Posted on 08/03/2012 11:43:38 AM PDT by StAnDeliver
HH: I’m joined right now by Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Polls, Quinnipiac in the news today along with CBS and New York Times for swing state polls, which surprised a lot of people. Peter, welcome, thanks for being on the show.
PB: My pleasure.
HH: I want to start with the models, which are creating quite a lot of controversy. In Florida, the model that Quinnipiac used gave Democrats a nine point edge in turnout. In Ohio, the sample had an eight point Democratic advantage. What’s the reasoning behind those models?
PB: Well, what is important to understand is that the way Quinnipiac and most other major polls do their sampling is we do not wait for party ID. We ask voters, or the people we interview, do they consider themselves a Democrat, a Republican, an independent or a member of a minor party. And that’s different than asking them what their party registration is. What you’re comparing it to is party registration. In other words, when someone starts as a voter, they have the opportunity of, in most states, of being a Republican, a Democrat, or a member of a minor party or unaffiliated.
HH: Okay.
PB: So what’s important to understand is what we are doing is we’re asking voters what they consider themselves when we interview them, which was in the last week.
HH: Now what I don’t understand this, so educate me on it, if Democrats only had a three point advantage in Florida in the final turnout measurement in 2008, but in your poll they have a nine point turnout advantage, why is that not a source of skepticism for people?
PB: Well, I mean, clearly there will be some people who are skeptics. This is how we’ve always done our polls. Our record is very good in terms of accuracy. Again, remember, we’re asking people what they consider themselves at the time we call them.
HH: But I don’t know how that goes to the issue, Peter, so help me. I’m not being argumentative, I really want to know. Why would guys run a poll with nine percent more Democrats than Republicans when that percentage advantage, I mean, if you’re trying to tell people how the state is going to go, I don’t think this is particularly helpful, because you’ve oversampled Democrats, right?
PB: But we didn’t set out to oversample Democrats. We did our normal, random digit dial way of calling people. And there were, these are likely voters. They had to pass a screen. Because it’s a presidential year, it’s not a particularly heavy screen.
HH: And so if, in fact, you had gotten a hundred Democrats out of a hundred respondents that answered, would you think that poll was reliable?
PB: Probably not at 100 out of 100.
HH: Okay, so if it was 75 out of 100…
PB: Well, I mean…
HH: I mean, when does it become unreliable? You know you’ve just put your foot on the slope, so I’m going to push you down it. When does it become unreliable?
PB: Like the Supreme Court and pornography, you know it when you see it.
HH: Well, a lot of us look at a nine point advantage in Florida, and we say we know that to be the polling equivalent of pornography. Why am I wrong?
PB: Because what we found when we made the actual calls is this kind of party ID.
HH: Do you expect Democrats, this is a different question, do you, Peter Brown, expect Democrats to have a nine point registration advantage when the polls close on November 6th in Florida?
PB: Well, first, you don’t mean registration.
HH: I mean, yeah, turnout.
PB: Do I think…I think it is probably unlikely.
HH: And so what value is this poll if in fact it doesn’t weight for the turnout that’s going to be approximated?
PB: Well, you’ll have to judge that. I mean, you know, our record is very good. You know, we do independent polling. We use random digit dial. We use human beings to make our calls. We call cell phones as well as land lines. We follow the protocol that is the professional standard.
HH: As we say, that might be the case, but I don’t know it’s responsive to my question. My question is, should we trust this as an accurate predictor of what will happen? You’ve already told me there…
PB: It’s an accurate predictor of what would happen is the election were today.
HH: But that’s, again, I don’t believe that, because today, Democrats wouldn’t turn out by a nine point advantage. I don’t think anyone believes today, if you held the election today, do you think Democrats would turn out nine percentage points higher than Republicans?
PB: If the election were today, yeah. What we found is obviously a large Democratic advantage.
HH: I mean, you really think that’s true? I mean, as a professional, you believe that Democrats have a nine point turnout advantage in Florida?
PB: Our record has been very good. You know, Hugh, I…
HH: That’s not responsive. It’s just a question. Do you personally, Peter, believe that Democrats enjoy a nine point turnout advantage right now?
PB: What I believe is what we found.
HH: Geez, I just, and an eight point in Ohio? I’m from Ohio. Democrats haven’t had an eight point advantage in Ohio since before the Civil War. I mean, that just never happens, but Peter, I appreciate your coming on. I’m not persuaded that Quinnipiac Polls haven’t hurt themselves today, but I appreciate your willingness to come on and talk about it.
End of interview.
PB: But we didn’t set out to oversample Democrats.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Buahahahahahahaa! He said it just “happened!” This is the kind of crap that should make national news, the now institutionalized deception of the US public.
Hewitt did a good job....this Quinnipiac guy is spinning like a truck stuck in the mud.
What an idiot.
Oh good grief. Like I need to hear another left-wingers BS excuses.
Calling at 2PM on a week day and catching mostly democrats watching soaps at home?
Obama gave them a list of the OBAMAPHONE users.
They happen to be home the most ... they're not working.
Wonder how many times Quinnipiac has published a poll whrre Republicans have been oversampled?
This is classic:
HH: And so if, in fact, you had gotten a hundred Democrats out of a hundred respondents that answered, would you think that poll was reliable?
PB: Probably not at 100 out of 100.
HH: Okay, so if it was 75 out of 100…
PB: Well, I mean…
HH: I mean, when does it become unreliable? You know you’ve just put your foot on the slope, so I’m going to push you down it. When does it become unreliable?
PB: Like the Supreme Court and pornography, you know it when you see it.
HH: Well, a lot of us look at a nine point advantage in Florida, and we say we know that to be the polling equivalent of pornography. Why am I wrong?
Polling in July and August, and not correcting for party affiliation? WHO is away on vacation or at the beach in July and August, and WHO is staying at home behind closed blinds and barred doors? (Rasmussen -- I think -- corrects for this somewhat, but not completely.)
That was awesome! He never saw it coming. Backed himself right into the corner and couldn’t get out. Don’t mess with a brilliant lawyer like Hugh!
This election for president is the definition of conundrum: a liberal vs a marxist. Should I hang myself, or shoot myself. No upside to this decision.
5.56mm
Sounds like a Freudian slip there, like he had a predetermined outcome in mind. What he should have said is what we found is what I believe.
and, yet, it always turns out that way. Hmmmmm.....
The polling guy seems to be inferring that he is getting his turnout model from the D vs. R responses from this specific poll. I really don’t think this is the the standard polling methology.
The normal.scheme is to poll the R’s and D’s and I’s and determine the best estimate of how each of these 3 groups will split their vote between Obama and Romney. Then they prorate this result based on their independently developed turnout model.
Am I right about this?
Fake. But accurate.
AU72 gives you one parameter. Another poster recently pointed out that VERY FEW small biz owners get home before 7 or 8 PM and one of the main polling time blocks is 5:30pm to 7pm.
And then, ultimately, you have the same vulnerability with the polling data tabulation as we have with vote counting - when done by machines, and in particular computers, any result desired can be generated by tweaking the counting algorithms in the software. In the case of pollsters, there’s also the issue of the software that drives the “random” dialers.
You got that right - same reason Vietnam Vet John Kerry was so upset in 2004 because the Exit Polls gave him the clear edge...cuz they were polling people in the middle of the afternoon when most working people were, well, working. Working people are not the typical constituency of the Libs.
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