Polls are not predictions, much as we'd like them to be. This poll discloses what was asked, who was asked, the methodology used in asking and the results. That allows people like us to analyze more than just the horse race. You can use aggregators - http://www.electoral-vote.com/ or http://www.realclearpolitics.com/bush_vs_kerry.html or http://synapse.princeton.edu/~sam/pollcalc.html but they tend to have their biases too. We will know soon enough. I think this could be a huge blowout but I'll settle for a repeat of 2000 if I must.
Dear narses,
I'm not suggesting that this poll serves as a prediction. In fact, I'm suggesting that it may not serve well as a prediction at all. Nonetheless, we assign some predictive value to polls, especially to polls taken just prior to the actual event - the election, otherwise, we likely would ignore them.
We see "50 - 45," and we're heartened. To the degree that we take heart from this poll, we are considering it to be at least partly a prediction. Else, who cares about the "50 - 45"?
Some polls have better predictive value than others. This poll, in the last election, had poor predictive value.
sitetest
I agree..... I think this will be a big win for the President..... But BG's prediction wasn't that good in 2000 when others got it dead on. So it becomes who's on this time around and who's off. Therefore, I tend to not follow a poll for specific predictions but rather look at it for trends......