projections, predicted that FDR would win with 54% of the vote, even though his polls only consulted about a thousand people at a time. When Roosevelt did actually win with 61% of the vote, it was a stunning blow for the Literary Digest, and it launched the long career for George Gallup as a polling authority. It was, in fact, the Gallup Organization which first understood that a respondent pool had to be reweighted to match demographic norms in order to produce a valid reflection of the national mood.
But Gallup is a business, and polls discovered that reports which had no surprises, no drama, did not sell well to the media. So, while I cannot prove it, I find it intriguing that as Gallup’s revenues became significant, the polling trends became more of a roller coaster, including the odd claim of convention “bounces”. The problem of bounces, is that it mistakes enthusiasm by a party base following a party convention as an increase in voter support. This is not really the case, but the polling groups continue to report this false “bounce”, which always fades and a more nominal trend if seen again. I don’t want to sound cynical, but this is a case of what Dr. Heisenberg warned, that in observing human behavior, the observer often forgets that he too is affected by the event and this creates bias in his reports. Polling groups fall prey to media spin just like anyone else, and there are numerous cases where they missed the real trend because they were not looking for it. A good example of this can be found in the 1948 and 1976 elections, where the president in the White House was unpopular and tied to a scandal, and the polls reflected the media expectation that the president was doomed. In 1948 the polls wrote off Harry Truman, and in 1976 they wrote off Gerald Ford. The 1948 win by Harry Truman is political legend, but many people do not remember that Ford came back from a 33-point poll deficit to briefly lead the race, before narrowly losing to Jimmy Carter. Similar polling blunders have also occurred in 1980, 1988, and 2000 in presidential races.
My point for this article, is that if national polls by well-respected polling groups can blunder, we should hardly be surprised to find that state polls can also be inaccurate. The mistake made this year, is the assumption that when all the polls say the same thing, they must be right. However, if all the polls are making the same mistake, they can be in complete agreement yet still be completely wrong. That’s a bold statement to make, but it is the heart of this year’s polling condition.
Let’s go back to the national polls for just a moment again. Some polls show Barack Obama way ahead, while others show the race growing very tight again, in some places well within the published margin of error. My point here is not to say which is right, but to point out that the very fact that such a range exists is evidence of statistical invalidity. Gallup recognized this, which is why they have backed off from the “expanded voter” model they were using all summer but never before this year; they have finally recognized that the range of results cannot comply with the validity tests for a 95% confidence level (the 95% confidence level is the commonly used standard of opinion polls; in simple terms it promises reproducibility, that under the same conditions and method, results will be within the margin of error at least 95% of the time); evidence of collinearity has also been discovered, which further damages Gallup’s satisfaction with the model. So Gallup is actually publishing poll results from three different models using the same data, which is essentially the same thing as admitting they have no idea what is really the true condition. If Gallup is admitting this collapse of the system, however tacitly, then it may safely be assumed that all polling this year using non-historical models is statistically invalid. The reason they will not say so plainly, is because they do not want to have to pay back their clients and subscribers. To the point, however, knowing that there serious errors in the models used in national polls, it is reasonable to expect to see similar errors in the state polls, especially as these polls use smaller respondent pools, are taken less often by each polling group, and often involve small-budget operations which cannot afford to go back and validate past operations.
So what went wrong? In short, the political affiliation weighting. There are three schools of thought about party weighting. Some would argue that there should be no weighting. That runs into problems, however, when you consider that there are clearly places where strong political bias exists. For example, I could set up a poll which filled a lot of the criteria for demographic variety by polling a political party’s national convention. I could get both genders, all races, folks from urban and suburban locations, young and old, and so on. On paper it would look just fine, but of course such a poll would be a crock. Well, the same problems exist anywhere that you do not make sure to use historically valid weighting. That’s the reason why some of those polls are way out of line, they are not paying attention to ridiculously unbalanced political participation. The second group uses an even worse idea, what one poll calls “dynamic weighting”. They take the average response from a number of polls, assume that the average of those responses represents the “new” political affiliation, and weight future polls for a while by that weighting. To see how absurd that is, imagine if you had a series of polls in which black respondents were only 5% of the raw data. Would you conclude that the Census figures were wrong, and that the percentage of blacks in the United States was only 5%? Of course not, yet that is the rationalization used by the polls which play that stunt. A similar and even more ridiculous tactic is the subjective weighting used by some polls, a weight which has no basis whatsoever in past election participation, nor even in poll participation, but is artificially determined by the polling group’s management. Such behavior is every bit as dishonest, as if they had run short of respondents to reach a target pool, and they had made up responses to fill the rest. The third option, used by very few polls but it is the one defensible method, is to take actual political affiliation from previous elections, especially since it has been shown that the proportional split between democrats, republicans, and independents has been remarkably consistent for over forty years. When polls refuse to use the numbers known to be valid from a generation of actual elections, it should be no surprise when their projected results fail to match the actual election results.
For my analysis, I had to make certain assumptions. First, I had to assume that there would be no deliberate attempt to publish false reports or to mislead respondents. Second, I had to assume that the historical norms which have been valid for forty years would also be valid in 2008. And third, I had to assume that backing out the polls to get back to the original numbers and reworking the data using historical weights, would result in valid and useful information. The procedure was simple enough. I looked up the most recent state polls which also made their internal data available, then backed out the numbers to unweighted versions, then reweighted them using the historical value for each state, collected from CNN’s archive. That produced the results in Friday’s article.
Some of the states, however, were big surprises with the reweights. Vermont going to McCain? West Virginia within the Margin of Error? New York closer than Pennsylvania? Illinois less than six points apart? That just looked screwy, but I published them as the results displayed them. This is not to say that I believe the states will play out this way, it actually speaks to the quality of the polls. Remember, the numbers I used were not mypolling, but merely the reweighted results from the state polls themselves. There are two reasons which come to mind right away as to why the numbers changed so much. First, the state polls used some very weird party numbers in some states, and so the correction to historical bases made for very different results. It’s a basic rule of statistics that large variance lowers reliability, so the effect of changing part affiliation by a large number, in either direction, results in a less reliable result. It does not mean that the original published results were correct though, only that they skewed results to a degree that could not be corrected by simply backing out and using a more valid affiliation factor. Second, in past elections I have seen states that never panned out the way the polls expected. Bush did much better in Oregon’s 2004 polling, for example, than he did in the election results. The third reason is the simple fact that polls are sometimes just plain wrong, and there is not enough information for an analyst to demonstrate what the correct value should be. There are a myriad number of possible causes for polling error, including question wording, order, time of contact, RDD failure, training of poll takers (one reason the 2004 exit polls were so bad early on, was that many of the poll takers had received little training or supervision), influence by the sponsor, data corruption, and poor response rates.
It also helps to know a state’s history. New Hampshire, for example, is a bit contrarian to the rest of New England, which is one reason George W Bush took New Hampshire in 2004. In other states, the large proportion of independent voters means that the results at any one time may be much more volatile than expected. This is due to the effect of the undecided. To understand that, let’s say we have 1,000 voters, of whom 260 are independents. Let’s say that the candidates are split 50-50 among their party bases for the 740 voters, 370 to 370. If the independents are all decided voters, they will decide the election but each independent voter will have about 0.38% of the decision. If candidate A has a 50-voter advantage among the independents, he has 525 to 475 advantage or 52.5% of the vote. Now let’s say that we are polling the group, and now only 200 of the independents have made up their mind. That would mean that each independent voter has 0.50% of the decision. A 50-voter advantage now becomes a 495 to 445 advantage, or 52.7%. But if the 200 who have made up their mind are split, then the last 60 will make the difference and each of their votes is worth 1.67% of the decision, or 4 and one-third times what it was to start with. So whether or not you count the undecideds in a poll is important to its results, and we have not even touched on what a refusal to participate does to a poll.
Some states have been big surprises for people, which in turn leads to polite requests to explain how I got there, as well as some less than polite suggestions that because the numbers are sometimes surprising, that makes them wrong. So, today’s article is a brief discussion about reweighting polls and the difficulties in finding the “true” numbers.
Let’s start with the fact that there are a lot of polls out there. Besides all the people doing national polls, there are over four dozen groups doing state polling. Some are professional and thorough, others much less so. The trouble is, people generally do not know how to read poll results and so what usually happens is that the polls are all thrown together and an average is taken and that’s what gets fed to the public as the true standings. The problem there, is that this is statistically invalid.
Statistics is a mathematical science, and opinion polls are some of the trickiest statistics to manage, since human behavior is sometimes erratic and even deliberately disruptive. As a result, effective polling is a work still very much in progress. You will hear some people say that polling has gotten very accurate, but that is not really true. As I have written many times, there are a lot of polls before the end of a political campaign which careen all over the place, making moves which appear to have no connection to the actual events. Worse, there are many instances where even the final poll from a respected group turned out to be very wrong. Take 1936, for instance. In that day, the most respected presidential opinion poll was the one done by the Literary Digest. The LD poll was mailed out to literally millions of people at a time, and had correctly predicted the results of federal elections in every year from 1916 to 1932. So, when LD picked Alf Landon to beat Franklin Roosevelt with 57% of the popular vote, using the results from over 10 million respondents (and to think, we are impressed when more than a thousand people answer a poll these days!), it was considered a very bad bit of news for Roosevelt. But a new company, formed by George Gallup, used a different system, using demographic weighting for his projections, predicted that FDR would win with 54% of the vote, even though his polls only consulted about a thousand people at a time. When Roosevelt did actually win with 61% of the vote, it was a stunning blow for the Literary Digest, and it launched the long career for George Gallup as a polling authority. It was, in fact, the Gallup Organization which first understood that a respondent pool had to be reweighted to match demographic norms in order to produce a valid reflection of the national mood.
But Gallup is a business, and polls discovered that reports which had no surprises, no drama, did not sell well to the media. So, while I cannot prove it, I find it intriguing that as Gallup’s revenues became significant, the polling trends became more of a roller coaster, including the odd claim of convention “bounces”. The problem of bounces, is that it mistakes enthusiasm by a party base following a party convention as an increase in voter support. This is not really the case, but the polling groups continue to report this false “bounce”, which always fades and a more nominal trend if seen again. I don’t want to sound cynical, but this is a case of what Dr. Heisenberg warned, that in observing human behavior, the observer often forgets that he too is affected by the event and this creates bias in his reports. Polling groups fall prey to media spin just like anyone else, and there are numerous cases where they missed the real trend because they were not looking for it. A good example of this can be found in the 1948 and 1976 elections, where the president in the White House was unpopular and tied to a scandal, and the polls reflected the media expectation that the president was doomed. In 1948 the polls wrote off Harry Truman, and in 1976 they wrote off Gerald Ford. The 1948 win by Harry Truman is political legend, but many people do not remember that Ford came back from a 33-point poll deficit to briefly lead the race, before narrowly losing to Jimmy Carter. Similar polling blunders have also occurred in 1980, 1988, and 2000 in presidential races.
My point for this article, is that if national polls by well-respected polling groups can blunder, we should hardly be surprised to find that state polls can also be inaccurate. The mistake made this year, is the assumption that when all the polls say the same thing, they must be right. However, if all the polls are making the same mistake, they can be in complete agreement yet still be completely wrong. That’s a bold statement to make, but it is the heart of this year’s polling condition.
Let’s go back to the national polls for just a moment again. Some polls show Barack Obama way ahead, while others show the race growing very tight again, in some places well within the published margin of error. My point here is not to say which is right, but to point out that the very fact that such a range exists is evidence of statistical invalidity. Gallup recognized this, which is why they have backed off from the “expanded voter” model they were using all summer but never before this year; they have finally recognized that the range of results cannot comply with the validity tests for a 95% confidence level (the 95% confidence level is the commonly used standard of opinion polls; in simple terms it promises reproducibility, that under the same conditions and method, results will be within the margin of error at least 95% of the time); evidence of collinearity has also been discovered, which further damages Gallup’s satisfaction with the model. So Gallup is actually publishing poll results from three different models using the same data, which is essentially the same thing as admitting they have no idea what is really the true condition. If Gallup is admitting this collapse of the system, however tacitly, then it may safely be assumed that all polling this year using non-historical models is statistically invalid. The reason they will not say so plainly, is because they do not want to have to pay back their clients and subscribers. To the point, however, knowing that there serious errors in the models used in national polls, it is reasonable to expect to see similar errors in the state polls, especially as these polls use smaller respondent pools, are taken less often by each polling group, and often involve small-budget operations which cannot afford to go back and validate past operations.
So what went wrong? In short, the political affiliation weighting. There are three schools of thought about party weighting. Some would argue that there should be no weighting. That runs into problems, however, when you consider that there are clearly places where strong political bias exists. For example, I could set up a poll which filled a lot of the criteria for demographic variety by polling a political party’s national convention. I could get both genders, all races, folks from urban and suburban locations, young and old, and so on. On paper it would look just fine, but of course such a poll would be a crock. Well, the same problems exist anywhere that you do not make sure to use historically valid weighting. That’s the reason why some of those polls are way out of line, they are not paying attention to ridiculously unbalanced political participation. The second group uses an even worse idea, what one poll calls “dynamic weighting”. They take the average response from a number of polls, assume that the average of those responses represents the “new” political affiliation, and weight future polls for a while by that weighting. To see how absurd that is, imagine if you had a series of polls in which black respondents were only 5% of the raw data. Would you conclude that the Census figures were wrong, and that the percentage of blacks in the United States was only 5%? Of course not, yet that is the rationalization used by the polls which play that stunt. A similar and even more ridiculous tactic is the subjective weighting used by some polls, a weight which has no basis whatsoever in past election participation, nor even in poll participation, but is artificially determined by the polling group’s management. Such behavior is every bit as dishonest, as if they had run short of respondents to reach a target pool, and they had made up responses to fill the rest. The third option, used by very few polls but it is the one defensible method, is to take actual political affiliation from previous elections, especially since it has been shown that the proportional split between democrats, republicans, and independents has been remarkably consistent for over forty years. When polls refuse to use the numbers known to be valid from a generation of actual elections, it should be no surprise when their projected results fail to match the actual election results.
For my analysis, I had to make certain assumptions. First, I had to assume that there would be no deliberate attempt to publish false reports or to mislead respondents. Second, I had to assume that the historical norms which have been valid for forty years would also be valid in 2008. And third, I had to assume that backing out the polls to get back to the original numbers and reworking the data using historical weights, would result in valid and useful information. The procedure was simple enough. I looked up the most recent state polls which also made their internal data available, then backed out the numbers to unweighted versions, then reweighted them using the historical value for each state, collected from CNN’s archive. That produced the results in Friday’s article.
Some of the states, however, were big surprises with the reweights. Vermont going to McCain? West Virginia within the Margin of Error? New York closer than Pennsylvania? Illinois less than six points apart? That just looked screwy, but I published them as the results displayed them. This is not to say that I believe the states will play out this way, it actually speaks to the quality of the polls. Remember, the numbers I used were not mypolling, but merely the reweighted results from the state polls themselves. There are two reasons which come to mind right away as to why the numbers changed so much. First, the state polls used some very weird party numbers in some states, and so the correction to historical bases made for very different results. It’s a basic rule of statistics that large variance lowers reliability, so the effect of changing part affiliation by a large number, in either direction, results in a less reliable result. It does not mean that the original published results were correct though, only that they skewed results to a degree that could not be corrected by simply backing out and using a more valid affiliation factor. Second, in past elections I have seen states that never panned out the way the polls expected. Bush did much better in Oregon’s 2004 polling, for example, than he did in the election results. The third reason is the simple fact that polls are sometimes just plain wrong, and there is not enough information for an analyst to demonstrate what the correct value should be. There are a myriad number of possible causes for polling error, including question wording, order, time of contact, RDD failure, training of poll takers (one reason the 2004 exit polls were so bad early on, was that many of the poll takers had received little training or supervision), influence by the sponsor, data corruption, and poor response rates.
It also helps to know a state’s history. New Hampshire, for example, is a bit contrarian to the rest of New England, which is one reason George W Bush took New Hampshire in 2004. In other states, the large proportion of independent voters means that the results at any one time may be much more volatile than expected. This is due to the effect of the undecided. To understand that, let’s say we have 1,000 voters, of whom 260 are independents. Let’s say that the candidates are split 50-50 among their party bases for the 740 voters, 370 to 370. If the independents are all decided voters, they will decide the election but each independent voter will have about 0.38% of the decision. If candidate A has a 50-voter advantage among the independents, he has 525 to 475 advantage or 52.5% of the vote. Now let’s say that we are polling the group, and now only 200 of the independents have made up their mind. That would mean that each independent voter has 0.50% of the decision. A 50-voter advantage now becomes a 495 to 445 advantage, or 52.7%. But if the 200 who have made up their mind are split, then the last 60 will make the difference and each of their votes is worth 1.67% of the decision, or 4 and one-third times what it was to start with. So whether or not you count the undecideds in a poll is important to its results, and we have not even touched on what a refusal to participate does to a poll.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Where Things Stand
I try not to get into predictions, seeing as I argue so much that you cannot do that sort of thing accurately without the help of God, and while the Lord gives me many blessings for which I am grateful and try to note, I am pretty sure that foretelling the future is not in my package. However, I am still seeing a lot of talk about how we cannot win, or on the other hand how McCain is going to crush Obama, and I do have some information which could help put some perspective on those points.
Before I go into it, I will have to make clear that this projection is not based on any information not available to the public, and that the conclusions here – while I believe them to be sound – are my opinion of things right now, and there is a lot which could change between now and the end of the election (I use that phrase because early voting has begun in many places). It’s intended to correct what I believe in an inaccurate portrayal of the election due to over-weighting of democrats in the state polls, and reweights those polls according to the actual participation from 2004 and 2006.
First, the states where Obama’s lead is significant (10 points or greater), alphabetically:
Connecticut (19.71 pts)
District of Columbia (82.00 pts)
Delaware (14.84 pts)
Hawaii (35.86 pts)
Maine (10.00 pts)
Maryland (16.57 pts)
Massachusetts (14.285 pts)
Rhode Island (50.925 pts)
That’s 7 states plus DC, for 47 EV for Obama. Now McCain’s states where he has a 10 point lead or more:
Alabama (22.40 pts)
Alaska (25.73 pts)
Arizona (13.505 pts)
Arkansas (21.14 pts)
Georgia (14.34 pts)
Idaho (42.78 pts)
Indiana (12.28 pts)
Kansas (17.75 pts)
Kentucky (19.44 pts)
Louisiana (22.72 pts)
Mississippi (20.30 pts)
Montana (10.06 pts)
Nebraska (28.71 pts)
North Dakota (17.39 pts)
Oklahoma (36.81 pts)
South Carolina (11.42 pts)
South Dakota (22.02 pts)
Tennessee (25.39 pts)
Texas (25.305 pts)
Utah (49.475 pts)
Wyoming (48.14 pts)
That’s 21 states for 169 EV for McCain. Moving now to states where Obama has a lead of 6.00 to 9.99 points, what I call ‘double margin’ leads:
California (9.98 pts)
Michigan (9.21 pts)
Minnesota (7.82 pts)
Oregon (7.44 pts)
Washington (6.315 pts)
Wisconsin (9.87 pts)
That’s another 6 states for another 110 EV, bringing Obama up to 13 states plus DC and 157 EV. Now, the double-margin states for McCain:
Vermont (7.945 pts) yeah, I know that won’t really happen, but that’s what the numbers say
1 more state for 3 EV, bringing McCain’s total up to 22 states and 172 EV. That brings us to the ‘single margin’ states, where Obama has at least a 3.41 point lead (outside the 3.4 percent MOE), but no more than a 5.99% lead:
Illinois (5.53 pts)
New Jersey (5.01 pts)
New Mexico (5.46 pts)
New York (4.785 pts)
Pennsylvania (5.785 pts)
That’s 5 more states and 93 more EV for Obama, bringing him to 18 states plus DC and 240 EV. For McCain, he can add one more state to his tally as a single-margin state:
Ohio (4.380 pts)
That brings McCain’s total up to 23 states and 192 EV.
The remaining 9 states are within the margin of error:
Colorado
Florida
Iowa
Missouri
Nevada
New Hampshire
North Carolina
Virginia
West Virginia
There we are; McCain has five more states, but Obama has a 48-point electoral vote lead if things played out this way, with everything riding on how those last nine states are decided.
Playing a bit with the numbers, if McCain were to lose 5% of the support he has now, Iowa would move to clear Obama, Ohio would move to within the MOE, Virginia would move to clear Obama, creating a 260-172 Obama electoral lead. On the other hand, if McCain were to gain an additional 5% support, then Colorado would move to clear McCain, Florida would move to clear McCain, Illinois would move to within the MOE, Minnesota would move to within the MOE, Missouri would move to clear McCain, Nevada would move to clear McCain, New Hampshire would move to clear McCain, New Jersey would move to within the MOE, New Mexico would move to within the MOE, New York would move to within the MOE, North Carolina would move to clear McCain, Oregon would move to within the MOE, Pennsylvania would move to within the MOE, Virginia would move to clear McCain, Washington with move to within the MOE, and West Virginia would move to clear McCain, creating a 286-120 electoral advantage for McCain. As we have seen in past elections, a five-point movement in one week is very doable, so such movement in the remaining 18 days of this election must be considered well within the range of scenarios.
Before I go into it, I will have to make clear that this projection is not based on any information not available to the public, and that the conclusions here – while I believe them to be sound – are my opinion of things right now, and there is a lot which could change between now and the end of the election (I use that phrase because early voting has begun in many places). It’s intended to correct what I believe in an inaccurate portrayal of the election due to over-weighting of democrats in the state polls, and reweights those polls according to the actual participation from 2004 and 2006.
First, the states where Obama’s lead is significant (10 points or greater), alphabetically:
Connecticut (19.71 pts)
District of Columbia (82.00 pts)
Delaware (14.84 pts)
Hawaii (35.86 pts)
Maine (10.00 pts)
Maryland (16.57 pts)
Massachusetts (14.285 pts)
Rhode Island (50.925 pts)
That’s 7 states plus DC, for 47 EV for Obama. Now McCain’s states where he has a 10 point lead or more:
Alabama (22.40 pts)
Alaska (25.73 pts)
Arizona (13.505 pts)
Arkansas (21.14 pts)
Georgia (14.34 pts)
Idaho (42.78 pts)
Indiana (12.28 pts)
Kansas (17.75 pts)
Kentucky (19.44 pts)
Louisiana (22.72 pts)
Mississippi (20.30 pts)
Montana (10.06 pts)
Nebraska (28.71 pts)
North Dakota (17.39 pts)
Oklahoma (36.81 pts)
South Carolina (11.42 pts)
South Dakota (22.02 pts)
Tennessee (25.39 pts)
Texas (25.305 pts)
Utah (49.475 pts)
Wyoming (48.14 pts)
That’s 21 states for 169 EV for McCain. Moving now to states where Obama has a lead of 6.00 to 9.99 points, what I call ‘double margin’ leads:
California (9.98 pts)
Michigan (9.21 pts)
Minnesota (7.82 pts)
Oregon (7.44 pts)
Washington (6.315 pts)
Wisconsin (9.87 pts)
That’s another 6 states for another 110 EV, bringing Obama up to 13 states plus DC and 157 EV. Now, the double-margin states for McCain:
Vermont (7.945 pts) yeah, I know that won’t really happen, but that’s what the numbers say
1 more state for 3 EV, bringing McCain’s total up to 22 states and 172 EV. That brings us to the ‘single margin’ states, where Obama has at least a 3.41 point lead (outside the 3.4 percent MOE), but no more than a 5.99% lead:
Illinois (5.53 pts)
New Jersey (5.01 pts)
New Mexico (5.46 pts)
New York (4.785 pts)
Pennsylvania (5.785 pts)
That’s 5 more states and 93 more EV for Obama, bringing him to 18 states plus DC and 240 EV. For McCain, he can add one more state to his tally as a single-margin state:
Ohio (4.380 pts)
That brings McCain’s total up to 23 states and 192 EV.
The remaining 9 states are within the margin of error:
Colorado
Florida
Iowa
Missouri
Nevada
New Hampshire
North Carolina
Virginia
West Virginia
There we are; McCain has five more states, but Obama has a 48-point electoral vote lead if things played out this way, with everything riding on how those last nine states are decided.
Playing a bit with the numbers, if McCain were to lose 5% of the support he has now, Iowa would move to clear Obama, Ohio would move to within the MOE, Virginia would move to clear Obama, creating a 260-172 Obama electoral lead. On the other hand, if McCain were to gain an additional 5% support, then Colorado would move to clear McCain, Florida would move to clear McCain, Illinois would move to within the MOE, Minnesota would move to within the MOE, Missouri would move to clear McCain, Nevada would move to clear McCain, New Hampshire would move to clear McCain, New Jersey would move to within the MOE, New Mexico would move to within the MOE, New York would move to within the MOE, North Carolina would move to clear McCain, Oregon would move to within the MOE, Pennsylvania would move to within the MOE, Virginia would move to clear McCain, Washington with move to within the MOE, and West Virginia would move to clear McCain, creating a 286-120 electoral advantage for McCain. As we have seen in past elections, a five-point movement in one week is very doable, so such movement in the remaining 18 days of this election must be considered well within the range of scenarios.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Not Over By A Long Shot
One of the commenters at StolenThunder was a troll playing his wicked-witch routine. You know, “surrender now the polls all say its over give up give up boooooooo …”. All he needed were the flying monkeys.
Well, I beg to differ. Loudly. As usual. So, while it amounts to repeating myself, here are the reasons why this election remains very much undecided, with a great deal left to be hammered down:
First, in a nutshell. a mathematical certainty of any event involving human behavior cannot possibly exist prior to that event.
Next is the idea that opinion polls are predictive. By definition, they are not, in the same way that charting a stock's past performance and present price is in no way predictive of its future value;
Next, it needs saying again the the history of polls shows instability and unreliability. The elections of 1936, 1948, 1968, 1976, 1988, and 2000 in particular were very different from what the polls predicted just a couple weeks before the election, sometimes even closer than that;
Also, a lot of media is pointing to sites which post aggregates for projections. The problem there is that this causes collinearity, which invalidates the conclusions. It's a common error but a significant one;
Further, it has to be noted that neither Obama nor McCain's campaigns are behaving in a manner consistent with the published conditions, particularly with regard to Pennsylvania;
Next, it needs saying that the political affiliation weights being used in major polls in no way match the historical participation at either the national or state levels. Those polls which take reponse levels without weighting to demographic norms create a circular logic which is inconsistent with NCPP guidelines and documented election results;
And finally, conditions this year are so unstable that Gallup, who has longer experience than anyone in opinion polling, has tacitly admitted it has no idea where the race stands, as it has developed no less than three weight models to try to capture a sense of what's going on. However, the fact that each is at variance with the other two to a degree byond their stated margin of error, demonstrates error beyond the boundaries established for the published level of significance (5%), which is to say, the math fails a 2-tailed validity test, and ergo all results are invalid by definition.
Turnout – if one party clearly does a better job getting its base to vote, that party will clearly win. More than ever, your vote matters.
Independents – Right now, the Independent vote is essentially tied, with about 28% of Independents still undecided. Whoever wins the most of that vote will win the election.
Undecideds – Overall, 12.01% of voters are still undecided. It’s slowly resolving itself, but there will still be a large pool of voters waiting to be convinced just before election day. Finishing strong could make all the difference.
Well, I beg to differ. Loudly. As usual. So, while it amounts to repeating myself, here are the reasons why this election remains very much undecided, with a great deal left to be hammered down:
First, in a nutshell. a mathematical certainty of any event involving human behavior cannot possibly exist prior to that event.
Next is the idea that opinion polls are predictive. By definition, they are not, in the same way that charting a stock's past performance and present price is in no way predictive of its future value;
Next, it needs saying again the the history of polls shows instability and unreliability. The elections of 1936, 1948, 1968, 1976, 1988, and 2000 in particular were very different from what the polls predicted just a couple weeks before the election, sometimes even closer than that;
Also, a lot of media is pointing to sites which post aggregates for projections. The problem there is that this causes collinearity, which invalidates the conclusions. It's a common error but a significant one;
Further, it has to be noted that neither Obama nor McCain's campaigns are behaving in a manner consistent with the published conditions, particularly with regard to Pennsylvania;
Next, it needs saying that the political affiliation weights being used in major polls in no way match the historical participation at either the national or state levels. Those polls which take reponse levels without weighting to demographic norms create a circular logic which is inconsistent with NCPP guidelines and documented election results;
And finally, conditions this year are so unstable that Gallup, who has longer experience than anyone in opinion polling, has tacitly admitted it has no idea where the race stands, as it has developed no less than three weight models to try to capture a sense of what's going on. However, the fact that each is at variance with the other two to a degree byond their stated margin of error, demonstrates error beyond the boundaries established for the published level of significance (5%), which is to say, the math fails a 2-tailed validity test, and ergo all results are invalid by definition.
Turnout – if one party clearly does a better job getting its base to vote, that party will clearly win. More than ever, your vote matters.
Independents – Right now, the Independent vote is essentially tied, with about 28% of Independents still undecided. Whoever wins the most of that vote will win the election.
Undecideds – Overall, 12.01% of voters are still undecided. It’s slowly resolving itself, but there will still be a large pool of voters waiting to be convinced just before election day. Finishing strong could make all the difference.
The Secret Poll October 16 2008
Hello again, and time for another edition of the Secret Poll. The eleciton remains winnable by either John McCain or Barack Obama, the keys coming down to turnout, the independents, and just plain not giving up. Last night was the third debate between the presdiential candidates, but it will take at least 10-14 days for results to show up in the polls; anything showing up in the near future will be in response to prior activities and statements.
So, once again, here’s the recap of where I think the true numbers have played out, and where we are now:
August 31: McCain 41.77%, Obama 41.06%
September 7: McCain 42.45%, Obama 42.04%
September 14: McCain 45.71%, Obama 39.62%
September 21: McCain 44.48%, Obama 42.06%
September 28: McCain 42.73%, Obama 41.62%
October 5: McCain 44.09%, Obama 43.96%
October 12: McCain 42.68%, Obama 45.31%
McCain lost support among both republicans and independents, possibly a matter of voters turning away from a perceived loser, but also likely influenced by the economic news and the lack of a clear answer in the near future. That said, the 12.01% undecided portion makes this race still very much in doubt, although it is also clear that McCain is losing ground.
The keys, again, are the following
Turnout – if one party clearly does a better job getting its base to vote, that party will clearly win. More than ever, your vote matters.
Independents – Right now, the Independent vote is essentially tied, with about 28% of Independents still undecided. Whoever wins the most of that vote will win the election.
Undecideds – Overall, 12.01% of voters are still undecided. It’s slowly resolving itself, but there will still be a large pool of voters waiting to be convinced just before election day. Finishing strong could make all the difference.
So, once again, here’s the recap of where I think the true numbers have played out, and where we are now:
August 31: McCain 41.77%, Obama 41.06%
September 7: McCain 42.45%, Obama 42.04%
September 14: McCain 45.71%, Obama 39.62%
September 21: McCain 44.48%, Obama 42.06%
September 28: McCain 42.73%, Obama 41.62%
October 5: McCain 44.09%, Obama 43.96%
October 12: McCain 42.68%, Obama 45.31%
McCain lost support among both republicans and independents, possibly a matter of voters turning away from a perceived loser, but also likely influenced by the economic news and the lack of a clear answer in the near future. That said, the 12.01% undecided portion makes this race still very much in doubt, although it is also clear that McCain is losing ground.
The keys, again, are the following
Turnout – if one party clearly does a better job getting its base to vote, that party will clearly win. More than ever, your vote matters.
Independents – Right now, the Independent vote is essentially tied, with about 28% of Independents still undecided. Whoever wins the most of that vote will win the election.
Undecideds – Overall, 12.01% of voters are still undecided. It’s slowly resolving itself, but there will still be a large pool of voters waiting to be convinced just before election day. Finishing strong could make all the difference.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
One Obvious Reason the Polls Are Biased
I have said and will say again, that the opinion polls this year are simply wrong. They have fiddled with weighting and wording and various pieces of the demographics to create a false impression. You can either believe them or not, but as I have shown in the numbers for weeks now, believing the polls would be naïve at the very least.
But if the polls have been so biased, one may reasonably ask why that is so. I myself have commended groups like Gallup for a very professional job over many years, and even though I strongly disagree with the conclusions published by groups like CBS News, I applaud their open way of reporting at least some of the significant internal data. In fact, it is CBS News which reveals how this bias is operating, and how even well-intentioned pollsters can make major blunders in their assumptions.
I disagree with CBS News because of how it weights its respondent pool. And lately, what I have seen is a trend, verging on the ridiculous, of far too many Democrats in the pool to make any sense at all. This has been happening in both national polls and in state polls. For national polls, I mentioned some weeks back how Gallup managed to show Obama declining or staying steady in every political affiliation group over a week while McCain was steady or gained in every such group, yet Gallup’s headline claimed Obama was gaining support overall, a mathematical impossibility without manipulating the proportionate weights.
For the states, Survey USA’s polls also show a strong pro-Democrat bias, as shown in the following states (2004 and 2006 DRI splits come from actual elections, SUSA’s 2008 split is arbitrary):
Ohio – 2004 DRI split was 35%/40%/25%, 2006 was 40%/37%/23%
SUSA in 2008 is using 46%/33%/20%
North Carolina – 2004 DRI split was 39%/40%/21%, 2006 was 39%/40%/21%
SUSA in 2008 is using 42%/37%/18%
Virginia – 2004 DRI split was 35%/39%/26%, 2006 was 36%/39%/26%
SUSA in 2008 is using 39%/30%/25%
Pennsylvania – 2004 DRI split was 41%/39%/20%, 2006 was 43%/38%/19%
SUSA in 2008 is using 54%/35%/10%
Florida – 2004 DRI split was 37%/41%/23%, 2006 was 36%/39%/25%
SUSA in 2008 is using 40%/42%/16%
Survey USA is using weights which have no historical validity whatsoever in their state polling. “Garbage” is not too strong a word to describe their published results.
So what’s the deal? Something is happening to skew the polling groups’ perception of how they think voters will turn out, and in publishing invalid conclusions as they have, they are – intentionally or not – misleading the public about the election conditions. Since the reputation of the polling group is essential in attracting future business clients, it hardly seems reasonable to consider these blunders to be deliberate. Although I have written that polls fall into the unethical habit of selling a roller coaster story which they know is not accurate, polls do try to stay close enough to be plausible. One must conclude that they have come to believe their own hype, forgetting Heisenberg’s warning that observing a behavioral event not only influences the event, but also affects the observer as well.
So, in looking around for a cause, I found something all major polls have in common. Look at their headquarters locations:
Poll Headquarters
ABC News 77 W 66th St, #13, New York City, New York
CBS News 524 W 57th St, New York City, New York
FOX News 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York City, New York
Gallup 901 F St NW, Washington DC
Hotline 88 Pine St, 32nd floor, New York City, New York
IBD 12655 Beatrice St. Los Angeles, California
LA Times 202 W 1st St, Los Angeles California
Marist 3399 North Rd, Poughkeepsie, New Jersey
Mason-Dixon 1250 Connnecticut Ave #200, Washington DC
Newsweek 251 W 57th St, New York City, New York
NY Times 1 City Hall, New York City, New York
Pew 1615 L St NW, #700, Washington DC
Quinnipiac 275 Mount Carmel Ave., Hamden Connecticut
Rasmussen 625 Cookman, #2, Asbury Park, New Jersey
Reuters 3 Times Square, New York City, New York
Survey USA 15 Bloomfield Ave., Verona New Jersey
TIPP 690 Kinderkamack Rd, Oradell, New Jersey
WaPo 1150 15th St NW, Washington DC
Zogby 901 Broad St, Utica, New York
All of them deep in “blue” territory, many packed together up on the northeast corner of Obama territory. The only non-east-coast member of this group is the LA Times, located in the most liberal section of California, also solid blue in perspective. This is not a coincidence, all of the major polling organizations are based in locations where liberals are strongest and conservatives weakest, where ‘democrat’ and ‘republican’ take on meanings wildly different from the rest of the country. As a result, it is obvious that the prevailing culture in this limited part of the country has an undue influence on the focus applied by these polling groups. Democrats, especially liberal democrats, are over-represented in the poll reports because the culture of New York and Northeast America over-represents liberals. Republicans, especially conservative republicans, are suppressed in the poll reports because the culture at the polling groups’ headquarters suppresses republican opinion.
I learned long ago, that when a manager displays certain personality traits, they are soon reflected by the employees at that company. A relaxed manager who is confident tends to improve the mood of his staff, while a tense micro-manager creates the same attitude in his employees. Knowing this, it’s not at all hard to imagine the conversations between headquarters and the staff at these polling groups. They like Obama and expect him to win, so – what a surprise! – the polls they control reflect that same attitude.
Polls are useful for investigating trends and movement within a specific demographic, provided the polling group is ethical enough to publish its internals. But trusting them for an honest topline report amounts to trusting Obama’s campaign to honestly report how the election is really going.
But if the polls have been so biased, one may reasonably ask why that is so. I myself have commended groups like Gallup for a very professional job over many years, and even though I strongly disagree with the conclusions published by groups like CBS News, I applaud their open way of reporting at least some of the significant internal data. In fact, it is CBS News which reveals how this bias is operating, and how even well-intentioned pollsters can make major blunders in their assumptions.
I disagree with CBS News because of how it weights its respondent pool. And lately, what I have seen is a trend, verging on the ridiculous, of far too many Democrats in the pool to make any sense at all. This has been happening in both national polls and in state polls. For national polls, I mentioned some weeks back how Gallup managed to show Obama declining or staying steady in every political affiliation group over a week while McCain was steady or gained in every such group, yet Gallup’s headline claimed Obama was gaining support overall, a mathematical impossibility without manipulating the proportionate weights.
For the states, Survey USA’s polls also show a strong pro-Democrat bias, as shown in the following states (2004 and 2006 DRI splits come from actual elections, SUSA’s 2008 split is arbitrary):
Ohio – 2004 DRI split was 35%/40%/25%, 2006 was 40%/37%/23%
SUSA in 2008 is using 46%/33%/20%
North Carolina – 2004 DRI split was 39%/40%/21%, 2006 was 39%/40%/21%
SUSA in 2008 is using 42%/37%/18%
Virginia – 2004 DRI split was 35%/39%/26%, 2006 was 36%/39%/26%
SUSA in 2008 is using 39%/30%/25%
Pennsylvania – 2004 DRI split was 41%/39%/20%, 2006 was 43%/38%/19%
SUSA in 2008 is using 54%/35%/10%
Florida – 2004 DRI split was 37%/41%/23%, 2006 was 36%/39%/25%
SUSA in 2008 is using 40%/42%/16%
Survey USA is using weights which have no historical validity whatsoever in their state polling. “Garbage” is not too strong a word to describe their published results.
So what’s the deal? Something is happening to skew the polling groups’ perception of how they think voters will turn out, and in publishing invalid conclusions as they have, they are – intentionally or not – misleading the public about the election conditions. Since the reputation of the polling group is essential in attracting future business clients, it hardly seems reasonable to consider these blunders to be deliberate. Although I have written that polls fall into the unethical habit of selling a roller coaster story which they know is not accurate, polls do try to stay close enough to be plausible. One must conclude that they have come to believe their own hype, forgetting Heisenberg’s warning that observing a behavioral event not only influences the event, but also affects the observer as well.
So, in looking around for a cause, I found something all major polls have in common. Look at their headquarters locations:
Poll Headquarters
ABC News 77 W 66th St, #13, New York City, New York
CBS News 524 W 57th St, New York City, New York
FOX News 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York City, New York
Gallup 901 F St NW, Washington DC
Hotline 88 Pine St, 32nd floor, New York City, New York
IBD 12655 Beatrice St. Los Angeles, California
LA Times 202 W 1st St, Los Angeles California
Marist 3399 North Rd, Poughkeepsie, New Jersey
Mason-Dixon 1250 Connnecticut Ave #200, Washington DC
Newsweek 251 W 57th St, New York City, New York
NY Times 1 City Hall, New York City, New York
Pew 1615 L St NW, #700, Washington DC
Quinnipiac 275 Mount Carmel Ave., Hamden Connecticut
Rasmussen 625 Cookman, #2, Asbury Park, New Jersey
Reuters 3 Times Square, New York City, New York
Survey USA 15 Bloomfield Ave., Verona New Jersey
TIPP 690 Kinderkamack Rd, Oradell, New Jersey
WaPo 1150 15th St NW, Washington DC
Zogby 901 Broad St, Utica, New York
All of them deep in “blue” territory, many packed together up on the northeast corner of Obama territory. The only non-east-coast member of this group is the LA Times, located in the most liberal section of California, also solid blue in perspective. This is not a coincidence, all of the major polling organizations are based in locations where liberals are strongest and conservatives weakest, where ‘democrat’ and ‘republican’ take on meanings wildly different from the rest of the country. As a result, it is obvious that the prevailing culture in this limited part of the country has an undue influence on the focus applied by these polling groups. Democrats, especially liberal democrats, are over-represented in the poll reports because the culture of New York and Northeast America over-represents liberals. Republicans, especially conservative republicans, are suppressed in the poll reports because the culture at the polling groups’ headquarters suppresses republican opinion.
I learned long ago, that when a manager displays certain personality traits, they are soon reflected by the employees at that company. A relaxed manager who is confident tends to improve the mood of his staff, while a tense micro-manager creates the same attitude in his employees. Knowing this, it’s not at all hard to imagine the conversations between headquarters and the staff at these polling groups. They like Obama and expect him to win, so – what a surprise! – the polls they control reflect that same attitude.
Polls are useful for investigating trends and movement within a specific demographic, provided the polling group is ethical enough to publish its internals. But trusting them for an honest topline report amounts to trusting Obama’s campaign to honestly report how the election is really going.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Battlegrounds
Yesterday’s article explored the way state polls can verify the accuracy (or its lack) in national polls. But the reverse is also true; once we have a reasonable idea of how the national race looks, we can address where the states really stand in terms of the race. With just three weeks to go, it’s no surprise that a number of races have been decided, but what’s interesting are the number still to be decided. Now, I’m an accountant not a psychic, and I have been frustrated by the obvious fact that the campaigns’ inner circles have some delicious statistical information that nobodies like me are not allowed to glimpse, but here’s how I see the states playing out at this time.
Let’s start with the states which Senator Obama has locked up, that is, states which are extremely unlikely to be anything but blue come November 5:
District of Columbia (3 EV)
Hawaii (4 EV)
Illinois (21 EV)
Maryland (10 EV)
Massachusetts (12 EV)
New York (31 EV)
Rhode Island (4 EV)
Vermont (3 EV)
Sub-tally: seven states plus DC, 88 EV
Now, let’s look at the states which McCain has locked up by the same definition:
Alabama (9 EV)
Alaska (3 EV)
Arizona (10 EV)
Georgia (15 EV)
Idaho (4 EV)
Indiana (11 EV) [it may be close but it will be red]
Kansas (6 EV)
Kentucky (8 EV)
Mississippi (6 EV)
Montana (3 EV)
Nebraska (5 EV)
North Dakota (3 EV)
Oklahoma (7 EV)
South Carolina (8 EV)
South Dakota (3 EV)
Tennessee (11 EV)
Texas (34 EV)
Utah (5 EV)
Wyoming (3 EV)
Sub-tally: nineteen states, 154 EV
If we stopped there, that would indicate McCain was in much stronger shape than Obama, but that image would be misleading. To see why, let’s look next at states where the state is not locked up, but the odds are at least 7 to 1 in favor of one candidate.
Obama heavy advantage states:
California (55 EV) [32 to 1 odds]
Connecticut (7 EV) [49 to 1 odds]
Delaware (3 EV) [11 to 1 odds]
Iowa (7 EV) [7 to 1 odds]
Maine (4 EV) [7 to 1 odds]
Minnesota (10 EV) [24 to 1 odds]
New Jersey (15 EV) [7 to 1 odds]
Oregon (7 EV) [7 to 1 odds]
Washington (11 EV) [11 to 1 odds]
Sub-tally: nine states, 119 EV
Running total: sixteen states plus DC, 207 EV
McCain heavy advantage states:
Arkansas (6 EV) [7 to 1 odds]
Louisiana (9 EV) [19 to 1 odds]
North Carolina (15 EV) [7 to 1 odds]
West Virginia (5 EV) [7 to 1 odds]
Sub-tally: four states, 35 EV
Running total: twenty-three states, 189 EV
Do the math, and this leaves us with eleven states for our battleground. Here are those twelve states, and where they appear to stand with the state polls reweighted to match historical norms:
Colorado (9 EV) : Range is Obama +5 to McCain +7, probability is 55% Obama at this time
Florida (27 EV): Range is Obama +5 to McCain +8, probability is 65% McCain at this time [turnout especially crucial here]
Michigan (17 EV): Range is Obama +9 to McCain +3, probability is 82% Obama at this time
Missouri (11 EV): Range is Obama +3 to McCain +5, probability is 65% McCain at this time
Nevada (5 EV): Range is Obama +4 to McCain +8, probability is 70% McCain at this time
New Hampshire (4 EV): Range is Obama +11 to McCain +7, probability is 61% Obama at this time
New Mexico (5 EV): Range is Obama +8 to McCain +4, probability is 71% Obama at this time
Ohio (20 EV): Range is Obama +4 to McCain +6, probability is 57% McCain at this time [I keep hearing how McCain is much, much stronger here, but I have no hard data]
Pennsylvania (21 EV): Range is Obama +15 to McCain +3, probability is 80% Obama at this time [however, both campaigns are spending a lot of resources and time here, indicating things are very tight here]
Virginia (13 EV): Range is Obama +8 to McCain +10, probability is 67% McCain at this time
Wisconsin (10 EV): Range is Obama +10 to McCain +4, probability is 78% Obama at this time
If all eleven states fall in according to present probabilities, Obama collects six states and 66 EV, to reach twenty-two states plus DC and 273 electoral votes, while McCain collects five states and 76 EV, to reach twenty-eight states and 265 electoral votes. That’s good news for Obama, except for a few details.
[] First, all of the eleven battleground states are in play and could go to either candidate. Present conditions are very likely to change.
[] Second, in all of these states turnout will be very important, and in Florida, Colorado, and Pennsylvania, turnout will be the most important factor.
[] And last, there is a significant representation of independent voters in all of the eleven battleground states. And at last check, just about one-third of the independent voters have not yet decided if they will vote, and for whom they would cast their ballot.
Let’s start with the states which Senator Obama has locked up, that is, states which are extremely unlikely to be anything but blue come November 5:
District of Columbia (3 EV)
Hawaii (4 EV)
Illinois (21 EV)
Maryland (10 EV)
Massachusetts (12 EV)
New York (31 EV)
Rhode Island (4 EV)
Vermont (3 EV)
Sub-tally: seven states plus DC, 88 EV
Now, let’s look at the states which McCain has locked up by the same definition:
Alabama (9 EV)
Alaska (3 EV)
Arizona (10 EV)
Georgia (15 EV)
Idaho (4 EV)
Indiana (11 EV) [it may be close but it will be red]
Kansas (6 EV)
Kentucky (8 EV)
Mississippi (6 EV)
Montana (3 EV)
Nebraska (5 EV)
North Dakota (3 EV)
Oklahoma (7 EV)
South Carolina (8 EV)
South Dakota (3 EV)
Tennessee (11 EV)
Texas (34 EV)
Utah (5 EV)
Wyoming (3 EV)
Sub-tally: nineteen states, 154 EV
If we stopped there, that would indicate McCain was in much stronger shape than Obama, but that image would be misleading. To see why, let’s look next at states where the state is not locked up, but the odds are at least 7 to 1 in favor of one candidate.
Obama heavy advantage states:
California (55 EV) [32 to 1 odds]
Connecticut (7 EV) [49 to 1 odds]
Delaware (3 EV) [11 to 1 odds]
Iowa (7 EV) [7 to 1 odds]
Maine (4 EV) [7 to 1 odds]
Minnesota (10 EV) [24 to 1 odds]
New Jersey (15 EV) [7 to 1 odds]
Oregon (7 EV) [7 to 1 odds]
Washington (11 EV) [11 to 1 odds]
Sub-tally: nine states, 119 EV
Running total: sixteen states plus DC, 207 EV
McCain heavy advantage states:
Arkansas (6 EV) [7 to 1 odds]
Louisiana (9 EV) [19 to 1 odds]
North Carolina (15 EV) [7 to 1 odds]
West Virginia (5 EV) [7 to 1 odds]
Sub-tally: four states, 35 EV
Running total: twenty-three states, 189 EV
Do the math, and this leaves us with eleven states for our battleground. Here are those twelve states, and where they appear to stand with the state polls reweighted to match historical norms:
Colorado (9 EV) : Range is Obama +5 to McCain +7, probability is 55% Obama at this time
Florida (27 EV): Range is Obama +5 to McCain +8, probability is 65% McCain at this time [turnout especially crucial here]
Michigan (17 EV): Range is Obama +9 to McCain +3, probability is 82% Obama at this time
Missouri (11 EV): Range is Obama +3 to McCain +5, probability is 65% McCain at this time
Nevada (5 EV): Range is Obama +4 to McCain +8, probability is 70% McCain at this time
New Hampshire (4 EV): Range is Obama +11 to McCain +7, probability is 61% Obama at this time
New Mexico (5 EV): Range is Obama +8 to McCain +4, probability is 71% Obama at this time
Ohio (20 EV): Range is Obama +4 to McCain +6, probability is 57% McCain at this time [I keep hearing how McCain is much, much stronger here, but I have no hard data]
Pennsylvania (21 EV): Range is Obama +15 to McCain +3, probability is 80% Obama at this time [however, both campaigns are spending a lot of resources and time here, indicating things are very tight here]
Virginia (13 EV): Range is Obama +8 to McCain +10, probability is 67% McCain at this time
Wisconsin (10 EV): Range is Obama +10 to McCain +4, probability is 78% Obama at this time
If all eleven states fall in according to present probabilities, Obama collects six states and 66 EV, to reach twenty-two states plus DC and 273 electoral votes, while McCain collects five states and 76 EV, to reach twenty-eight states and 265 electoral votes. That’s good news for Obama, except for a few details.
[] First, all of the eleven battleground states are in play and could go to either candidate. Present conditions are very likely to change.
[] Second, in all of these states turnout will be very important, and in Florida, Colorado, and Pennsylvania, turnout will be the most important factor.
[] And last, there is a significant representation of independent voters in all of the eleven battleground states. And at last check, just about one-third of the independent voters have not yet decided if they will vote, and for whom they would cast their ballot.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Using State Poll Performance Metrics to Verify National Support
Last week in the comment section to one of my articles at Wizbang, reader Andrew Byler made an important observation regarding the over/underperformance of state polls. I think it got lost by most readers, so I am posting today’s article on that subject.
The more observant readers have noticed that the election depends more heavily on state results than the national tally, so they have repeatedly asked about what the state polls say. There is a range of opinion coming out of those polls, but one thing that should be observed, is that there is a clear relationship between the state and national performance. For example, in the state of Ohio, it has long been said that no Republican can win without it. That is the case, it turns out, because Ohio tends to track relatively close to national performance; if a republican does poorly in Ohio, he will likely do poorly across the nation. Over the course of election history, most states have demonstrated a tendency to favor the republican or democrat candidate, and by a certain range of support. This allows us to use the state polls to test the veracity of the national polls, and vice versa.
Let’s have a look at a few states to see how this plays out:
Let’s start with California. RCP’s average shows Obama ahead by 14.5 points in California. RCP also says Obama is ahead 7.1 points nationally. Looking at California, we see that on average, California favors the democrat candidate by an average of 4.0 points more than the national average, based on past election results. Accordingly, California’s poll numbers suggest that Obama’s real lead nationally is 11.1 points;
The next state is Texas. RCP’s average shows McCain ahead by 12.7 points in Texas. On average, Texas favors the republican by 7.0 points more than the national average, suggesting that McCain is leading the race, by 5.7 points.
Next up is New York. RCP’s average shows Obama ahead by 18.0 points in New York. On average, New York favors the democrat by 8.8 points more than the national average, suggesting that Obama is leading the race nationally by 9.2 points.
Next up is Alabama. RCP’s average shows McCain ahead by 23.8 points in Alabama. On average, Alabama favors the republican by 7.9 points more than the national average, suggesting that McCain has the national lead, by 15.9 points.
Next up is Florida. RCP’s average shows Obama up by 3.8 points in Florida. On average, Florida favors the republican by 2.8 points more than the national average, suggesting that Obama is leading the race nationally by 6.6 points.
Next up is Tennessee. RCP’s average shows McCain up by 15.7 points in Tennessee. On average, Tennessee favors the republican by 3.2 points more than the national average, suggesting that McCain is leading the race nationally by 12.5 points.
As you can see, there is no clear consensus from these results. Taken altogether, the 50 states project an Obama lead of 0.99 points right now. When the range of skewing is considered, the range could be anywhere nationally from Obama by 3.05 to McCain by 4.71 points.
Once again, the indications from the math are that the race is both close and fluid.
The more observant readers have noticed that the election depends more heavily on state results than the national tally, so they have repeatedly asked about what the state polls say. There is a range of opinion coming out of those polls, but one thing that should be observed, is that there is a clear relationship between the state and national performance. For example, in the state of Ohio, it has long been said that no Republican can win without it. That is the case, it turns out, because Ohio tends to track relatively close to national performance; if a republican does poorly in Ohio, he will likely do poorly across the nation. Over the course of election history, most states have demonstrated a tendency to favor the republican or democrat candidate, and by a certain range of support. This allows us to use the state polls to test the veracity of the national polls, and vice versa.
Let’s have a look at a few states to see how this plays out:
Let’s start with California. RCP’s average shows Obama ahead by 14.5 points in California. RCP also says Obama is ahead 7.1 points nationally. Looking at California, we see that on average, California favors the democrat candidate by an average of 4.0 points more than the national average, based on past election results. Accordingly, California’s poll numbers suggest that Obama’s real lead nationally is 11.1 points;
The next state is Texas. RCP’s average shows McCain ahead by 12.7 points in Texas. On average, Texas favors the republican by 7.0 points more than the national average, suggesting that McCain is leading the race, by 5.7 points.
Next up is New York. RCP’s average shows Obama ahead by 18.0 points in New York. On average, New York favors the democrat by 8.8 points more than the national average, suggesting that Obama is leading the race nationally by 9.2 points.
Next up is Alabama. RCP’s average shows McCain ahead by 23.8 points in Alabama. On average, Alabama favors the republican by 7.9 points more than the national average, suggesting that McCain has the national lead, by 15.9 points.
Next up is Florida. RCP’s average shows Obama up by 3.8 points in Florida. On average, Florida favors the republican by 2.8 points more than the national average, suggesting that Obama is leading the race nationally by 6.6 points.
Next up is Tennessee. RCP’s average shows McCain up by 15.7 points in Tennessee. On average, Tennessee favors the republican by 3.2 points more than the national average, suggesting that McCain is leading the race nationally by 12.5 points.
As you can see, there is no clear consensus from these results. Taken altogether, the 50 states project an Obama lead of 0.99 points right now. When the range of skewing is considered, the range could be anywhere nationally from Obama by 3.05 to McCain by 4.71 points.
Once again, the indications from the math are that the race is both close and fluid.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Highlights of the Palin Inquiry in Alaska
The loons have already gone off screaming down the road, but it’s important to know the facts of the panel press release. From the AP article:
Headline: Panel: Gov. Palin abused power, but firing was legal
“Monegan's firing was lawful, the report found, but Palin let the family grudge influence her decision-making”
Ok, what was that “grudge”? Moneghan had refused to take action against Trooper Wooten. So what did Wooten do that annoyed the Governor?
“Wooten had been in hot water before Palin became governor over allegations that he illegally shot a moose, drank beer in a patrol car and used a Taser on his stepson. The Palins said they feared for their family's safety after Wooten made threats against them.”
So before Palin was even Governor, Wooten was abusing his stepson, and so the threats he made against the Governor’s family would reasonably be taken seriously. Can’t really see why the democrats think this is unreasonable, actually.
So, the panel found she over-stepped authority. The loons are screaming for her arrest and jail. What could happen to Palin?
“Branchflower said Palin violated a statute of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Lawmakers don't have the authority to sanction her for such a violation, and they gave no indication they would take any action against her. Under Alaska law, it is up to the state's Personnel Board — which is conducting its own investigation into the matter — to decide whether Palin violated state law and, if so, must refer it to the Senate president for disciplinary action. Violations also carry a possible fine of up to $5,000.”
So, the worst she faces is a fine, and right now there is nothing to indicate the board is inclined to punish her at all.
So, the left trumped up a case, and when they finally got something that kind of, sort of helped them they went screaming exaggerations and some outright lies down the road. In other words, normal leftist behavior. But it sure reminds us of how much they fear Palin.
Headline: Panel: Gov. Palin abused power, but firing was legal
“Monegan's firing was lawful, the report found, but Palin let the family grudge influence her decision-making”
Ok, what was that “grudge”? Moneghan had refused to take action against Trooper Wooten. So what did Wooten do that annoyed the Governor?
“Wooten had been in hot water before Palin became governor over allegations that he illegally shot a moose, drank beer in a patrol car and used a Taser on his stepson. The Palins said they feared for their family's safety after Wooten made threats against them.”
So before Palin was even Governor, Wooten was abusing his stepson, and so the threats he made against the Governor’s family would reasonably be taken seriously. Can’t really see why the democrats think this is unreasonable, actually.
So, the panel found she over-stepped authority. The loons are screaming for her arrest and jail. What could happen to Palin?
“Branchflower said Palin violated a statute of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Lawmakers don't have the authority to sanction her for such a violation, and they gave no indication they would take any action against her. Under Alaska law, it is up to the state's Personnel Board — which is conducting its own investigation into the matter — to decide whether Palin violated state law and, if so, must refer it to the Senate president for disciplinary action. Violations also carry a possible fine of up to $5,000.”
So, the worst she faces is a fine, and right now there is nothing to indicate the board is inclined to punish her at all.
So, the left trumped up a case, and when they finally got something that kind of, sort of helped them they went screaming exaggerations and some outright lies down the road. In other words, normal leftist behavior. But it sure reminds us of how much they fear Palin.
Why McCain Is Still Able To Win
Thanks to everyone who has written in, I appreciate being able to make a difference. But I still hear a lot of worry and doubt from republicans about whether McCain can really win the election. This article is one reminder about why this race is still a very close race, and why you not only must not give up, but why you can make a big difference in this home stretch.
I wrote Friday about the fact that in seven of the last eighteen presidential elections – 38.9% - the polls were wrong by a big margin on the race, and so even a big lead for one candidate does not guarantee diddly. I have discussed the principles of statistics to show why the present polls have a critical flaw somewhere in their methodology, since the results are not in line with the confidence criteria. But there’s another way to take apart a poll to see whether it is useful as a barometer for opinion.
The widest lead enjoyed by Obama in the major polls Friday, was the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll. Gallup has been in the business longer than anyone else still doing polls, so it appears reasonable to consider Gallup’s reports to have solid credibility. The problem, of course, begins with the fact that so many other polls show the race being closer. But let’s look at that Gallup poll to see if we can learn from it.
Friday’s tracking poll had Obama up by ten points. But that lead is actually the result of two separate tracks, one for Obama and one for McCain. 51 to 41, so they say.
OK, that’s their starting number, the one they put in the headline. What drives those numbers, I wonder? I always want to see the internals, but Gallup has been getting sneaky, they release that data later, generally a week afterwards. The most recent detailed support by party I have is from the week ending October 5, when Gallup had Obama leading 50-42. I also note for reference that Gallup showed Obama leading 50-42 on September 28, 48-44 on September 21, and McCain leading 47-45 on September 14. The party affiliation for those dates should help us see where the changes came from.
Let’s start with Gallup’s base support for the race, conservative republicans for McCain and liberal democrats for Obama. Here’s how that looked:
Sep 14: McCain 95%, Obama 94%
Sep 21: McCain 93%, Obama 95%
Sep 28: McCain 93%, Obama 95%
Oct 05: McCain 94%, Obama 95%
Pretty comparable, noting to show a reason for changes. Next up, cross-party support, conservative democrats for McCain, liberal/moderate republicans for Obama:
Sep 14: McCain 17%, Obama 16%
Sep 21: McCain 19%, Obama 15%
Sep 28: McCain 19%, Obama 15%
Oct 05: McCain 16%, Obama 19%
Well, Obama got a boost going into October, but this is a pretty small group, hard to see it swinging the overall vote by the way we’ve seen. That leaves the independents:
Sep 14: McCain 38%, Obama 24%
Sep 21: McCain 31%, Obama 22%
Sep 28: McCain 31%, Obama 22%
Oct 05: McCain 32%, Obama 23%
McCain has a good advantage here, so that cannot explain the deficit. As I explained before, the only way this can be happening, is that Gallup has weighted the democrats more heavily, assuming that they will be a greater portion of the voter population this year than in past elections.
I have read from a lot of people who say this means that the polls are trying to lie to us, but that’s not valid, at least not in the case of professional polling groups who need to protect a reputation for accuracy and integrity. To understand how Gallup would honestly believe more democrats would be likely to vote, we have to infer that from evidence we are not shown.
Polls always release results from a respondent pool, but they do not tell you – although the NCPP says they always should – what proportion of people agreed to answer the poll. If a lot of folks refuse to take part in the poll, that’s an important piece of information. If Gallup is getting pushback from people they are trying to contact, they may be interpreting that in a way that may skew their political weighting.
Now one thing I do not buy, is the idea that Obama has 51% support. Not that he could not get that much in the vote, but if that is true it would mean that his support has risen six points in three weeks. What would cause that to happen? It’s not going to come from the democrats, he already had their support. It’s not that republicans would swing over and support Obama, the numbers tell us that and in any case, the parties are very partisan this year. And the independents have not changed in Obama’s favor, in fact he’s a point weaker with them than he was September 14. So what’s driving the bigger numbers? The only explanation is that more democrats in the poll are being counted, which means that Obama’s growth is artificial. In real terms, it means that republicans have become more passive, and the balance reflects a loss of McCain support on both tracks, his own support and Obama’s.
Why would McCain’s support drop? He’s come out weak in most conservative’s minds, letting Obama slide on outrageous lies. Republicans will still vote for him, but they will be less happy about it, and some may not vote at all. Also, while I think all three debates have been effective for McCain and Palin, it will take time for them to show any result, and republicans have to reinforce the messages of competence, intelligence, and sound judgment.
Why is this good news? I mean, this helps explain why Obama is ahead, but how does this help McCain win? Basically, it comes down to three key facts. First, if republicans get back into the fight, we can bring things back in line. It really is that simple, that is republicans match democrats at the poll, John McCain wins and Barack Obama goes back to being a first-term Senator. Second, it’s something we can control. Convincing republicans to get more active in supporting McCain is not all that easy this year, but it’s easier than convincing independents who are varied and stubborn, and it’s very good news that Obama has still not sealed the deal with a lot of democrats. Third, it must be said that in the present financial crisis, John McCain not only missed an opportunity, but fumbled at least twice in his answers. But Obama failed to capitalize on it, his answers have been no better and for many people only emphasized his inexperience and naïve understanding of the economy. If John McCain gets out and presses a clear, sound economic policy, he can turn this into a great advantage.
We are in the final weeks of a long, long battle. We are tired, bitter at the cost and some of our losses, but we can come out with a clear victory. It will be rough, these last 24 days, with all the dirty tricks from ACORN and the ACLU, all the lies in the media and hard-left interviews. But for all his advantages and biased allies, Obama has failed to close the deal. That door is open, and we can get there if we stick it out.
I wrote Friday about the fact that in seven of the last eighteen presidential elections – 38.9% - the polls were wrong by a big margin on the race, and so even a big lead for one candidate does not guarantee diddly. I have discussed the principles of statistics to show why the present polls have a critical flaw somewhere in their methodology, since the results are not in line with the confidence criteria. But there’s another way to take apart a poll to see whether it is useful as a barometer for opinion.
The widest lead enjoyed by Obama in the major polls Friday, was the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll. Gallup has been in the business longer than anyone else still doing polls, so it appears reasonable to consider Gallup’s reports to have solid credibility. The problem, of course, begins with the fact that so many other polls show the race being closer. But let’s look at that Gallup poll to see if we can learn from it.
Friday’s tracking poll had Obama up by ten points. But that lead is actually the result of two separate tracks, one for Obama and one for McCain. 51 to 41, so they say.
OK, that’s their starting number, the one they put in the headline. What drives those numbers, I wonder? I always want to see the internals, but Gallup has been getting sneaky, they release that data later, generally a week afterwards. The most recent detailed support by party I have is from the week ending October 5, when Gallup had Obama leading 50-42. I also note for reference that Gallup showed Obama leading 50-42 on September 28, 48-44 on September 21, and McCain leading 47-45 on September 14. The party affiliation for those dates should help us see where the changes came from.
Let’s start with Gallup’s base support for the race, conservative republicans for McCain and liberal democrats for Obama. Here’s how that looked:
Sep 14: McCain 95%, Obama 94%
Sep 21: McCain 93%, Obama 95%
Sep 28: McCain 93%, Obama 95%
Oct 05: McCain 94%, Obama 95%
Pretty comparable, noting to show a reason for changes. Next up, cross-party support, conservative democrats for McCain, liberal/moderate republicans for Obama:
Sep 14: McCain 17%, Obama 16%
Sep 21: McCain 19%, Obama 15%
Sep 28: McCain 19%, Obama 15%
Oct 05: McCain 16%, Obama 19%
Well, Obama got a boost going into October, but this is a pretty small group, hard to see it swinging the overall vote by the way we’ve seen. That leaves the independents:
Sep 14: McCain 38%, Obama 24%
Sep 21: McCain 31%, Obama 22%
Sep 28: McCain 31%, Obama 22%
Oct 05: McCain 32%, Obama 23%
McCain has a good advantage here, so that cannot explain the deficit. As I explained before, the only way this can be happening, is that Gallup has weighted the democrats more heavily, assuming that they will be a greater portion of the voter population this year than in past elections.
I have read from a lot of people who say this means that the polls are trying to lie to us, but that’s not valid, at least not in the case of professional polling groups who need to protect a reputation for accuracy and integrity. To understand how Gallup would honestly believe more democrats would be likely to vote, we have to infer that from evidence we are not shown.
Polls always release results from a respondent pool, but they do not tell you – although the NCPP says they always should – what proportion of people agreed to answer the poll. If a lot of folks refuse to take part in the poll, that’s an important piece of information. If Gallup is getting pushback from people they are trying to contact, they may be interpreting that in a way that may skew their political weighting.
Now one thing I do not buy, is the idea that Obama has 51% support. Not that he could not get that much in the vote, but if that is true it would mean that his support has risen six points in three weeks. What would cause that to happen? It’s not going to come from the democrats, he already had their support. It’s not that republicans would swing over and support Obama, the numbers tell us that and in any case, the parties are very partisan this year. And the independents have not changed in Obama’s favor, in fact he’s a point weaker with them than he was September 14. So what’s driving the bigger numbers? The only explanation is that more democrats in the poll are being counted, which means that Obama’s growth is artificial. In real terms, it means that republicans have become more passive, and the balance reflects a loss of McCain support on both tracks, his own support and Obama’s.
Why would McCain’s support drop? He’s come out weak in most conservative’s minds, letting Obama slide on outrageous lies. Republicans will still vote for him, but they will be less happy about it, and some may not vote at all. Also, while I think all three debates have been effective for McCain and Palin, it will take time for them to show any result, and republicans have to reinforce the messages of competence, intelligence, and sound judgment.
Why is this good news? I mean, this helps explain why Obama is ahead, but how does this help McCain win? Basically, it comes down to three key facts. First, if republicans get back into the fight, we can bring things back in line. It really is that simple, that is republicans match democrats at the poll, John McCain wins and Barack Obama goes back to being a first-term Senator. Second, it’s something we can control. Convincing republicans to get more active in supporting McCain is not all that easy this year, but it’s easier than convincing independents who are varied and stubborn, and it’s very good news that Obama has still not sealed the deal with a lot of democrats. Third, it must be said that in the present financial crisis, John McCain not only missed an opportunity, but fumbled at least twice in his answers. But Obama failed to capitalize on it, his answers have been no better and for many people only emphasized his inexperience and naïve understanding of the economy. If John McCain gets out and presses a clear, sound economic policy, he can turn this into a great advantage.
We are in the final weeks of a long, long battle. We are tired, bitter at the cost and some of our losses, but we can come out with a clear victory. It will be rough, these last 24 days, with all the dirty tricks from ACORN and the ACLU, all the lies in the media and hard-left interviews. But for all his advantages and biased allies, Obama has failed to close the deal. That door is open, and we can get there if we stick it out.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Pollitics
Pop quiz: What significant quality relevant to opinion polls do the presidential elections of 1936, 1948, 1968, 1976, 1980, 1988, 1992, and 2000 all have in common?
Answer - In each of these elections, the results predicted by polls either late in the summer or at the time of the election were significantly incorrect.
Just a reminder, that polls are an artificial attempt to capture a reflection of the public mood at a specific point in time, and are not trustworthy predictors, especially in an unusual condition. Very few people would dispute this year is unusual, on many counts.
Answer - In each of these elections, the results predicted by polls either late in the summer or at the time of the election were significantly incorrect.
Just a reminder, that polls are an artificial attempt to capture a reflection of the public mood at a specific point in time, and are not trustworthy predictors, especially in an unusual condition. Very few people would dispute this year is unusual, on many counts.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
State Poll Accuracy
I have spent a great deal of time analyzing faulty procedures in the national political polls for the presidential race this year. I have noted proofs of invalidity and the significance of party affiliation weighting in the published claims of such polls. But a number of people have observed that Barack Obama is also leading in a number of state polls, and they quite reasonably ask if those polls are valid or not. The chief difficulties in the state polls, are the facts that there are so many polling groups performing state polling (Real Clear Politics has reports from 49 different polling groups on state polls for the presidential race), there are different demographic norms for each state, and whatever is skewing the national polls is likely to be influencing reported state results as well. But while the past does not guarantee the future, I did find some interesting points in the 2004 state polls.
Not every polling group which is publishing polls this year also polled and published in 2004. And many of the polling groups are limited to only a few states, or just one. The Field Poll, for example, is only concerned with California. So I limited my analysis to nine major polling groups which conducted state polls in a large number of states in 2004. I was looking for polls which released polls just prior to the election, and which also released polls during the first two weeks of October of 2004. The results of that examination are presented here. I hope you will find them illuminating.
Survey USA
Survey USA conducted polls in 30 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 30 polls, in 8 state polls the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 5 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 23 states his support was under-estimated. In 5 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 10 points wrong. In 10 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 19 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 14 times, off by 5 points or more in 6 states.
Survey USA conducted polls in 30 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 30 polls, in 14 states support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 3 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 23 states his support was under-estimated, In 11 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 11 points wrong. In 6 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 19 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 14 times, off by 5 points or more in 7 states.
American Research Group (ARG)
ARG conducted polls in 7 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 7 polls, in 3 state polls the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 4 points wrong. In 0 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 6 states his support was under-estimated. In 1 state poll the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 3 points wrong. In 1 state Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 5 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 2 times, off by 5 points or more in 1 state.
ARG conducted polls in 49 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 49 polls, in 40 states support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 11 points wrong. In 2 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 45 states his support was under-estimated, In 23 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 9 points wrong. In 8 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 32 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 28 times, off by 5 points or more in 24 states.
Rasmussen
Rasmussen conducted polls in 11 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 11 polls, in 3 state polls the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 5 points wrong. In 0 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in all 11 states his support was under-estimated. In 3 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 5 points wrong. In 1 state Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 8 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 3 times, off by 5 points or more in 2 states.
Rasmussen conducted polls in 31 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 31 polls, in 19 states support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 10 points wrong. In 2 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 29 states his support was under-estimated, In 13 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 10 points wrong. In 5 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 23 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 12 times, off by 5 points or more in 9 states.
Mason-Dixon
Mason-Dixon conducted polls in 21 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 21 polls, in 11 state polls the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 7 points wrong. In 0 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in all 21 states his support was under-estimated. In 14 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 1 state Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 20 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 6 times, off by 5 points or more in 2 states.
Mason-Dixon conducted polls in 19 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 19 polls, in 11 states support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 7 points wrong. In 1 state Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 18 states his support was under-estimated, In 15 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 2 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 17 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 8 times, off by 5 points or more in 4 states.
Zogby
Zogby conducted polls in 13 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 13 polls, in 9 state polls the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 0 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in all 13 states his support was under-estimated. In 3 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 6 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 4 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 10 times, off by 5 points or more in 4 states.
Zogby conducted polls in 15 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 15 polls, in 12 states support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 8 points wrong. In 1 state Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 14 states his support was under-estimated, In 5 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 11 points wrong. In 5 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 7 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 10 times, off by 5 points or more in 8 states.
CNN
CNN conducted polls in 6 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 6 polls, in 4 state polls the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 5 points wrong. In 2 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 4 states his support was under-estimated. In 4 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 3 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 3 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 5 times, off by 5 points or more in 5 states.
CNN conducted polls in 11 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 11 polls, in 4 states support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 4 points wrong. In 2 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 7 states his support was under-estimated, In 6 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 2 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 9 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 9 times, off by 5 points or more in 3 states.
Research 2000
Research 2000 conducted polls in 9 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 9 polls, in 5 state polls the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 5 points wrong. In 0 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in all 9 states his support was under-estimated. In 0 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more. In 2 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 7 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 4 times, off by 5 points or more in 2 states.
Research 2000 conducted polls in 12 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 12 polls, in 11 states support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 7 points wrong. In 1 state Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 11 states his support was under-estimated, In 5 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 2 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 8 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 6 times, off by 5 points or more in 5 states.
Quinnipiac
Quinnipiac conducted polls in 3 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 3 polls, in 1 state polls the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 3 points wrong. In 0 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in all 3 states his support was under-estimated. In all 3 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 5 points wrong. In 0 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in all 3 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 1 time.
Quinnipiac conducted polls in 5 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 5 polls, in 0 states support for Bush was off by 3 points or more. In 1 state Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 2 states his support was under-estimated, In 3 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 12 points wrong. In 0 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in all 5 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 3 times, off by 5 points or more in 1 state.
Fox News
Fox News conducted polls in 4 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 4 polls, in 1 state poll the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 8 points wrong. In 0 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in all 4 states his support was under-estimated. In 2 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 5 points wrong. In 1 state Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 3 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 3 times, off by 5 points or more in 1 state.
Fox News conducted polls in 3 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 3 polls, in 1 state support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 4 points wrong. In 0 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in all 3 states his support was under-estimated, In all 3 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 5 points wrong. In 0 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in all 3 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 1 time.
SUMMARY
Even this brief examination reveals that the state opinion polls were often wrong, and often to a materially significant degree. In 2004, both Bush and Kerry's support were commonly under-estimated, but in several groups' work, all of Bush's support was underestimated and Kerry's support was much more likely to be over-estimated. The margin was also often wrong, and to a significant degree. State polls, therefore, are not proven to be a valid predictor of election results.
[ the dominant source for this examination was the archive of 2004 state polling results, provided by Real Clear Politics]
Not every polling group which is publishing polls this year also polled and published in 2004. And many of the polling groups are limited to only a few states, or just one. The Field Poll, for example, is only concerned with California. So I limited my analysis to nine major polling groups which conducted state polls in a large number of states in 2004. I was looking for polls which released polls just prior to the election, and which also released polls during the first two weeks of October of 2004. The results of that examination are presented here. I hope you will find them illuminating.
Survey USA
Survey USA conducted polls in 30 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 30 polls, in 8 state polls the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 5 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 23 states his support was under-estimated. In 5 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 10 points wrong. In 10 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 19 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 14 times, off by 5 points or more in 6 states.
Survey USA conducted polls in 30 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 30 polls, in 14 states support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 3 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 23 states his support was under-estimated, In 11 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 11 points wrong. In 6 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 19 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 14 times, off by 5 points or more in 7 states.
American Research Group (ARG)
ARG conducted polls in 7 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 7 polls, in 3 state polls the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 4 points wrong. In 0 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 6 states his support was under-estimated. In 1 state poll the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 3 points wrong. In 1 state Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 5 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 2 times, off by 5 points or more in 1 state.
ARG conducted polls in 49 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 49 polls, in 40 states support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 11 points wrong. In 2 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 45 states his support was under-estimated, In 23 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 9 points wrong. In 8 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 32 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 28 times, off by 5 points or more in 24 states.
Rasmussen
Rasmussen conducted polls in 11 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 11 polls, in 3 state polls the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 5 points wrong. In 0 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in all 11 states his support was under-estimated. In 3 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 5 points wrong. In 1 state Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 8 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 3 times, off by 5 points or more in 2 states.
Rasmussen conducted polls in 31 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 31 polls, in 19 states support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 10 points wrong. In 2 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 29 states his support was under-estimated, In 13 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 10 points wrong. In 5 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 23 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 12 times, off by 5 points or more in 9 states.
Mason-Dixon
Mason-Dixon conducted polls in 21 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 21 polls, in 11 state polls the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 7 points wrong. In 0 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in all 21 states his support was under-estimated. In 14 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 1 state Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 20 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 6 times, off by 5 points or more in 2 states.
Mason-Dixon conducted polls in 19 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 19 polls, in 11 states support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 7 points wrong. In 1 state Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 18 states his support was under-estimated, In 15 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 2 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 17 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 8 times, off by 5 points or more in 4 states.
Zogby
Zogby conducted polls in 13 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 13 polls, in 9 state polls the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 0 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in all 13 states his support was under-estimated. In 3 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 6 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 4 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 10 times, off by 5 points or more in 4 states.
Zogby conducted polls in 15 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 15 polls, in 12 states support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 8 points wrong. In 1 state Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 14 states his support was under-estimated, In 5 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 11 points wrong. In 5 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 7 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 10 times, off by 5 points or more in 8 states.
CNN
CNN conducted polls in 6 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 6 polls, in 4 state polls the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 5 points wrong. In 2 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 4 states his support was under-estimated. In 4 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 3 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 3 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 5 times, off by 5 points or more in 5 states.
CNN conducted polls in 11 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 11 polls, in 4 states support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 4 points wrong. In 2 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 7 states his support was under-estimated, In 6 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 2 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 9 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 9 times, off by 5 points or more in 3 states.
Research 2000
Research 2000 conducted polls in 9 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 9 polls, in 5 state polls the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 5 points wrong. In 0 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in all 9 states his support was under-estimated. In 0 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more. In 2 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 7 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 4 times, off by 5 points or more in 2 states.
Research 2000 conducted polls in 12 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 12 polls, in 11 states support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 7 points wrong. In 1 state Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 11 states his support was under-estimated, In 5 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 6 points wrong. In 2 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 8 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 6 times, off by 5 points or more in 5 states.
Quinnipiac
Quinnipiac conducted polls in 3 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 3 polls, in 1 state polls the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 3 points wrong. In 0 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in all 3 states his support was under-estimated. In all 3 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 5 points wrong. In 0 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in all 3 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 1 time.
Quinnipiac conducted polls in 5 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 5 polls, in 0 states support for Bush was off by 3 points or more. In 1 state Bush’s support was over-estimated, in 2 states his support was under-estimated, In 3 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 12 points wrong. In 0 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in all 5 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 3 times, off by 5 points or more in 1 state.
Fox News
Fox News conducted polls in 4 states just before the 2004 election. Of those 4 polls, in 1 state poll the published support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 8 points wrong. In 0 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in all 4 states his support was under-estimated. In 2 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 5 points wrong. In 1 state Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in 3 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 3 times, off by 5 points or more in 1 state.
Fox News conducted polls in 3 states during the first two weeks of October 2004. of those 3 polls, in 1 state support for Bush was off by 3 points or more, as many as 4 points wrong. In 0 states Bush’s support was over-estimated, in all 3 states his support was under-estimated, In all 3 state polls the published support for Kerry was off by 3 points or more, as many as 5 points wrong. In 0 states Kerry’s support was over-estimated, in all 3 states his support was under-estimated. The margin between the candidates was off from actual election results by 3 points or more 1 time.
SUMMARY
Even this brief examination reveals that the state opinion polls were often wrong, and often to a materially significant degree. In 2004, both Bush and Kerry's support were commonly under-estimated, but in several groups' work, all of Bush's support was underestimated and Kerry's support was much more likely to be over-estimated. The margin was also often wrong, and to a significant degree. State polls, therefore, are not proven to be a valid predictor of election results.
[ the dominant source for this examination was the archive of 2004 state polling results, provided by Real Clear Politics]
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
The Secret Poll, October 8 2008
Hello again, and time for another edition of the Secret Poll (in case you are wondering where that comes from, my daughter is a fan of The Secret Show – if you are a parent of an 8-year-old you know what that means, if not ahh well, nice to have the parents of grade-school kids getting to be special).
As I wrote last week, this election is winnable by either John McCain or Barack Obama, the keys coming down to turnout, the independents, and just plain not giving up. Last night, during the second debate and this morning covering the result I was seeing a lot of negative comments, some of them flat out quitters. That is just plain working for the other side and there’s no excuse for it. It’s whiny, juvenile, and downright un-American.
So, with that said, here’s the recap of where I think the true numbers have played out, and where we are now:
August 31: McCain 41.77%, Obama 41.06%
September 7: McCain 42.45%, Obama 42.04%
September 14: McCain 45.71%, Obama 39.62%
September 21: McCain 44.48%, Obama 42.06%
September 28: McCain 42.73%, Obama 41.62%
October 5: McCain 44.09%, Obama 43.96%
Both McCain and Obama lost a little support after the first presidential debate, but recovered a bit. The race is still very, very close.
The keys, again, are the following
Turnout – if one party clearly does a better job getting its base to vote, that party will clearly win. More than ever, your vote matters.
Independents – Right now, McCain leads in the Independent vote by 38% to 31%. That, however, means that 31% of Independents are stil undecided. Whoever wins the most of that vote will win the election.
Undecideds – Overall, 11.95% of voters are still undecided. It’s slowly resolving itself, but there will still be a large pool of voters waiting to be convinced just before election day. Finishing strong could make all the difference.
The Secret Methodology
As a rule, I despise aggregate reports, like CNN's "Poll of Polls", which has no statistical validity whatsoever. This is because an aggregate of polls makes a number of bad assumptions, such as the idea that all published polls are equally valid, equally accurate, and that somehow mashing them all together and then parsing them into an average will reveal the true state of things. I also despise the idea that daily "tracking" polls are as accurate as polls which come out less often. Oh, I hear the claims but really, which is more likely to be correct, the term paper a student puts two weeks into, or something thrown together overnight? Same thing, folks.
So anyway, what this 'secret poll' does, is it takes the party affiliation support from those major polls which properly report that information, reverse-engineers the weighting back to the raw data (or it just takes the raw data in the rare cases where that is provided, thank you CBS News), and reweights it according to historical affiliation norms. The results show what I believe is a far more accurate image of actual support and more importantly, the development over time of a base for a candidate. It's just a tool for general information, not something you should bet money on, but I think it's worthwhile. Take it as you will. - DJ
As I wrote last week, this election is winnable by either John McCain or Barack Obama, the keys coming down to turnout, the independents, and just plain not giving up. Last night, during the second debate and this morning covering the result I was seeing a lot of negative comments, some of them flat out quitters. That is just plain working for the other side and there’s no excuse for it. It’s whiny, juvenile, and downright un-American.
So, with that said, here’s the recap of where I think the true numbers have played out, and where we are now:
August 31: McCain 41.77%, Obama 41.06%
September 7: McCain 42.45%, Obama 42.04%
September 14: McCain 45.71%, Obama 39.62%
September 21: McCain 44.48%, Obama 42.06%
September 28: McCain 42.73%, Obama 41.62%
October 5: McCain 44.09%, Obama 43.96%
Both McCain and Obama lost a little support after the first presidential debate, but recovered a bit. The race is still very, very close.
The keys, again, are the following
Turnout – if one party clearly does a better job getting its base to vote, that party will clearly win. More than ever, your vote matters.
Independents – Right now, McCain leads in the Independent vote by 38% to 31%. That, however, means that 31% of Independents are stil undecided. Whoever wins the most of that vote will win the election.
Undecideds – Overall, 11.95% of voters are still undecided. It’s slowly resolving itself, but there will still be a large pool of voters waiting to be convinced just before election day. Finishing strong could make all the difference.
The Secret Methodology
As a rule, I despise aggregate reports, like CNN's "Poll of Polls", which has no statistical validity whatsoever. This is because an aggregate of polls makes a number of bad assumptions, such as the idea that all published polls are equally valid, equally accurate, and that somehow mashing them all together and then parsing them into an average will reveal the true state of things. I also despise the idea that daily "tracking" polls are as accurate as polls which come out less often. Oh, I hear the claims but really, which is more likely to be correct, the term paper a student puts two weeks into, or something thrown together overnight? Same thing, folks.
So anyway, what this 'secret poll' does, is it takes the party affiliation support from those major polls which properly report that information, reverse-engineers the weighting back to the raw data (or it just takes the raw data in the rare cases where that is provided, thank you CBS News), and reweights it according to historical affiliation norms. The results show what I believe is a far more accurate image of actual support and more importantly, the development over time of a base for a candidate. It's just a tool for general information, not something you should bet money on, but I think it's worthwhile. Take it as you will. - DJ
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Bwa Ha Ha
Lorie pointed out that CBS has a new poll, so I went and had a look, and it’s funnier than the comics. Sure, I generally like CBS because they have a consistent methodology, and because they always publish their questions and party breakdown. This allows me to reverse their calculations and see how they got their results.
First off, it’s more fun if you play along at home, so here’s the poll address.
OK, now let’s keep it simple and start with page 14, the last page. Let’s read together the last two sentences in that poll:
”Every registered voter is included in the likely voter model, and is assigned a probability of voting, which is used to calculate the likely voter results. The sum of these probabilities is the effective number of likely voters.”
Pfft-pfft-bfft-bwaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
In those two sentences, the folks at CBS are admitting that they MADE UP THEIR STATISTICS ON LIKELY VOTERS!!! There are no real voters who were asked if they were likely to vote in this poll – not even one! Remember, these polls are how the media tells us what they claim we are thinking, and here at the end is a disclaimer saying that at least a portion of their major findings is fabricated. Just something to keep in mind as we move along, nothing to see here, move along.
Also on page 14, just above that comedy about CBS making up their ‘likely voter’ database, is the list of respondents. Let’s mark that, and total up the participants and their proportions:
...................... Unweighted ....... Weighted
Total Respondents .... 957
Registered Voters .... 875 ................ 821
Republicans (RV) ..... 248 (28.3%) ...... 233 (28.4%)
Democrats (RV) ....... 320 (36.6%)....... 311 (37.9%)
Independents (RV)..... 307 (35.1%)....... 277 (33.7%)
Why is this important? Because let’s go look at page 8 and look at the support by party affiliation:
...................Obama ......... McCain
Republicans........ 7%............ 86%
Democrats ......... 85%........... 10%
Independents ...... 39%........... 44%
CBS released a poll headline, remember, saying Obama was leading McCain 47% to 43% among Registered Voters. So let’s apply the math of the weighting and see how they did:
Obama:
Republicans: 7% at .284 = 1.99%
Democrats: 85% at .379 = 32.22%
Independents: 39% at .337 = 13.14%
Total : 1.99 + 32.22 + 13.14 = 47.35%
McCain:
Republicans: 86% at .284 = 24.42%
Democrats: 10% at .379 = 3.79%
Independents: 44% at .337 = 14.83%
Total: 24.42 + 3.79 + 14.83 = 43.04%
OK, now we have to stop here and ask if those number make sense. Well, for one thing, I like that CBS tells us the exact unweighted numbers. It tells us, for example, that 89.55% of the people they reached said they were registered to vote, and we know that the poll was done over the weekend by telephone, and that the total respondent pool was below 1,000 people. Looking at the detail on page 8, we also know that urban areas figured heavily in the poll (look at the white vote, and the conservative/moderate/liberal breakdown of support). By the way, the claim at the bottom of the page by CBS that the poll has an overall margin of error of only “three percent” is not statistically true, as there are less than 900 valid respondents; the actual MOE would be 3.5 percent.
Why do I think the actual numbers are better for McCain? Let’s look again at those specific supports by party affiliation and reline them.
BASE SUPPORT (Republicans for McCain, Democrats for Obama)
McCain 86%, Obama 85%, McCain +1
COUNTER-PARTY SUPPORT (Republicans for Obama, Democrats for McCain)
McCain 10%, Obama 7%, McCain +3
INDEPENDENT SUPPORT
McCain 44%, Obama 39%, McCain +5
Huh.
Well, there’s one way that Obama comes out on top and CBS told you on page 14. But what happens if we use the historical party affiliation from, say, the last federal election in 2006? Let’s see:
Democrats: 38.5%
Republicans: 35.5%
Independents 26.0%
Obama:
Democrats: 85% at .385 = 32.73%
Republicans: 7% at .355 = 2.49%
Independents: 39% at .260 = 10.14%
Total : 32.73 + 2.49 + 10.14 = 45.36%
McCain:
Democrats: 10% at .385 = 3.85%
Republicans: 86% at .355 = 30.53%
Independents: 44% at .260 = 11.44%
Total: 3.85 + 30.53 + 11.44 = 45.82%
Well within the margin of error, to be sure, but a very different picture, also plainly to be seen.
The lessons are the same as always: Pay attention to the details, note trends within polls rather than aggregating disparate poll reports, and never forget that every media outlet is selling a story, and every poll is bought by someone for a specific purpose. The election is something far different from any poll, and we must not let ourselves be dismayed or misled by what anyone tells us in the media.
First off, it’s more fun if you play along at home, so here’s the poll address.
OK, now let’s keep it simple and start with page 14, the last page. Let’s read together the last two sentences in that poll:
”Every registered voter is included in the likely voter model, and is assigned a probability of voting, which is used to calculate the likely voter results. The sum of these probabilities is the effective number of likely voters.”
Pfft-pfft-bfft-bwaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
In those two sentences, the folks at CBS are admitting that they MADE UP THEIR STATISTICS ON LIKELY VOTERS!!! There are no real voters who were asked if they were likely to vote in this poll – not even one! Remember, these polls are how the media tells us what they claim we are thinking, and here at the end is a disclaimer saying that at least a portion of their major findings is fabricated. Just something to keep in mind as we move along, nothing to see here, move along.
Also on page 14, just above that comedy about CBS making up their ‘likely voter’ database, is the list of respondents. Let’s mark that, and total up the participants and their proportions:
...................... Unweighted ....... Weighted
Total Respondents .... 957
Registered Voters .... 875 ................ 821
Republicans (RV) ..... 248 (28.3%) ...... 233 (28.4%)
Democrats (RV) ....... 320 (36.6%)....... 311 (37.9%)
Independents (RV)..... 307 (35.1%)....... 277 (33.7%)
Why is this important? Because let’s go look at page 8 and look at the support by party affiliation:
...................Obama ......... McCain
Republicans........ 7%............ 86%
Democrats ......... 85%........... 10%
Independents ...... 39%........... 44%
CBS released a poll headline, remember, saying Obama was leading McCain 47% to 43% among Registered Voters. So let’s apply the math of the weighting and see how they did:
Obama:
Republicans: 7% at .284 = 1.99%
Democrats: 85% at .379 = 32.22%
Independents: 39% at .337 = 13.14%
Total : 1.99 + 32.22 + 13.14 = 47.35%
McCain:
Republicans: 86% at .284 = 24.42%
Democrats: 10% at .379 = 3.79%
Independents: 44% at .337 = 14.83%
Total: 24.42 + 3.79 + 14.83 = 43.04%
OK, now we have to stop here and ask if those number make sense. Well, for one thing, I like that CBS tells us the exact unweighted numbers. It tells us, for example, that 89.55% of the people they reached said they were registered to vote, and we know that the poll was done over the weekend by telephone, and that the total respondent pool was below 1,000 people. Looking at the detail on page 8, we also know that urban areas figured heavily in the poll (look at the white vote, and the conservative/moderate/liberal breakdown of support). By the way, the claim at the bottom of the page by CBS that the poll has an overall margin of error of only “three percent” is not statistically true, as there are less than 900 valid respondents; the actual MOE would be 3.5 percent.
Why do I think the actual numbers are better for McCain? Let’s look again at those specific supports by party affiliation and reline them.
BASE SUPPORT (Republicans for McCain, Democrats for Obama)
McCain 86%, Obama 85%, McCain +1
COUNTER-PARTY SUPPORT (Republicans for Obama, Democrats for McCain)
McCain 10%, Obama 7%, McCain +3
INDEPENDENT SUPPORT
McCain 44%, Obama 39%, McCain +5
Huh.
Well, there’s one way that Obama comes out on top and CBS told you on page 14. But what happens if we use the historical party affiliation from, say, the last federal election in 2006? Let’s see:
Democrats: 38.5%
Republicans: 35.5%
Independents 26.0%
Obama:
Democrats: 85% at .385 = 32.73%
Republicans: 7% at .355 = 2.49%
Independents: 39% at .260 = 10.14%
Total : 32.73 + 2.49 + 10.14 = 45.36%
McCain:
Democrats: 10% at .385 = 3.85%
Republicans: 86% at .355 = 30.53%
Independents: 44% at .260 = 11.44%
Total: 3.85 + 30.53 + 11.44 = 45.82%
Well within the margin of error, to be sure, but a very different picture, also plainly to be seen.
The lessons are the same as always: Pay attention to the details, note trends within polls rather than aggregating disparate poll reports, and never forget that every media outlet is selling a story, and every poll is bought by someone for a specific purpose. The election is something far different from any poll, and we must not let ourselves be dismayed or misled by what anyone tells us in the media.
Monday, October 06, 2008
No Article Today
I spent all day with a judge and a number of lying lawyers (is that redundant?). Any post I could produce would be unsuitable for civil discourse.
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