The Art of Politics

Roly Poly

Sick of polls? That's what we thought...just one... more... day...

If there is anything that won't be missed about the election, besides the spinning, misleading ads, backbiting, that sort of thing, it's the constant avalanche of polls that seem to be at times all over the place.

Take the Fox News poll. Some might expect this poll to be slanted toward the President. Au contraire, in fact they have to go out of their way not to slant their polls. So they end up with... John Kerry leading among men in their latest poll. Huh? This is taking the "fair and balanced" bit a little too far - there is no way on God's green earth that John Kerry wins among men. No other poll is showing any such thing. And Fox themselves have to know they've got a stinker. But what choice do they have but to run it? Can you imagine the press headlines if Fox News spiked a poll that showed John Kerry in the lead?

Part of the problem with these polls and how they weight samples we've noted before - too few samples in various states that don't account for the difference between an Arkansas Democrat and a New York Democrat. When you weight heavy out of New York, and assume Democrats in the midwest will vote same, you are undercutting any semblence of reality in your poll.

The best polls are amalgamations of state polls. Good state polls - which newspaper polls almost invariably aren't. Especially in Minnesota...

For a good assessment of polls using a macroscopic amalgamation of polls, visit the Horserace Blog. He's done the math... so you don't have to...

Posted by MEC2 at November 2, 2004 08:43 AM