Look at the last three of the five Newsweek/PSRAI polls. Note the big dip in Republicans during the Democrat Convention. Down by 5.4%, the Dems went up by 2.9% and Kerry got a 49% to 42% lead over Bush.
Now look at September, it swings the other way, now too few Dems and too many Republicans. Makes Bush look better than he is and would allow for Newsweek to portray John Kerry as 'charging' back in the next few weeks.
That's why the political affiliation breakdowns are so important, to prevent the 'whip-saw'...
dvwjr
Fascinating analysis. I've long thought that every new poll should have to prominently discuss the "weighting" formulae used in calculating results.
Which leads to a question. How do they arrive at the "weighting" formula (party affiliation). Is it based on an average of their last few polls? What if the electorate is swinging away from one party and towards another?
I would think an interesting timeframe to look at would be the months immediately before and after 9/11. Did more voters begin identifying themselves as Republicans? For discussion's sake, let's say Republican I.D. went from 38% to 47% in a 3 week period. How would that change in party affiliation be reflected in polls? If the firm's policy is to use averages that occurred BEFORE the defining event, wouldn't the new polls underrepresent Republicans?
I'm asking this because I think there's a possibility that Kerry's miserable August has resulted in a slightly higher Republican self-identification. I just don't know how that would be reflected in the weighting. Can you help me here?
Dear dvwjr,
Nice job.
Two major problems, though.
The first is your attempt to correct the data for a particular ratio of R/D/I.
"Note the big dip in Republicans during the Democrat Convention."
"Now look at September, it swings the other way, now too few Dems and too many Republicans."
That is as it should be.
Party affiliation is not a static, unchanging demographic attribute like sex, race, or even religion (which can change, but not readily).
One ought to expect that during the Democrat convention, some number of people who would not ordinarily identify themselves as Democrats will so identify themselves as such. And vice versa for the Republican convention.
If you use R/D/I ratios from, say, the last election, you will distort the real outcome at the end of each convention, because some people who on THIS election day will identify as Republicans or Independents will identify as Democrats in the immediate aftermath of the Democrat convention, and conversely for the Republican convention.
It appears that Newsweek took that into account.
The second major problem (and not unrelated to the first) with your analysis is that it only corrects for party affiliation. How about for minority status? Or geographical location? Or sex? It may be that the pollsters tried to factor in these demographic attributes, as well.
Otherwise, nice piece of work.
sitetest
Thanks for the ping. I'm ewnjoying the post.
It baffles me as to how any reputable polling organization would let Newsweek do this to their polling. It also baffles me as to why the polling industry doesn't sanction Newsweek.