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Party ID: The Case for Weights and Historical Margins (Current polls all oversampling Dems)
Pollster.com ^ | August 7, 2008 | Kristen Soltis

Posted on 09/24/2008 8:23:30 AM PDT by TonyInOhio

~snipped~

Though it's controversial, I believe that weighting for party ID is appropriate if done in a manner consistent with historical norms. I fall into the camp that believes party ID is far more static - that voters can change their preferences and the intensity of their partisanship often, but do not as frequently take the step of giving themselves a new party with which to identify. To me, party ID falls somewhere in between "demographic fact" and "variable question response". Preventing wildly fluctuating data outside historical norms provides a better picture of what real movement is occurring in the electorate on questions like the ballot test.

On Election Day, the partisan makeup of the electorate is rarely dramatically different from the election four years prior, and the exit polls from the last twenty years corroborate this. The National Election Study at the University of Michigan back in the 1960s showed party ID was stable at the individual level, but some have dismissed this as an example that works today. So let's take a look at more modern day politics, with a time frame of last twenty years (presidential elections since 1988). Washingtonpost.com has a great, simple table of this exit poll data.

In 1988, Democrats had a three-point party ID advantage over Republicans (38-35). In 1992, Democrats still had a three-point party ID advantage over Republicans (38-35). In 1996, that advantage increased to four - a shift of one point (39-35). In 2000, Democrats were steady, up by four (39-35), and in 2004 they dropped to even (37-37).

During presidential years, over the last five presidential elections, the biggest party ID gap was four points, and the greatest swing was four points as well.

Arguments can certainly be made that in this environment, Democrats should be expected to have a huge partisan shift in their favor. But note that in 2006, when Democrats clearly found enormous success at the ballot box, that the advantage in party ID was only three points (38-35). Polls leading up to the election showed party ID gaps as big as eleven points (Newsweek's poll on Oct 5-6, 2006), rarely showing party ID gaps of less than +5 for the Democrats.

On Election Day, as measured by the exit polls, the party ID divide was just three points.

Just because people are voting Democratic doesn't mean they are becoming Democrats.

Truth be told, the decision to use weights for party ID has everything to do with whether or not a pollster views party ID as a "response" or a "demographic", and when it is a fairly stable characteristic of the electorate, I feel comfortable placing it on the spectrum closer to "demographic". It's not perfect, to be sure, but I'd rather compare surveys month to month and observe movement by comparing apples to apples.

However, whether or not weighting is used, the partisan makeup of a poll must factor into the understanding of whether the poll is presenting a realistic piece of information. I certainly don't believe all polls must weight for party ID in order to be useful. But regardless of whether the party ID is organic or weighted, it should still look reasonable.

So let's take a current example that I have trouble with. As "bambi" noted in the comments (taking quite a bit of heat, and with some calculations that I do disagree with) just this morning about the most recent CBS poll, after weighting for demographics, the difference between Republicans and Democrats nearly doubles. While the unweighted sample has 317 Republicans and 381 Democrats (out of 1034 adults), the weighted sample has 284 Republicans and 406 Democrats. This changes the spread from a 6 point spread (31-37) to a 12 point spread (27-39).
Truth be told, if a poll shows a six-point party ID spread, I wouldn't immediately dismiss it. Furthermore, the CBS poll is of adults, not registered or likely voters, so that gives it freedom in my opinion to veer a bit outside the norms. I'm not dogmatically tied to historical precedent, though I think it's very instructive in determining what is "reasonable".

But a twelve point spread? Whether this is a blip or what consistently turns up in the numbers, I have incredible difficulty believing that a margin of that magnitude is an accurate reflection of the electorate. A six-point lead is within the realm of possibility given a really great year for Democrats. But a twelve-point spread is simply outside the bounds of history, given that in twenty years of political change and history, the greatest margin has been four.


TOPICS: Front Page News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; democrats; electionpresident; elections; liberals; mccainpalin; mediabias; msm; nobama08; poll; polling; polls; pollsters
Why are current polls all oversampling Democrats? More than a 4% advantage is historically undefendable, yet the ABC/WaPo poll gave the Democrats a double-digit advantage. Belive what the media feeds you at your own risk, FReepers.
1 posted on 09/24/2008 8:23:36 AM PDT by TonyInOhio
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To: TonyInOhio

Fundraising. If the MSM can show that dems are in the lead and tracking positive, their fundraising results increase by 20%-40%.

People give more when they believe they are giving to a winner.


2 posted on 09/24/2008 8:29:15 AM PDT by Bob J (For every 1000 hacking at the branches of evil, one strikes at it's root.)
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To: LS; CatOwner; Wilder Effect; tatown; Antoninus; mathprof

Over here, poll junkies. The current polls are significantly oversampling Democrats, despite ample historical precedent for doing otherwise.


3 posted on 09/24/2008 8:32:20 AM PDT by TonyInOhio (This is no time to go wobbly.)
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To: TonyInOhio
I love it when the polesters do this and on election day I get to see the liberals with dismay on their faces and their chants of "we was robbed. The poles said we were winning"!
4 posted on 09/24/2008 8:35:46 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232 (VietVet - USMC All Ready On The Right? All Ready On The Left? All Ready On The Firing Line!)
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To: TonyInOhio

This was a great post! Where did you get your numbers?


5 posted on 09/24/2008 8:35:46 AM PDT by Beeman
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To: TonyInOhio

oh oh oh....can you add me to your poll junkies pinging? pretty please?? I love analyzing internals of polls...

and yes, I realize that’s a little odd


6 posted on 09/24/2008 8:38:36 AM PDT by KeatsforFirstDog
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To: TonyInOhio

I learned something last night at a dinner that I probably should have known: Ken Blackwell going into the election was down by 5% to 12%. He lost by 25%. This is clearly the “Wilder Effect.”


7 posted on 09/24/2008 8:39:03 AM PDT by LS ("Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually." (Hendrix))
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To: TonyInOhio
Thanks Tony LOL. In 2006, the GOP faced their worst year since Watergate, and in the end the DEMS only got a 3% advantage after pollsters said it was going to be 10 to 15%. The reason we lost only 30 House seats instead of the 70 Stuart Rothenberg and Sabato were predicting.

ABC/WAPO 10% DEM
RAS 6% DEM etc...

The reason McCain leads Battleground is that they use the correct sample, 3% DEM. THIS IS ALL A SCAM TO DEFLATE CONSERVATIVES

8 posted on 09/24/2008 8:39:08 AM PDT by Wilder Effect
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To: TonyInOhio

The pollsters are trying to influence the election results. They will become more accurate as we get closer to election day. In the meantime, we will be led to believe that the country is surging towards Obama.


9 posted on 09/24/2008 8:40:46 AM PDT by kabar (.)
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To: TonyInOhio

Thanks for posting. Eases my troubled mind a bit.


10 posted on 09/24/2008 8:40:46 AM PDT by RightWingMama
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To: TonyInOhio

ping - great post!


11 posted on 09/24/2008 8:41:16 AM PDT by Thickman (Term limits are the answer.)
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To: TonyInOhio
The oversampling is for voter fraud. All the pollsters know how the Dems cheat, and so the sampling isn't so much for lots more real Dem voters, it's to take into account how well the Dems can cheat. It takes into account the 3% to 5% minimum that they get from double registrations, busing illegals around to various polling places to vote three, four or five times, stuffing ballot boxes, the dead voting two or three times, people's dogs voting, etc.

This election will see the Dems committing fraud on an absolutely massive and unprecedented scale. The public and the Republicans simply have no idea how massive the fraud is going to be in this election. Staggering.

12 posted on 09/24/2008 8:42:29 AM PDT by Boagenes (I'm your huckleberry, that's just my game.)
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To: Bob J

Bob is right no fundraising if you are losing. Obama’s strategy was to pass on the funding and do it himself. This strategy only works when you are way ahead. This is why there was so much panic within the Dem Party and why they had to come up with the false stories on Obama having a record month for fundraising.

It is also a push poll to get Americans to believe Obama is a winner. The Dem Vote Fraud Machine will be as active as ever but I believe McCain will win.


13 posted on 09/24/2008 8:43:24 AM PDT by truthandlife ("Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God." (Ps 20:7))
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To: truthandlife

Did you guys see the new newspaper poll out of Michigan showing McCain up by 3? Where is the media on this. If its true, wow!!! Since its now from the MSM they are ignoring it.


14 posted on 09/24/2008 8:47:09 AM PDT by Beeman
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To: TonyInOhio

What makes static voting difficult is that many states abandoned the practice when a voter declared a party preference in a primary they would be handed that partys ballot in a general election. In fact in certain cases state supreme courts have ruled against that practice

States which have open primaries are even harder to poll than those who do not as is witnessed in this last election. The only reliable way to determine if the person polled is of that party affiliation is to determine if that person has participated in couple of primaries in the party being polled. If those people are polled you can determine a trend but that means taking less of a sample and qualifying it in the reported result unless you want to skew the result then you draw a broader extrapolation.http://www.theusmat.com/


15 posted on 09/24/2008 8:50:42 AM PDT by mosesdapoet (Parachutes are put together by riggers. Time to recall them and the parachutes they made)
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To: TonyInOhio

There’s got to be some reason the media is panicking with these “white dems not voting for Obama” stories. What’s up with that? Are they setting up the racism scenario because they know McCain is going to win or are they trying to pull a guilt trip on voters, or both? I can just imagine some of these pollsters asking first off “do you believe race will be a factor?” so “are you voting for OBAMA or McCain?”


16 posted on 09/24/2008 8:53:46 AM PDT by Proudcongal (POW/WOW '08)
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To: TonyInOhio

a lot more yoots have registered to vote Democrat this year?


17 posted on 09/24/2008 8:54:45 AM PDT by TornadoAlley3 (Lipstick wearing Okie Moosehead!)
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To: TonyInOhio

A quick bump for the very nervous. Read it and take comfort.


18 posted on 09/28/2008 4:52:35 PM PDT by TonyInOhio (This is no time to go wobbly.)
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