McCain now leads according to Zogby

[nageov3t]

it's likely an outlier... we'll know pretty early on Tuesday. I agree with Fern, if NC goes Obama, it's probably the start of a landslide.

 

[jonks]

uh, yeah.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com...10/trick-or-treat.html

Trick or Treat

Do you spook easily?

Judging by the response in my inbox, some of you do.

Matt Drudge is touting the results of a one-day sample in a Zogby poll, which apparently showed John McCain ahead by 1 point.

There are a couple of significant problems with this.

Firstly, there is a reason that pollsters include multiple days of interviewing in their tracking polls; a one-day sample is extremely volatile, and have very high margins for error.

Secondly, the Zogby polls have been particularly volatile, because he uses nonsensical party ID weightings, which mean that his weighting process involves making numbers doing naughty things that they usually don't like to do.

Thirdly, Zogby polls are generally a lagging rather than a leading indicator. This is because he splits his interviewing period over two days; most of the interviews that were conducted in this sample took place on Thursday night, with a few this afternoon. The reason this is significant is because lots of other pollsters were in the field on Thursday night, and most of them evidently showed good numbers for Obama, as he improved his standing in 6 of the 7 non-Zogby trackers.

Finally, there was no favorable news for McCain to drive these numbers. Polls don't move without a reason (or at least they don't move much).

Never mind that a one point swing in a national snapshot poll has no relevance in the EV map where Obama needs merely one of 7 swing states in which he's even or ahead to win the election. yawn.

 

[Stoneburner]

Profjohn is a fuckin moron. Zogby called ohio and fl for kerry. And he's been atrocious all year. Ras and Gallup both moved towards obama today. Those two are much more steady.

 

[alien42]

i love the smell of desperate Republicans

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Obama will be the next president, end of story.

 

[Farang]

Regardless of what weight you put in polls, we need to remember that a lot of folks have already voted. If we trust polls 100% that means McCain is going to need to lead more than 1 point to catch up to Obama.

 

[L00PY]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
And for anyone who does not under the polls you should know that they are all about party make up and how they are balanced.

Nearly every poll shows McCain and Obama getting the same number of Democrat, Republicans and independents. The only difference between the polls is what the pollster guesses will be the election day make up. Change the make up by a point and you change the out come by a point.

Wow. You had better fill the pollsters in on that fact, because they're not doing what you say.

Zogby weights heavily based on exit polling makeup from the most recent election. In this case he uses the 2004 election results. Research 2000 does something completely different with a fixed +9 democrat weighting. Rasmussen weights based on party identification. Gallup follows the NPCC guidelines for weighting, as do Harris, the Pew Research Center, and others.

So some polls do the same exact thing. Others do their own thing. It'd be foolish to claim it's the only difference is in how many Democrats, Republicans, and Independents pollsters think will show up. It'd be even more foolish to claim that changing the make up one one poll by a point would change the out come by a point.

Different pollsters use different sampling methodologies. A Zogby poll that uses a mix of online polls and purchased lists will be different from a Harris poll that's phone only which in turn will be different from a Gallup that includes a cell sample too. The sampling period can have a huge effect too, with rolling 5-day averages differing tremendously from single day samples.

And you also have basic noise. Pretty much for any poll out there, there's a 1-in-20 chance the real answer is outside that +/- 3.1% margin of error for a sample of 1,000.

Of course all that aside, there's one simple explanation for Zogby's poll numbers -- he wants the press coverage. Announcing polling figures completely different from everyone else's means a lot of news coverage with his poll name attached. I fully expect him to release another one in-line with everyone else closer to the election just so that his final prediction doesn't totally miss the mark.

 

[Duddy]

Originally posted by: alien42
i love the smell of desperate Republicans

Kinda reminds me of a fresh oak campfire in the winter. So relaxing...


I'm just glad I don't have to worry anymore. Unless President Obama get's caught eating a jewish baby, we are fine.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: alien42
i love the smell of desperate Republicans

Kinda reminds me of a fresh oak campfire in the winter. So relaxing...


I'm just glad I don't have to worry anymore. Unless President Obama get's caught eating a jewish baby, we are fine.

He might eat a Christian baby since hes a muslim.

 

[Duddy]

Originally posted by: WaTaGuMp

Originally posted by: Duddy

Originally posted by: alien42
i love the smell of desperate Republicans

Kinda reminds me of a fresh oak campfire in the winter. So relaxing...


I'm just glad I don't have to worry anymore. Unless President Obama get's caught eating a jewish baby, we are fine.

He might eat a Christian baby since hes a muslim.

Or make his daughters work in a factory cause he's a commie.

 

[charrison]

The polls are interesting this year. No doubt it is not a good year republicans, however the polls have been far to close to call for either party. Polls are all over the place from Obama +10 to Obama within the margin of error. And in all polls there is still up to 10% undecided. For this reason, the polls are basically meaningless.

It appears the the polling people have no clue how to model this election....

 

[L00PY]

And on the odd chance anyone is actually interested in finding out more about polls, the NCPP has a very nice page that lists 20 questions a journalist ought to ask before reporting on poll results. I suspect that Zogby would fail to satisfactorily answer many of these questions.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: L00PY
And on the odd chance anyone is actually interested in finding out more about polls, the NCPP has a very nice page that lists 20 questions a journalist ought to ask before reporting on poll results. I suspect that Zogby would fail to satisfactorily answer many of these questions.

I suspect most of them would as most polling people dont release their internals...

 

[Mani]

Zogby polls are utter garbage. Not even worth a moment's consideration.

 

[cubby1223]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Cannot trust the polls as much as you can trust a stripper pole to be germ free.

Wait... so you're saying I shouldn't lick the stripper pole?

 

[Engineer]

Here is the 3 day poll from Zogby. Looks like 5% lead but did swing 2 points from yesterday.

Three-Day

Tracking Poll
10-31
10-30
10-29
10-28
10-27

Obama
49.1%
50.1%
50.2%
49.1%
49.0%

McCain
44.1%
43.1%
43.3%
44.4%
44.7%

Others/Not sure
6.8%
6.8%
6.5%
6.5%
6.3%

 

[Duwelon]

Originally posted by: Robor

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
If this election turns out to be anything other than a pro- Obama blowout, it will condemn the culture and mentality of America in a very profound way.

And why is that?

Do you even read your threads before you post them?

He asked a legitimate question because Jhhnn's statement only makes sense for those on the left, embroiled enough in their negative outlook to think their lives hinge entirely on who is president.

 

[chess9]

Originally posted by: senseamp
Point is Democrats should not be complacent, and need to get out there and finish the job.

Yes. The only poll that counts is Tuesday, which is why I'll be at my local school voting Tuesday at 8 a.m.

-Robert

 

[T2T III]

Originally posted by: chess9

Originally posted by: senseamp
Point is Democrats should not be complacent, and need to get out there and finish the job.

Yes. The only poll that counts is Tuesday, which is why I'll be at my local school voting Tuesday at 8 a.m.

-Robert

8:00 a.m.? You should get there early - 6:00 a.m., if that's when they open.

 

[StageLeft]

popular != electoral. The election was over a month ago. It was over a week ago. It was over yesterday. It's over today and it will truly be over on the 4th

 

[Engineer]

Watching RCP this morning showed a 0.2 drop for Obama when the Zogby poll was released (down to 6.3% lead). It went up by 0.1 when the Rasmussen poll was released (up to 6.4%). Seems all polls are not going in the Zogby direction with the general "average" actually going up over the last two days.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Engineer
Watching RCP this morning showed a 0.2 drop for Obama when the Zogby poll was released (down to 6.3% lead). It went up by 0.1 when the Rasmussen poll was released (up to 6.4%). Seems all polls are not going in the Zogby direction with the general "average" actually going up over the last two days.

Moreover, it increasingly doesn't matter. Some states have already put out a massive amount of their votes when the polls were showing a huge obama lead and among early votes according to cnn Of that 6 million, 57.8 percent were Democrats, and 42.2 percent were Republicans, so the dems aren't rolling over this time. Those are damning figures for McCain's campaign.

People hold on to the idea that since things have turned around at the 11th hour before they will this time, but in reality most of the time things do not turn at the 11th.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: Engineer
Watching RCP this morning showed a 0.2 drop for Obama when the Zogby poll was released (down to 6.3% lead). It went up by 0.1 when the Rasmussen poll was released (up to 6.4%). Seems all polls are not going in the Zogby direction with the general "average" actually going up over the last two days.

Moreover, it increasingly doesn't matter. Some states have already put out a massive amount of their votes when the polls were showing a huge obama lead and among early votes according to cnn Of that 6 million, 57.8 percent were Democrats, and 42.2 percent were Republicans, so the dems aren't rolling over this time. Those are damning figures for McCain's campaign.

People hold on to the idea that since things have turned around at the 11th hour before they will this time, but in reality most of the time things do not turn at the 11th.

Actually, only one time in history has the election turned from where the current Gallup poll is and that was Ronald Reagan. Reagan had an 8 point deficit on October 26th, but blew Carter away over the next few weeks (Iran hostages turned it around quickly).*

*The information I'm citing was from a Yahoo article a few weeks ago. Hopefully, I have it right.

 

[Jhhnn]

I'm hoping for a blowout of epic proportions. Repubs deserve it, they've practically begged for it with the looting spree of the last 8 years. And that's something that won't be easily undone, either. It'll take a lot longer to crawl out of the hole they've left us with than to stumble into it.

I think people may expect entirely too much from a new admin- this financial crisis isn't over- it's only beginning, as is the process of extricating ourselves from Iraq and ultimately from Afghanistan as well. Reduced dependency on oil won't happen overnight, either.

It always takes longer to get well than to get hurt...

 

[nixium]

I for one, can't wait till Nov 6th when all this nonsense will be over.

I hope it's a landslide in either direction, and there's no brouhaha over stolen votes and disenfranchisement.