zogby - Kerry 47 Bush 44

Zogby / Reuters ^ | 10/11/2004 | Zogby / Reuters

[big time major leaguer]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic challenger John Kerry expanded his slight lead over President Bush to three points in a tight race for the White House, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Monday.

The Massachusetts senator held a 47-44 percent lead over Bush in the latest three-day tracking poll, up two points from Sunday. Bush's support dropped one point and Kerry's support rose one point in the new poll.

[chicagolady]

Polls are NOT a reflection of how the voters are thinking.
Polls are meant to DRIVE the vote.


The polls said Howard Dean was a runaway with the DemocRATic ticket.

[HawaiianGecko]

I remember Zogby showing McBride beating Jeb Bush in 2002 a couple of days before Jeb pulled off a landslide victory.

[Moconservative]

Doesn't he oversample democrats? I seem to remember he has a higher % of democrats than any other poll.

[OKIEDOC]

Zogby is also a big supporter of John Kerry. He is one Arab who despises Bush and the Republicans. He is not an unbiased source.

[Sooth2222]

http://www.ncpp.org/poll_perform.htm

In 2000, either "nobody" got it correct ("a statistical tie") or "everybody" got it ("close")!

Poll Bush/Gore Error Nader Error

CBS News 0.5 1.0

IBD/CSM/Tipp 1.0 1.0

ICR/Politics Now 1.0 4.0

Gallup/CNN/USA Today 1.0 1.0

Pew Research 1.0 1.0

Zogby/Reuters 1.0 2.0<> ABC News/Wash Post 1.5 0.0

NBC News/WSJ 1.5 0.0

Battleground 2.5 1.0

Average 1.1 1.3

Alternative Method Polls

Bush/GoreError NaderError

Harris Interactive 0.0% 1.0%

Rasmussen 4.5

2000-Preliminary Gore Bush Nader Undecided Other

Election Results 48% 48% 3% 1%

Zogby 48% 46% 5% 0% 1%

CBS 45% 44% 4% 5% 2%

Harris (Phone) 47% 47% 5% 0% 1%

Gallup/CNN/USA Today 46% 48% 4% 0% 2%

Pew Research 47% 49% 4% 0% 0%

IBD/CSM/TIPP 46% 48% 4% 0% 2%

ICR/Politics Now 44% 46% 7% 1% 2%

NBC/WSJ 44% 47% 3% 4% 2%

ABC/WashPost 45% 48% 3% 3% 1%

Battleground 45% 50% 4% 0% 1%

Alternative Methods

Harris Interactive 47% 47% 4% 0% 2%

Rasmussen 49% 40% 4%

Whatever he's doing, Zogby is in the tank this time, just judging by his comments! He's an Arab-American and for reasons I can't even begin to fathom, unhappy with the idea of democracies erupting in the Middle East!

[Virginia]

"...And looking around here, at this group here, I suspect there are only three people here who are going to be affected: the president, me, and, Charlie, I'm sorry, you too."-John Kerry


I love that quote. It's amazing that he does not know that saying, "I can tell by the way you look that you're not wealthy" is an insult.

[conservativecorner]

Zogby: Back in 1996, pollster Zogby hit the bullseye in predicting the results of the Presidential election. In 2000, they were close again, though their aggregate error tied them with 5 other national polls. In 2002, Zogby appeared to show a lean in favor of the Democrats, and he was way off in his mid-term election predictions. This year, at the end of the spring, John Zogby actually came out and predicted John Kerry would win the election, which appeared to indicate his bias had reached the point of full-blown partisanship against the President, reflected in a growing number of opinions made out of personal preference, rather than on the evidence. Zogby’s refusal to show his work, only magnifies the apparent distortion of his results.

Zogby runs two polls; a telephone poll and an Interactive Internet poll. Unlike almost every other poll, Zogby’s telephone poll is not RDD. Zogby describes his list as follows: “The majority of telephone lists for polls and surveys are produced in the IT department at Zogby International. Vendor-supplied lists are used for regions with complicated specifications, e.g., some Congressional Districts. Customer-supplied lists are used for special projects like customer satisfaction surveys and organization membership surveys. Telephone lists generated in our IT department are called from the 2002 version of a nationally published set of phone CDs of listed households, ordered by telephone number. Residential (or business) addresses are selected and then coded by region, where applicable. An appropriate replicate1 is generated from this parent list, applying the replicate algorithm repeatedly with a very large parent list, e.g., all of the US. Acquired lists are tested for duplicates, coded for region, tested for regional coverage, and ordered by telephone, as needed.” Zogby notes that “regional quotas are employed to ensure adequate coverage nationwide.” That is, Zogby takes pains to insure that his respondent poll is not random.

As for his weighting, Zogby states “Reported frequencies and crosstabs are weighted using the appropriate demographic profile to provide a sample that best represents the targeted population from which the sample is drawn from. The proportions comprising the demographic profile are compiled from historical exit poll data, census data, and from Zogby International survey data.”

In other words, Zogby uses his own polls to drive some of his demographic parameters, a practice not approved, much less recommended, by either the NCPP or the AAPOR.

All in all, Zogby’s habit of confusing his personal opinion with data-driven conclusions, his admitted practice of manipulating the respondent pool and his demographic weights, by standards not accepted anywhere else, along with mixing Internet polls with telephone interview results, forces me to reject his polls as unacceptable; they simply cannot be verified, and I strongly warn the reader that there is no established benchmark for the Zogby reports, even using previous Zogby polls, because he has changed his practices from his own history.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Who's Zogby polling...his family?

[bitt]

simple questions:
do you answer your phone all the time?
who are they calling?
how many calls are made before they get an actual pick-up?
is this a valid method of polling?
what kindof person is available for phone polls all the time?

[Warlord]

"I'd like to think that Zogby is wrong but I remember his accuracy in 2000."

Zogby understands that accuracy will be judged according to a comparison of his last poll against the actual vote. Until then, he can do whatever he wishes (within reason) to create whatever buzz he wishes.

[Patriot814]

Also his brother is against Bush, so it could be fixed to make it look like bush is fading and people could change to kerry or not vote.(for any one who doesn't know zogby's brother was in the muslim group mad at bush.

[Jose Roberto]

I have always said not to believe Zogby since 1996. Many people are impressed by his 2000 predictions...but not me. This Kerry lead is just statistical noise. I tend to believe Gallup, I have some doubts about Rasmussen but he is better than Zogby. Remember, Zogby said in April-May that Kerry had won the election: This election is Kerry's to lose...

[tellw]

Zogby polled just enough people so that the margin of error would be 2.9% and still gave Kerry a lead or 3%, so that Kerry is just outside the margin of error.

And what happened to Zogby's old argument that weekend polling is a bad idea because it overweights Democrats? That was a huge argument he made during the Clinton impeachment polling.

[TNCMAXQ]

Looks like the Bush campaign is not picking up on this for ads. I wonder if it would have any impact. It is just one more indication of what a snob kerry is.

I guess they are better off using kerry's other comments (like terrorists should only be a nuisance) to hammer him with. I suppose that makes more sense.

[lepton]

The best approach is to do what realclearpolitics.com does, which is to use an average of all the major polls.

Perhaps. It's comfortable that way...but the problem with all of the polls is there is something (or several somethings) odd happening for which there is no model. Frankly, we won't be able to determine an accurate model without the benefit of hindsight.

Is the last 5-6% of Bush support really soft? Is there 4% of the electorate that didn't vote before that is going to vote Republican? ...there's a 10% uncertainty right there, quite aside from peoples moods on election day.

Different polls are using different turnout models...and the key IS going to be turnout. We can say this poll or that poll is accurately polling, but are they properly predicting turnout? That we won't know until after the election.

[lepton]

Doesn't he oversample democrats? I seem to remember he has a higher % of democrats than any other poll.

Based on 2000, that'd be right. Based on 2002, that'd be way off.

[over3Owithabrain]

Regardless of how we feel about Zogby, this poll is scary. The polls are way too tight - a close race favors the Dems with all their cheating.

[merry10]

The electoral college predictions are what is important, not the polls.

[lepton]

The electoral college predictions are what is important, not the polls.

Huh?

What are the predictions based on?

[gunnedah]

Zogby has the inside track on the illegal,convict and dead votes. The Democrats furnish this information first hand to those in step with them.