Madness To Their Method
The latest Newsweek poll shows Democrats are closing the enthusiasm gap. It's certainly possible. Voters coming home to the base as the election nears is a common phenomenon. I guess we'll find out soon enough. (Or will we? Expectations for Republicans are so big that anything short of a blowout can be spun in the other direction.)
Trouble is, of all the major polls, I find Newsweek the hardest to buy. For years now, whenever I hear of an outlier, it's Newsweek. For example, the latest takes on the generic Congressional vote have everyone showing the Republican ahead by 7 to 11 points. Except Newsweek, which is the only poll showing Democrats ahead. It was taken a few days later than the others, but did the entire nation shift that quickly?
I don't know what methodology they use, but maybe someone ought to look into it.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:14 AM
1 Comments:
I think that the FiveThirtyEight blog at the NYTimes website is the new gold standard in poll analysis.
They have extensive analyses based on weighted averages of the polls, and they keep records of which individual polls are erratic, or are biased in a consistent manner. The latter can be used after the bias is subtracted. Then all polls are combined, with weights based on their historic reliability.
Of course, since every poll is taken on a different day, they even have detailed analyses like this one. I'm still rooting for Carly, but not very optimistic.
Post a Comment
<< Home