Gallup Poll: Bush 52%, Kerry 44%

CNN, Late Edition

[JohnHuang2]

Let's not get complacent.

Sage advise. Our greatest opponent is a candidate called Complacency.

[rushmom]

Halloween night

[mylife]

"Where would we be able to get the internals to verify?"

I have no idea

[Dont Mention the War]

DUmmies reporting this Gallup poll included 9% more Republicans than Democrats.

Assuming they're correct, there's a perfectly good reason for it; party ID shifts with the wind in many voters' minds. As Bush's popularity rises, so do the number of self-identifying "Republicans."

Frank Newport, Gallup

26-Sep 2004 8:14 pm

Steven writes in with a question that reflects misinformation that is boomeranging around the Net. We have posted blogs below that go into some detail outlining the whole issue of party identification in a survey context. Our Gallup samples are rigorously executed and checked and weighted against a number of know U.S. Census Bureau parameters: age, gender, region of country, race, and education. Party ID ("In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, or an independent?") is not a variable that is measured by the U.S. Census Bureau, is not fixed, and in fact is to a significant degree a measure that is quite likely to change based on the environment. After 9/11, polls showed many more people identifying with the Republican Party than the Democratic Party because citizens were rallying behind the president. This winter during the primary season, polls showed more people identifying with the Democratic Party than the Republican Party because the news coverage was focused almost exclusively on the Democratic primaries. Analyses shows that polls had more identification with the Democrats than Republicans after the Democratic convention this summer, and then more identification with the Republicans than Democrats after the Republican convention. The measure of partisanship we and other pollsters use is not measuring some lifelong fixed value like gender or race. It is an attitudinal identification with one or the other party at the time of the survey. So, if there are forces at work out in the environment that are favorable to the Democratic Party, for example, they will cause more people to identify with the Democratic Party in the survey, and also cause more people to say they will vote for the Democratic candidate.

Here are links to two recent summaries by other students of polling that go over this same concept.

http://mysterypollster.typepad.com

http://people-press.org/commentary/display.php3?AnalysisID=97

This whole issue of partisan identification is one that pollsters and survey scientists have been discussing and dealing with for years in publications and scholarly conferences. It's not a new issue.

It's surprising that some people on the Net feel that they have suddenly "discovered" something about polling as if pollsters are not highly aware of the variables like party identification that we measure in each survey.

Gallup has a team of experienced editors who have been conducting polls for decades, and teams of statisticians and methodologists who work on every poll. All of this is not to say that there can't be legitimate scientific debate on this and other issues. There can be, just as heart surgeons have conferences and debate the value of different methods of conducting coronary artery bypass surgery. But I can assure all users of Gallup Poll data that the methods we use in pre-election polls are the results of about 70 years of experience in conducting them (since 1936) and intensive, ongoing study and examination of each element of the survey process.

(Emphases mine.)

[hinckley buzzard]

You gotta love CNN! They just said Bush has "a razor thin egde" in the latest poll, 49-46 among registered voters. Added the likely voter margin of 52-44 as a hurried afterthought at the end of the sentince.

These people are now so transparent they cannot begin to hide.

[Nataku X]

Not surprising... some Freeper mentioned that he visited Australia, and the media made it sound as if Howard was going down in flames.

[MeekOneGOP]

Gallup Poll: Bush 52%, Kerry 44%

GALLUP ?!?! Whoa!

And that's likely voters!!!!

It's Bush 49, Kerry 46 registered voters!

Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.

[Scarchin]

YEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!

[Liz]

......and they haven't even begun their " Night of The Living Dead" voter drive.......where the dead rise again to vote for Kerry........

[meyer]

Our greatest opponent is a candidate called Complacency.

May I use that?

[unspun]

Schwing! :))

From my abode near Aurora, IL, I concur. But let's nobody think there will become ANY reason complacency --we need every Bush, every conservative vote Senate vote, every conservative vote of every kind that we can get!

[luvbach1]

Heaven forbid a terrorist attack on the US, but if there is it won't hurt GWB.

[JohnHuang2]

Thanks for posting -- I'll move your post to the top.

[hipaatwo]

Get the hell outta here is like a hello here..LOL..not really. I live in Northeast Philly and it's pretty much heavily democratic and pro Bush, a huge Russian community and from what I hear they are voting Bush all the way.

[Howlin]

You're exactly right!

[Petronski]

Thanks for the explanation. Gallup asks "with which party do you identify yourself more" not "of which party are you a member."


That's a big difference.

[MeekOneGOP]

Thanks for the happy news, John!! :^D

[JohnHuang2]

But of course ;-)

[falcon1966]

The people are deciding that they do not want to listen to Lurch drone on for the next four years and treat us all like "the little people" ....

[ride the whirlwind]

They don't believe in a two party system. Should go hang out in some banana republic.