Posted on 11/08/2004 2:51:36 PM PST by ambrose
Released: November 08, 2004
Mea Culpa: I am a Pollster, Not a Predictor
By John Zogby
Okay, I got it wrong. And I got it right. Last May, I did indeed say that John Kerry would win and, if he didn’t, it would be his fault.
Please understand that I wasn’t saying this as a partisan but as a historian of elections. I did not have a horse in this race. For those of you so kind to point out that my brother is on the executive committee of the Democratic National Committee, you need to understand that he was an active Democrat when my polling showed George Pataki defeating Mario Cuomo in 1994, when I had Bob Dole doing much better than other polls suggested against Bill Clinton in 1996, and when I polled for the National Republican Congressional Committee in 1998. It seems I spent lots of my time back then denying I was a Republican.
And to those who note my Arab heritage and again my relationship with my brother, please read the Democratic National Committee position on the Middle East. It offered me no comfort.
I had no horse in this race.
But I did teach American history and political science for 24 years. And I have been polling for a total of 20 years and there are some analytical tools that I (and many others) use to determine election outcomes. That is what I used as the basis of my May column in the St. Louis Business Journal and my September column in the Financial Times. I did feel then (as I do now) that the race was John Kerry’s to lose.
First, President George W. Bush was not posting solid re-elect numbers. Indeed, the last three Presidents who ran for re-election with numbers as low as his – Gerald Ford in 1976, Jimmy Carter in 1980, and George H.W. Bush in 1992 – all lost. Surprising to me, and rather significantly, President Bush was just re-elected with a majority of the vote by an electorate that still gave him a negative job performance rating and felt the country was headed in the wrong direction.
Second, John Kerry led the President on his ability to handle most issues – the economy, education, health care and the war in Iraq. But the President triumphed on his handling of the war on terrorism, on moral values, and on leadership.
As it turns out, the exit polls suggest that more voters listed “moral values” as their most important issue even though it barely registered in our pre-election poll or, for that matter, in our post-election surveys, either.
It is not that we completely missed the issue. I have related many times in both columns and public speeches that 2004 was the “Armageddon Election” – i.e. that the nation was split between two warring cultures, ideologies, and even demographics. The election was nasty and the two Americas were angry. And, as it turns out, the election was very close.
Why did Kerry lose? I think several factors explain it. First, he wasted too much time talking about his military background and trying to persuade the 48% of the voters who would never vote for him that he could handle the war on terror. In this regard, he wasted his own convention, where he should have rallied his own base, and set himself up for the negative campaigning that would raise all of the important questions about his past, his judgment, and his persona.
Second, he didn’t say anything to his base. Principally, Kerry’s core constituency was against the war in Iraq. While the Senator changed his focus to more criticism of the war, the fact was that he supported the President, opposed funding for the troops, and never offered an alternative scenario. He tried to be all over the place and ended up no place at all.
Lastly, Kerry just didn’t connect with voters. This isn’t just the obvious criticism about his personality. It is metaphoric of the entire Democratic Party which simply doesn’t understand the religiosity of most Americans, the needs of the heartland that go well beyond bread and butter. How else to explain the many voters who told us that they have been left behind by the economy and still voted for the incumbent?
In short, I also missed the boat and I feel I must explain what happened. Whenever I rely only on history to make a call, I lose. That happened to me in both the 1998 and 2000 New York Senate races. My telephone polling was actually accurate both for Reuters nationally and in the 10 battleground states. My interactive polling for Wall Street Journal Online got 13 of 16 states right (one was tied). Because I have polled so successfully in presidential races in the past, I felt compelled to poll as late as I could and thought I saw a late-breaking trend for Kerry. Such a trend – fueled by a surge of young voters that was reported to us in our many calls to battleground cities on election day – did not materialize.
My polling was right. My ability to predict was wrong. For those of you who have supported my work over the years, I apologize. I will do better next time: I will just poll not predict.
(11/8/2004)
How do you say BLOW ME in Zogby's original Middle Eastern language?
I don't believe that Mr. Zogby's ethnic background is relevant to this discussion.
''I am a Pollster, Not a Predictor ''
You, sir, are a propagandist
Bull ! He was waaaaaay off.
See this:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/blog_11_8_04_1018.html
RCP Commentary: Which Pollster Was the Most Accurate?
Here is what we found from all of the final polling conducted in the 2004 battleground states at the Presidential level (Click Here to View the Full Tabulated Results):
1) Mason-Dixon
Failed to Project Winner: 6.2% | Average Error = 1.8
A final Minnesota poll showing a one-point Bush win is the only blemish on Mason-Dixon's otherwise perfect scorecard this year. Not only did Brad Coker project the correct winner in 15 out of the 16 battleground states we looked at, he did so with amazing accuracy. Four states were dead on the final number and the overall difference between Mason-Dixon's final polls and the actual election results was a minuscule 1.8 points. Furthermore, if you look down through the list of Mason-Dixon's projections it's impossible to detect any consistent leanings toward one candidate or another.
2) Rasmussen
Failed to Project Winner: 6.2% | Average Error = 2.3
Rasmussen's battleground state polling this year was extremely solid and a close second to Mason-Dixon. He was dead on in PA and just missed in IA. Average error was a very good 2.3 points, with NJ and AZ the only states where he wasn't within three points of the final spread. No partisan trends either way.
3) SurveyUSA
Failed to Project Winner: 7.1% | Average Error = 2.8
Some people have questioned methodology and reliability of SurveyUSA's polls. Their performance in the battleground states this year should answer a good number of those questions: 13 out of 14 states called correctly, including dead-on numbers in Maine, Michigan, and Ohio. The difference between projections and actuals in a few of the states (CO, FL, NV & NJ) was on the high side, even if it was within the margin of error. No identifiable leanings toward either candidate.
4) Research 2000
Failed to Project Winner: 14.3% | Average Error = 3.1
Del Ali's firm only conducted polling in seven battleground states this year. They got six of those states right, including nailing a Bush one-point victory in Iowa. The big miss came in Florida, where Research 2000's final poll called for a one-point Kerry win. Average error from the final results was 3.1 percent - which is respectable - though in every instance except one (Iowa) they overestimated support for Kerry and underestimated support for Bush.
5) Quinnipiac
Failed to Project Winner: 33.3% | Average Error = 2.3
Many people dismissed Quinnipiac's final poll in Florida (Bush +8) as an outlier. Wrong. Quinnipiac was closer than most in FL, and they also did a nice job in the only two other states where they polled, NJ and PA. In fact, Quinnipiac would have finished pretty high in our rankings except they called for a tie in Pennsylvania. All three of their projections overestimated the spread for President Bush.
6) Zogby
Failed to Project Winner: 27.3% | Average Error = 3.8
As we all know, Zogby had been on record for months saying that Kerry was going to win this race. Despite his final tracking poll that put Bush ahead by one point nationally, Zogby's polling at the state level reflected his belief that Kerry was going to be the beneficiary of huge turnout - especially among the youth vote. The result is that Zogby missed three of the eleven states he polled in (FL, IA, and NM), had a relatively high error rate across the board (3.8%), and his numbers generally skewed in favor of John Kerry.
Adding insult to injury, Zogby's bizarre election day antics calling for "surprises" in Colorado and Virginia and a decisive 311 electoral vote victory for Kerry suggest he was relying on (not to mention taken in by) the badly skewed early exit poll data.
Let's be honest: Zogby's conduct this year bordered on outrageous. No other independent pollster was out making public predictions of a John Kerry or George W. Bush victory months before hand. And no other pollster decided to wait until 5:30pm Eastern time on election day to post their final numbers.
7) American Research Group
Failed to Project Winner: 50% | Average Error = 2.0
ARG got a bit unlucky this year. They called for a 1-point Bush win in NH and the result was Kerry +1. They also projected a 1-point Kerry win in New Mexico and the result was Bush +1. The big miss, however, came in Florida where ARG's last poll had Kerry up two. ARG did offset these misses by nailing tight outcomes in IA and WI giving them an excellent score in overall average error.
8) FOX News/Opinion Dynamics
Failed to Project Winner: 50% | Average Error = 4.5
It stands to reason that if your national numbers are way off then at least some of your state numbers are going to be bad as well. This is certainly true of FOX's final poll in FL where they showed Kerry ahead by five points. In fact, that 10-point miss stands out as the worst among the final battleground polls we looked at. Another miss in Wisconsin put FOX News/Opinion Dynamics at 50/50 in battlegrounds, with an average error rate of 4.5%
9) Strategic Vision
Failed to Project Winner: 44% | Average Error = 2.4
We were assaulted by some people for labeling Strategic Vision a Republican polling firm. For the record, the reason we did this was twofold: 1) they had a history of polling for Republican clients and 2) their polls were not sponsored by any independent media outlets like newspapers and television stations.
Strategic Vision's projections for a Bush win in MI and a tie in NJ, seems to provide evidence that, at least in these two states, they were skewing toward President Bush. Their polling in the other seven battleground states was reasonable, though except for Florida and Ohio, they consistently underestimated support for Senator Kerry.
10) CNN/USA Today/Gallup
Failed to Project Winner: 67% | Average Error = 5.8
To find Gallup's name at the bottom of the list is nothing short of shocking. In four of the biggest, most important states in the election this year (FL, OH, PA, and WI) CNN/USA Today/Gallup wasn't even close. In fact, they got it exactly backwards calling for Kerry wins in Florida and Ohio by 3 and 4 points, and Bush wins in PA and WI by 4 and 8.
"But I did teach American history and political science for 24 years"
Ha Ha Ha!!! Even more of a reason to admit your stupidity!
Sorry Zogby. You've been proven to be a one-trick pony. Deal with it.
You may think John Zogby's ethnicity is irrelevant to his seriously flawed polling, but I assure you, past correspondence I had with Mr. Zogby, that his ethnicity colors his polling. That makes it relevant to this discussion. You may not like the fact that the Camel Jockey is pro-Hussein, pro-Arab, and anti-Israel, but he is.
Zogby is so biased that it colored his objectivity. I never paid attention to his polls from the moment he declared Kerry a winner in May.
Two things...as the CNN guy who handles the exit polls said, no more young people showed up than last time. And if anybody had had eyes, they would have seen that many of the faces at Bush rallies were young people, therefore, Kerry didn't overwhelming carry the youth vote.
The other thing none of the pollsters seem to have comprehended is this:
They kept saying the poll numbers indicated that the majority of Americans "felt the country was headed in the wrong direction."
But that was not a valid question to base how we were voting. Many conservatives think the country was headed in the wrong direction, but still intended to vote for Bush.
We don't have to be in "lock step" with all that Bush was doing in order to chose him over Kerry.
Many thought we weren't being tough enough on terrorism, or border security, or maybe that the President was promoting too many government programs. They didn't think the country was heading in the right direction...but you can't translate that into a vote for Kerry.
1 - LOL - Zogby, the leftist liberal Egyptian Arab believed his own skewed polls.
"Wrong but accurate."
I thought that was the reason for polls.
OK, lets see if I got this right.
Zogby is so successful that he has the responsibility to release his polls after the voting is almost over.
Right...
The late breaking trend he saw for Kerry was in exit polls. I think it is fraudulent for a pollster to use exit polls and then claim that he predicted the election. The beauty of this is that he got caught by the liberals exit poll cheating and he can't use it as an excuse for why his final poll was so wrong.
Zogby = Kerry = LOSER
We know that Mr. Zogby, but do you????
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