Posted on 11/06/2008 3:12:32 AM PST by governsleastgovernsbest
Via Drudge. According to a study performed by a Fordham University scholar, the least accurate of the 20 presidential polls were those performed by CBS/New York Times and, in dead last, Newsweek.
In its final poll, CBS/Times forecast an 11-point Obama margin, 52-41. Newsweek was even more "optimistic", foreseeing a 12-point Obama win, 53-41.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
Worst of the pollsters ping to Today show list.
They’ll do much better when they aren’t confused by having more than one candidate.
“We predict President-for-life Obama will sweep to re-election with a resounding 99.99% of the vote. There’s always going to be some malcontent in Utah.”
But the bottom line for me is that in the 2006 mid-term elections, the pollsters said the Democrats would make gain. Many on Free Republic said, "No way! What do the pollsters know?? They're always wrong!" But when the dust settled, the Democrats had made gains and had control.
In 2008, the pollsters said Obama would get the White House. Many on Free Republic said, "No way! What do the pollsters know?? They're always wrong! We're closing the gap!" But when the dust settled, Obama had the White House.
In the 2010 mid-term elections, I'll listen to the pollsters and not the experts on FR.
No one will ever believe a word they say.
Every time they proclaim their "fairness" they will only hear derisive laughter.
I agree. While there will always be outlier polls tainted by bias, by and large I tend to believe the polls. As the author of the study stated:
“On average, preelection polls from 23 public polling organizations projected a Democratic advantage of 7.52 percentage points on Election Day, which is only about 1.37 percentage points away from the current estimate of a 6.15-point Obama margin in the national popular vote.”
2006 was the first time in a long time that the polls were remotely accurate. So, was that the exception to the rule, or the indication that the pollsters now have this art-form down to a science?
These two are always the worse.. They had Clinton winning by 17-20 over Dole.
When you have moderate/rino losers running the pollster tend to be closely in sync. If republicans don't learn from this crushing defeat we will continually get what we deserve.
Three of the highest profile organizations combine to produce the two worst polls. Hmmm.
Right now, Barack Obama has 63.7 million popular votes to John McCain's 56.3 million, whereas third party candidates have roughly a collective 1.6 million. That works out to 52.4 percent of the vote for Obama and 46.3 percent for McCain ... conspicuously close to our pre-election estimates of 52.3 percent for Obama and 46.2 percent for McCain.
They did pretty well picking the states, too, it looks like. Only missed on Indiana, if it goes to 0.
In OH, we have hundreds of thousands of paper ballots to count, not to mention absentees that came in late, but under the deadline.
In Montgomery Co., for example, there were 60,000 remaining votes to be counted (out of about 320,000). So Obama either won this county by 67% or (as is now likely) 2-5%. That will make a big difference in (for Ohio at least) who is the most "accurate."
Part of an study should be the polls from one month out. If an organization moved the split by 10 points over a short period, that's no good.
Sorry OH did not work out. Looks like that private polling that gave Repubs hope was no more accurate (or even less so) than the public polls. Or turnout for the Dems was just underestimated. You think OH is gone for good? I sure hope not. All things considered I suppose McCain did pretty well taking 48%, if that’s the way it ends up.
Well, some folks may have said that but Ann Coulter had it right. Paraphrasing, she said that they are usually either pretty close or way off. But when they are off they are ALWAYS off in favor of the dim candidate, never in the favor of the Repug. I have made the same observation and that is the filter through which I look at polls.
Some polls were clearly outrageous. Also during the Democrat primaries, so called reputable pollsters blew it big time, claiming Obama leads in primary states where Hillary won handily.
So it was right to be skeptical, because there was clearly something at play which the pollsters weren’t seeing.
To their credit, a few pollsters adjusted their weighting and methodology after the primaries and ending up calling it about right.
Whatever they did managed to result in an accurate outcome. But they could have just as easily been wrong again.
You're assuming that the sole purpose of polls is to reflect accurately what the prevailing opinions are at the time of inquiry. Push polls are designed to change the opinions of voters by fabricating momentum for one side or another. I concede that some of the final polls might very well have been within a percentage point of the actual results on November 4th.
But can the same case for polling accuracy be made for the polls taken after the Republican Convention? When Fannie and Freddie tanked and the Dow Jones tumbled?
in other words, inaccurate polls at those points in time could very well have persuaded the undecideds that conventional wisdom was that most people had concluded that Obama was the better choice. This is the reason why sales pitches often tell the consumer in ads that their product is the most used or bought for that market.
The damage having been done and time having run too short for adjustment, the pollsters could have very easily decided to be more accurate near the finish line for professional reputation.
Well said!!
The main point of this is that it is all just random luck if one of them gets it right.
The most accurate of 2004 was #15 this year. So why should we give any credence to any of the pollsters?
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