Whew- what's going on around here today? I left the computer for a few hours, went out into the real world, and when I got back everyone was still talking about Mary and Zogby. That's too bad. I came across this chat Charlie Cook did was the WaPo and at least he is making some sense. There's quite a few of you who would be served well by reading it. You can read the whole thing
HERE but here are some choice excerpts:
Berwyn, Ill.: With unprecedented numbers of newly registered voters all across the country, aren't ALL polls essentially irrelevant?
Charles Cook: Virtually all the polls you are seeing are using random digit dialing, not voter registeration rolls, so theoretically even newly registered voters are being polled. A far bigger problem is that as many as 18 percent of telephone subscribers today have no land lines, and since pollsters are not calling cell phones, almost one in five voters are not being included in poll samples.
Unrelated to your question, my advice to people is to not pay too much attention to any one poll, there is a temptation to cherry pick, to focus on the one or two polls that tell you what you want to see happen the most, and ignore all others as methodologically flawed. I would look at the averages of polls that are published in various places, an average of many polls is most likely to give you a truer picture than any one.
Nashville, Tenn.: I've read that some political leaders think highly of the Zogby poll.
What do you think of Zogby's poll?
Charles Cook: I think that anyone who puts significantly more weight on any one pollster is making a huge mistake. John Zogby is a terrific guy who works very hard and has had some really good years and other years (2002) that weren't so good. There is a web site that has plotted out each of the major national polls on a graph that indicates that Zogby's polls have been a tad more Democratic than most others, just as Fox/Opinion Dynamics tend to be a bit more Republican than the others. Averages are always better, just stick to polls that are done over the telephone (NOT internet) and conducted by real live people, not "push #1 for Bush, #2 for Kerry...) like Rasmussen or Survey USA. They have no idea of they are interviewing nine years old or not.
Charles Cook: I don't have either candidate anywhere near 270 electoral votes. The only way you can do this is to take state level polling and push states with just one or two point leads into either the red or blue column. Given that a quarter of these polls are complete garbage and another quarter fairly suspect, I think that this exercise is very problematic. Unless someone happens to be privy to the much more sophisticated (and expensive) polling that is being conducted for the two parties, the chances of anyone accurately calling all of the 11 states that we are calling toss ups (Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wisconsin) are pretty slim. If the margin in this race is more than one percentage point, the Electoral College vote won't matter, if it is inside of one percent, then there are too many states that are too close and the state level polling, even the good ones, won't be of much use, much less these three-dollar state polls that are flying over the internet.
Barboursville, W.Va.: Do you see a wave going to either party in these last weeks? Is it a fact or myth that the undecided go to the challenger? I have heard some say yes and others say no.
Charles Cook: I certainly don't see any wave out there, for either side. Going into the first debate, Kerry was underperforming among women voters, that got corrected in the first debate, closing the gap from, say a six point Bush lead going into the first debate (average of all polls) to about two points right now.
I cannot remember ever seeing a race where a well-known, well-defined incumbent won a half or more of the undecided vote. Generally it is at least two-thirds to three-quarters going to the challenger, somebody was throwing a figure around of 85 percent, don't know if that is right. But as a general rule, undecided voters overwhelmingly break toward challengers, unless the incumbent is relatively unknown, undefined, appointed or something. That's why it is a mistake for people to focus on the spread between the two candidates, the far more relevant figure is the actual vote percentage of the incumbent in a poll (or better, average of polls). If you assume that Nader/others get about two percent of the vote (down from combined 3.1 percent last time), if President Bush is at 46, 47 or maybe 48 percent of the vote going into election day, he probably loses, 49 percent, on the cusp, 50 percent wins.
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LISTEN UP PEOPLE: If you let the movements in the daily tracking polls get you up and down you will be a nervous wreck for the next few weeks, and you will not help yourself or our cause by letting them play with your emotions. You can read the polls, but do not let them play with you like this. If you're feeling upset, do what I did - go out in the real world. You will find that sometimes the blogs suffer from the same obsession as the corporate media - that is, the blogs also sometimes suffer from obsessing over themselves and become disconnected from what is going on in the real world.
Carry on.