Numerical Analysis: Newsweek poll - September 2-3, 2004.

Analysis of recent Newsweek/PSRAI post-RNC convention polling data, with derived and revised Kerry and Bush post-convention 'bounces' and poll leads. Comments welcome...

"I think this is why pollsters' random samples see increases in the affiliation of the party that just held its convention. It isn't a long-term change, but it does affect the sample in the short term. "

I think there’s not a snow balls chance in hell that the ratio of Republicans to Democrats shifted 20% overnight. I think that anyone who believes that doesn’t know human nature.

Dear elfman2,

"I think there’s not a snow balls chance in hell that the ratio of Republicans to Democrats shifted 20% overnight."

I'd probably give it a bit more than a snowball's chance in Hell, but I didn't state that that accounted for the entire effect. That's why I said, "small but significant percentage of respondents."

Here's another reason why random calling might produce more Republicans after the Republican Convention, and more Democrats after the Democrat Convention: effect of the conventions on refusal rates.

I guess that if a pollster considered differing refusal rates as responsible for part of the effect, he'd want to correct for it. And it appears that Newsweek did correct, to a degree, for Republican oversampling.

The point is that there are likely multiple reasons for the oversampling, and not all of it should be corrected.

And I'll reiterate that focusing strictly on the ratio of R/D/I may also be an error to avoid. There are other demographic data for which the pollsters may wish to make some corrections.

sitetest

Well .. I see "registered voters" and no LIKELY VOTERS (which are always higher for Bush). I also see more dems than repubs .. along with more WOMEN (who tend to vote dem) than MEN (who tend to vote repub).

So .. I would keep Kerry in the 37-39% range (the Bush-haters group) and lift Bush up to 58-60%.

I like that 9% of Independents favor Nader. If they refuse to vote for Bush, I am happy they are going to Nader instead of Kerry. My daughter has convinced two non-Bush supporters to go to Nader instead of Kerry.

If anyone is anti-war, it should be easy to convince them to switch over to Nader.

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