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Two more crack-pot polls released today.

OpportunityCost said:
In what world is Ohio polling at +9 dem? Margin of error my ass.
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Depends on the poll and what is being polled. According to the above poll, likely voters skew democratic. Doesn't surprise me, given the economy of Ohio is on the rebound from the Bush fiasco.
 
head of joaquin said:
Depends on the poll and what is being polled. According to the above poll, likely voters skew democratic. Doesn't surprise me, given the economy of Ohio is on the rebound from the Bush fiasco.
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BOOOOOOSHHHH.

Crap, now I have to take a drink.


Dude its an outlier and such a terrible one that its not very credible. Go look at it and find the weighting and show me how accurate it is.
 
Grim17 said:
Polls are weighted to try and represent an accurate reflection of the electorate. In other words, if they sample too many of a certain demographic, they toss some of that group out. When a poll is weighted that lopsided, it just boggles the mind.
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Nope. Depends on WHAT is being polled. If poll registered voters you use certain criteria. If you poll for likely voters you use others.

Why does this mystify you?
 
OpportunityCost said:
BOOOOOOSHHHH.

Crap, now I have to take a drink.


Dude its an outlier and such a terrible one that its not very credible. Go look at it and find the weighting and show me how accurate it is.
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The fact that it's an outlier doesn't mean its criteria are wrong. Why would anybody take your word for that. Nobody's interested in your gut feelings.

But in any case, the OP alleges some conspiracy or something. If you don't like the criteria, explain why. Stop whining. It's a conservative trait
 
Grim17 said:
Polls are weighted to try and represent an accurate reflection of the electorate. In other words, if they sample too many of a certain demographic, they toss some of that group out. When a poll is weighted that lopsided, it just boggles the mind.
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most polls use a sample set of around 1000 people. When you do things like that, according to statistics, you need to actually correlate a number of poll results together to get a good representation of anything. You would be pretty much laughed out of any scientific circle if you tried to use such a small set once to represent anything. Of course, much like weathermen pollsters are considered scientific. There is no science to taking a single set and making assumptions about a much larger group.

however, to argue the point the numbers do fall within the margin of error of many other polls. Since the polls themselves do recognize they indicate a range rather than a specific point it does seem to correlate with other data. is it pinpoint accurate, of course not. All together the polls seem to indicate a small lead for obama where it matters that has been constant throughout the past few months. It also shows that mittens seems to have a small lead in the popular vote that has been pretty steady, but that doesn't matter due to the reality that popular vote doesn't mean much when most of the country is winner take all in the EC. If you look at the reality of that situation a candidate could potentially lose by one percent in the popular vote and lose the election by over 95 percent if every state went the same way.
 
Head of joaquin, what world do you live in?
 
Grim17 said:
Crack-pot poll #1

What happens when you conduct a state poll in Ohio,and sample 9% more democrats than republicans in the survey, and sample 11% fewer Independents than turned out for the election in 2008?

What you get is a PPP poll showing Obama with a 5 point lead over Romney in Ohio... Or as I like to call it... A friking joke.

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Crack-pot poll #2

This one is a survey of likely voters from National Journal and is listed in the RCP average today. It shows Obama up nationally by 5%, 50 to 45 over Romney... What's wrong with this poll, other than it's small sample size and 4.4% margin of error, is written in the story about it here, where it says:

In its likely-voter model, the Congressional Connection Poll projected that the 2012 electorate will be virtually unchanged from 2008, with Democrats holding an 8 percentage-point advantage among voters (compared with 7 points last time)
​

You got that? They think even a higher percentage of democrats over republicans will vote in this election, compared to 2008... I guess they just ignored the survey Gallup did of more than 9000 voters, which not only didn't show that this election would likely have a 8 point Dem advantage, but projects that Republicans will have a higher turnout this election than the Democrats will.


Just when I thought the polling organizations had started to move toward reality, we get this crap.
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I guess the Romney momentum has been reversed. We are back to complaining about the polls again.
 
Grim17 said:
What?

You accused me of concocting numbers and I did no such thing. I base my estimate on Gallup's surveys, which make Democrats +8 or +9 over Republicans this election as those polls indicate, highly unlikely to say the least.
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Don't feed the hack. You should know that by now.
 
Grim17 said:
It's simple... It comes down to their demographic sample.

If the sample is democrats +5 or less, you won't hear a word out of me... But when you have polls that are sampling an even higher percentage of democrats over republicans this election, than the 7% difference in the 2008 election, that is just dishonest. It makes no logical sense.

Think about it...

Now if insulting and mis-characterizing me is more important to you than honest debate, that doesn't speak very well for you or your political beliefs. No problem though... To each his own.
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Maybe I'm not reading this correctly, but if an organization conducting a poll randomly selected individuals who were "likely to vote," and found that there were more democrats, would that just mean that there are more democrats in the area? Within the margin of error of course. Or to simplify: a poll finds Obama is leading, 51% to 49%. Then would you say "well it's biased, they polled more people who were voting for Obama!"

A poll from an organization seeking to reform health care doesn't exactly sound like a tight group of credible pollsters, but I'm still not sure what the problem is.
 
head of joaquin said:
The fact that it's an outlier doesn't mean its criteria are wrong. Why would anybody take your word for that. Nobody's interested in your gut feelings.

But in any case, the OP alleges some conspiracy or something. If you don't like the criteria, explain why. Stop whining. It's a conservative trait
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You arent really paying attention. 2008, the tidal wave year for the Dems had Ohio at +5 or so if I remember right. Is there any indicator anywhere that Obama is going to make improvements on his 2008 performance?

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/OhioPollingMemo103112.pdf PPP poll. Amongst the loaded questions: fair share as a taxation policy.

The other poll is even worse, no cross tabs, no polling data and neither poll provides its weighting number. Making analyzing them impossible and making their likely voter model garbage. They arent worth the time it took to take and print them without that data.

Or, what is better known as an outlier poll that is junk or a push poll. Yet somehow you lend it lots of credibility.
 
Mustachio said:
Maybe I'm not reading this correctly, but if an organization conducting a poll randomly selected individuals who were "likely to vote," and found that there were more democrats, would that just mean that there are more democrats in the area? Within the margin of error of course. Or to simplify: a poll finds Obama is leading, 51% to 49%. Then would you say "well it's biased, they polled more people who were voting for Obama!"

A poll from an organization seeking to reform health care doesn't exactly sound like a tight group of credible pollsters, but I'm still not sure what the problem is.
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The problem is they found 8 more democrats per 100. Which is not a realistic model or weighting of Ohio. If it were 2, Id shrug it off, I bet Grim would too.
 
Uh, oh. Looks like 4 more years of whatever it is we have now. Unless, of course, Gary Johnson has an October surprise:)

Barack Obama to be re-elected President in 2012
69.0%
CHANCE
Last prediction was: $6.90 / share
Today's Change: +$0.49 (+7.6%)

Mitt Romney to be elected President in 2012
31.3%
CHANCE
Last prediction was: $3.13 / share
Today's Change: -$0.48 (-13.3%)

Must be Halloween.....
 
tererun said:
I understand statistics, and i understand polling. What i do not understand is how when gallup shows a completely skewed result that shows romney way out in the lead republicans regard that as the truth, and do not think that perhaps either coincidence or poor polling resulted in a false result.
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I'm no hypocrate... I will honestly discuss anything, including Gallup.

Gallup is weighted 35 dem, 36 rep, 29 Ind, based on their survey data of likely voters. I think that's too much toward Republicans, but they are the only ones that do so. Every other polling outfit gives Dems more than republicans.

Personally, I think it's probably dems 3 to 5 percent higher, because It was dems +7% in 2008 and republicans had a slight edge in the 2010 midterms. The poll I trust is Rasmussen. They were the most accurate and consistant in 2008 and one of the best in 2004 also. They are currently using Dem +5 in their tracking polls.
 
specklebang said:
Uh, oh. Looks like 4 more years of whatever it is we have now. Unless, of course, Gary Johnson has an October surprise:)

Barack Obama to be re-elected President in 2012
69.0%
CHANCE
Last prediction was: $6.90 / share
Today's Change: +$0.49 (+7.6%)

Mitt Romney to be elected President in 2012
31.3%
CHANCE
Last prediction was: $3.13 / share
Today's Change: -$0.48 (-13.3%)

Must be Halloween.....
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Just jump the shark and quote an internet poll next, just as credible.
 
well we all know who you are voting for. Polls are pointless, don't read them if you don't like them. Go out, place your vote on election day, do whatever else you need to do, and at the end of the day, what happens, happens.
 
OpportunityCost said:
You arent really paying attention. 2008, the tidal wave year for the Dems had Ohio at +5 or so if I remember right. Is there any indicator anywhere that Obama is going to make improvements on his 2008 performance?
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To answer that question: I doubt that Obama will improve on his OVERALL vote in Ohio this election, but it's quite conceivable that the Dem-Rep spread will be greater than it was in 2008. This is because the Republican "brand" has increasingly fallen out of favor, and more conservatives are choosing to identify themselves as independents rather than Republicans. Romney will probably still win most of their votes, but it does affect the Dem-Rep spread in the polls.

What all these critiques miss is that most pollsters (excluding Rasmussen) do not weigh their samples by political affiliation. If they are surveying more Democrats than Republicans, that's because, well, more people are telling pollsters that they are Democrats than Republicans.
 
Mustachio said:
Maybe I'm not reading this correctly, but if an organization conducting a poll randomly selected individuals who were "likely to vote," and found that there were more democrats, would that just mean that there are more democrats in the area? Within the margin of error of course. Or to simplify: a poll finds Obama is leading, 51% to 49%. Then would you say "well it's biased, they polled more people who were voting for Obama!"

A poll from an organization seeking to reform health care doesn't exactly sound like a tight group of credible pollsters, but I'm still not sure what the problem is.
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Actually, the pollsters don't just randomly pick people, they narrow it down to, in this case, dem 9+.
 
What does "jump the shark" mean? I've heard it before but not enough context.

The figures are from Intrade. I voted 3rd party and I'm just contributing the information, not predicting the future.

OpportunityCost said:
Just jump the shark and quote an internet poll next, just as credible.
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Bottom line is this election is a toss up and that is not good news for and encumbent.
 
Kandahar said:
To answer that question: I doubt that Obama will improve on his OVERALL vote in Ohio this election, but it's quite conceivable that the Dem-Rep spread will be greater than it was in 2008. This is because the Republican "brand" has increasingly fallen out of favor, and more conservatives are choosing to identify themselves as independents rather than Republicans. Romney will probably still win most of their votes, but it does affect the Dem-Rep spread in the polls.

What all these critiques miss is that most pollsters (excluding Rasmussen) do not weigh their samples by political affiliation. If they are surveying more Democrats than Republicans, that's because, well, more people are telling pollsters that they are Democrats than Republicans.
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Dude...

Obama is going to do worse but dems are going to do better? Mathematically, in a presidential election, that doesnt work.
 
specklebang said:
What does "jump the shark" mean? I've heard it before but not enough context.

The figures are from Intrade. I voted 3rd party and I'm just contributing the information, not predicting the future.
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Internet meme, Fonzie jumping the shark in Happy Days, kinda means you have tried everything that works so lets try something totally stupid.
 
OpportunityCost said:
Dude...

Obama is going to do worse but dems are going to do better? Mathematically, in a presidential election, that doesnt work.
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Yes it does. If the Democratic vote share stays roughly even from 2008 (which it seems to be doing), but a large number of conservatives stop associating with the Republican Party and start calling themselves independents (which they have), then the spread between Democrats and Republicans will increase even though the ideological makeup of the electorate has not changed much. Romney is still likely to win the votes of most of those conservatives...they're just calling themselves independents instead of Republicans now.
 
Kandahar said:
Yes it does. If the Democratic vote share stays roughly even from 2008 (which it seems to be doing), but a large number of conservatives stop associating with the Republican Party and start calling themselves independents (which they have), then the spread between Democrats and Republicans will increase even though the ideological makeup of the electorate has not changed much. Romney is still likely to win the votes of most of those conservatives...they're just calling themselves independents instead of Republicans now.
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Polling isnt showing evidence of that, its showing the opposite. shrug
 
Grim17 said:
Crack-pot poll #1

What happens when you conduct a state poll in Ohio,and sample 9% more democrats than republicans in the survey, and sample 11% fewer Independents than turned out for the election in 2008?

What you get is a PPP poll showing Obama with a 5 point lead over Romney in Ohio... Or as I like to call it... A friking joke.

********************************************************************

Crack-pot poll #2

This one is a survey of likely voters from National Journal and is listed in the RCP average today. It shows Obama up nationally by 5%, 50 to 45 over Romney... What's wrong with this poll, other than it's small sample size and 4.4% margin of error, is written in the story about it here, where it says:

In its likely-voter model, the Congressional Connection Poll projected that the 2012 electorate will be virtually unchanged from 2008, with Democrats holding an 8 percentage-point advantage among voters (compared with 7 points last time)
​

You got that? They think even a higher percentage of democrats over republicans will vote in this election, compared to 2008... I guess they just ignored the survey Gallup did of more than 9000 voters, which not only didn't show that this election would likely have a 8 point Dem advantage, but projects that Republicans will have a higher turnout this election than the Democrats will.


Just when I thought the polling organizations had started to move toward reality, we get this crap.
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A redefining of the word "reality" to mean "what I want to see" thread.
 
I assume that it would be stupid to attack a shark so that's why it means that. Am I getting it? I'll borrow that if you don't mind:) cause I know some real shark-jumpers.

Thanks.
imgres-1.jpeg


OpportunityCost said:
Internet meme, Fonzie jumping the shark in Happy Days, kinda means you have tried everything that works so lets try something totally stupid.
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