Posted on 11/05/2012 2:24:29 PM PST by Maceman
OK. I hear that the campaigns actually have "real polls" that are highly proprietary and closely guarded, and much more accurate than the public polls like Gallup and Rasmussen.
My question is: What makes them so much more accurate? I realize that there is some funny stuff with the public polls in terms of weighting.
But what is the difference in methodology that makes them (reportedly) so much more accurate?
yes
I’m sure several on this site could tell you, but then they’d have to ... Well, you know.
The public polls are giving the ridiculous turnout models of 2008 and in some case, the Democrats outperforming that!
This is going to be a +R1-3 election, not a +D anything.
Independents are going to break hard for Romney, not Obama.
The public polls are just advertising. The “Internal Polls” are actually paid for and their methodology is determined by the customer. So, they may or may not be more accurate, depending on what the buyer asks for.
Well ... it’s “money” that makes them more reliable ... :-)
No lib bias, no invalid interpretations, just the numbers and the facts gathered by experienced professionals who leave the smoke-blowing to the skewed media polls.
Internal polling is the most accurate because the campaigns only use sampling they KNOW to be true. To do otherwise would simply be lying to themselves and then using the flawed results to plan stratagy.
Even liberals aren’t that stupid
Fundamentally, the difference is that candidates want to win. They must deal with reality.
The other guys want to sell a product, whether it is the result of their “poll,” or, perhaps, airtime or advertising space in their news papers.
Internal polls are most accurate because they don’t pander to political correctness of having to include a certain amount of black/hispanic/female/young voters.
Internals look at who is most likely to turn up at the polls. This was the whole reason Axelgrease made his bully-boy phone call to Gallup. He threatened Gallup with legal action because he said they were not representing the African American vote enough in their sample.
I noticed too that the lastest Pew poll methodology asked to speak to the YOUNGEST registered voter of the household...
So pollsters may not intend to over-represent Dims, but if they are having racial/other groups weighted, then this has a result of showing more Dims in the sample. (This is how Dick Morris explained it earlier today.)
Anyhow — NOW for a trip down memory lane. The Wisconsin Recall was ‘too close to call’. Ha! 49 Minutes after the polls closed, the race was called for Walker. His victory was 53-46. Enjoy this clip of Mizz Madcow and company eating crow...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pchwcD4IPzs
Never overestimate the intelligence of the loony left. I've never been disappointed with that rule of thumb.
The real lesson, however, is that the public polls are worthless.
These internal polls are no-BS products that give the candidates the unvarnished view of the facts on the ground. Romney`s internals reveal solid opportunities for victories.
BTW, has anyone else noticed the 0bama campaign hasn`t released theirs?
Internal polls are more accurate because campaigns use them to decide where they are going to spend their money. If you can’t get accurate polling you might be wasting money where it could be better spent elsewhere.
LOL!! Add a black feather drifting about ...
On the other hand, public polls are done on the cheap, with smaller sample sizes, and are commonly performed by organizations and pollsters whose preferences influence the results.
Internal polls are complete BS. They tell the campaign what it wants to hear.
My daughter worked a congressional campaign some years ago. The so-called “internal polls” had her guy way out in front. On election day, her guy got absolutely smoked.
Forget EVERY poll, just make sure you get out and cast YOUR precious vote tomorrow!
Yep, it's mainly the money spent - they're all human calls, and that costs money - only reason Ras and PPP can spam the universe with polls is they do robocalls.>br>
What you said would be true, if everyone were rational and honest.
However leftists tend to be neither rational nor honest.
Additionally, it's human nature for most people to tell the boss what they think he wants to hear.
Pundits on FoxNews today say that both Obama and Romney camps claim their internal polls show their guy is winning. I think it is likely one side is being either irrational or dishonest. (And I think I know which side that probably is.)
Received one of these Pew-like calls on Saturday. They wanted youngest 18 or older female in household. Nobody in my cell phone matched that profile.
She hung up on me.
Scott Rasmussen has been asking exactly the same question, using the same polling methods for almost four years. His public polls give us a good yardstick to observe trends in public opinion. From reading his site, we don't know if he overstates or understates support for Obama, but we know how that support has changed in relative terms over time. That is the best of the public polls in existence.
Some private polls are generated to be leaked, and they are pure spin (garbage), of course. The high quality private polls do a better job on improving response rate and on modeling turnout than any of the public polls, but the details are proprietary.
At election time, polling must compete with what is now an extraordinary level of campaign calls that tests the patience of anyone with a landline. A couple of weeks ago, my brother inadvertently answered what proved to be a computerized poll call. He answered the opinion and partisanship parts correctly — solid Romney Republican — but then input the demographics as being that he was a single Black female of Haitian descent with children.
My guess is that, each campaign involved has to be doing more accurate polling, in order to insure that, they are not deluding themselves.
They’ll use any external polls that favor them to arouse the base and voters in general, but, it would be a lot more prudent to be truthful to themselves, therefore, they need to be more accurate in their polling. They can’t afford to not look at the true picture with the electorate’s feelings and intentions.
FWIW, she sounded cute.
Made me think about the grad student effect that they found with female exit poll takers.
It never would have occurred to me, but it makes perfect sense.
Bingo. When you're spending a few hundred million dollars, you're going to spend millions on polling to make sure you're not wasting the hundreds of millions. That's a lot more than the "regular" polling firms spend because there's so much at stake for the candidates.
You can tell what's up with the internals by where the candidates are appearing and where they're buying ads.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.