Posted on 10/26/2004 12:21:50 PM PDT by flagthefly
Friends - as someone who likes to dig deeper into the US elections (I mean the technicalities, my interest always was great, and I am European) I would like to ask the following: if one looks into the poll predictions concerning the election of next week, one at first is confronted with a bewildering array of names and predictions. The latter may vary quite a lot, in that one poll gives Dubya an advantage of 4 procent points (raise a toast!), and then another seems to predict something of a draw, a photo finish. Then there is the meta-poll math, which gives the combined result of many single polls. So my question for the day: which poll, or poll system has over a long period of time proven to be the most reliable? And what kind of result does that particular measuring method predict for next week? Can I still raise that toast in advance? Cheers, flaggie!
The one next Tuesday is the most accurate.
The most reliable poll is taken on November 2nd.
There's no one "golden" poll. There are a few sure stinkers, like Newsweek, or the polls that are openly partisan like Democracy Corps. All we can do is average together the rest of the polls to get a general sense of things.
Which one has proven to be the most reliable poll?
Until the last election it was the one on the first Tuesday in November.....
Beat ya to it.
The poll that is taken on Nov. 2 is the most reliable.
Hahaa!
Two seconds!
www.tradesports.com
Unless you have 'Rats tallying the votes.
Which gave me 1.9 seconds to spare.
I'll milk it more next time. :)
Only Republicans believe that the actual vote is the most reliable. Dems like to read tea leaves to discern how all the disenfranchised (by Republicans) would have voted. The MSM also gives great credence to the Dem method.
I said MOST accurate, not completely accurate.
I'm hopeful we'll nudge this thing just out of the reach of the cheaters...ah, I mean Democrats.
In the last presidential election the most accurate was the Harris poll followed by Zogby poll which was one tenth of one percent off.
See the link in my tagline.
I believe TIPP was pretty close as well.
You know if Bush is ahead in EVERY poll by this Sunday (God please, I'll even be nice to my father-in-law) then I'd say he's ahead.
Well the ruling axiom in American electoral politics is this- "The guy with the most votes wins- except sometimes"
http://Polipundit.com has a good discussion. That site likes Gallup, Princeton, and Harris, and a few others. It dislikes several (including Zogby for not following the Polling Association guidelines and Rasmussen for hiding his methods.)
It's important that pollsters openly publish their methodology. At least Gallup and Zogby do so. Rasmussen is secretive.
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