Posted on 12/11/2004 11:06:54 PM PST by dangus
I've analyzed the pre-election surveys of the 10 major multi-state polling firms. They were: American Research Group (ARG), Fox, Gallup, Quinnipiac (Q), Research 2000 (R2000), Rasmussen (Ras), Strategic Vision (SV) Survey USA (SUSA), and Zogby.
I found Survey USA to be the best. Of the 35 states which I researched, SUSA polled in 29 of them. They were correct every time. What was truly astounding was their track record in states where the contest was not close. SUSA was largely on their own polling in these states, and such contests are often very unpredictable since creating turnout models is virtually impossible. Nonetheless, SUSA was perfect in six states (Calif., Maine, Mich., NY, Ohio and Ore.), and within two points in 11 more (Col., Ill., Ind., Kent., Iowa, Mary., Mo., Okla., Penna., SC., and Texas) SUSA's worst state was Nevada, where Bush won by only two points whereas SUSA had predicted an eight-point blowout.
Mason Dixon was probably best in the presidential races, edging out SUSA. They were correct in all 22 predictions. Their worst state was also Nevada, and they came significantly closer, missing by four points. They were within the margin of error in every state presidential race. Unfortunately, Mason-Dixon underestimated Republicans in several Senate races, calling South Dakota wrong, and being off by six points in South Carolina. However, to be fair, Mason-Dixon did their last Senate polls much earlier, and Republican candidates uniformally used a strategy of saving up campaign cash for a last minute push.
Gallup, once the gold standard of polls, was horrible. Their national polls showed wild swings of 20 points between surveys, before hitting the final number very close, but they were dreadful on the state level. They were wrong in five of the seven races they polled, predicting an easy win for Bush in Wisconsin, and a solid win in Penna., while predicting big wins for Kerry in Ohio and Florida, and a win for Betty Castor in Florida.
Fox was also quite poor, showing Kerry with a 5-point romp in Fla., where Bush won surprisingly easily. They also showed Castor romping by six over Martinez. They only conducted three other polls.
Zogby showed a persistent leftward bias. They overestimated Kerry in 11 out of 13 states. The closest hit Zogby had was Penna., where they were only 2 points off. They were wrong in three states, but inexplicably they showed Bush having a comparably easy time in Ohio, winning by six.
American Research Group was also presistently left-leaning, getting 4 out of 7 wrong. That might look worse than Zogby, but at least they were close, with Florida being the only state they were as much as 3 points off on. But even though their misses were within the margin of error, it is hard to strike their record up to bad luck... they were persistently left-leaning the entire campaign.
Research 2000 went 8 for 8, but passed on the most closely watched races. Their predictions in the uncontested races weren't terribly good: 6 off in NC, 5 off in Ind., 4 off in Ill., 4 off in Mo. They were, however, perfect in Iowa and Nevada, which tripped up other polling firms.
Rasmussen partly atoned for dreadful showings in 2000 (when they called the popular vote for Bush by nine points) and 2002 (when they skewed persistently left-wing.) Ras was 12 for 12, although their margins were often well off.
Quinnipiac also never called a state wrong, although they called Penna. too close to call. They hit all eight state presidential races, plus they were perfect in S.D., and correct in Col.
Strategic Vision got 2 out of 11 wrong, plus they inexplicably called N.J. too close to call, as well as Minn., so they really only got seven right.
One last note: It’s possible that the media’s premature calling of the race for Kerry did hurt Bush. He underperformed poll expectations in the three pacific time zone states for which multiple last-week polls were taken, Oregon, Nevada and Washington. Out of 11 polls, Bush under-performed in 8 and over-performed in none of them. In most of the rest of the country, he did slightly better than he was expected to. The western states have histories of turning against the candidate they perceive as losing.
>> Yes! If I remember correctly, Zogby had Arkansas tied!!! Sure enough, as many knew it would come out, it ended up anything but tied. <<
You are correct. Zogby showed AR as a tossup. Their last poll had Bush winning by only 1 percent. Bush won by 10. But I did not count it against Zogby because their poll had been taken more than three weeks before election day.
Very interesting....Marked for later read!
It would be equivalent to state that. However, the point of what I wrote was to suggest maybe it was not the polls' fault, but rather that Bush did poorer than expected because of the media campaign to discourage voters.
PS... I'm glad I made Bananaman happy.
You can see Battleground's record from 1992-2004 here.
Gallup's state polls were pitiful this year, and hopefully they drop that idea in the future.
Gallup could have easily gotten the national numbers on the button if they didn't allocate the undecideds in such a nonsensical manner. Their final data gave Bush a 49-47% lead over Kerry, but then the proceeded to allocate 90% of the undecideds to the Kerry column, this being the only way for them not to have to call the race either way.
Distributing it at a more reasonable 50% would have made their projection 51-49, but it was their own credibility.
In addition to being of dubious origin, the "undecided" supposition was based upon iffy premises, which anyone with an ounce of common sense would be able to see through.
My own personal opinion was that most of these "undecideds" were simply people who wanted to be given a reason-virtually any reason at all-to vote for President Bush, not the other way around.
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