Barman...the Anti-Sybil.
He has 22 people in this forum down to 1 personality. :nohead:
Barman...the Anti-Sybil.
He has 22 people in this forum down to 1 personality. :nohead:
Bi-Poller Part II
STRATA-SPHERE
Published by AJStrata at 10:59 am under 2008 Elections, All General Discussions
Reader Frogg passed along this really interesting commentary from a professional pollster who is (a) a die hard Obama supporter and (b) laughing at the public polls:
>>>>>>> I was having dinner a night ago with a friend of mine who is a statistician for a well-regarded private polling company. They do some work for Republicans in California, but most of the work they do is for Democrats or Democrat-leaning operations (Unions, etc.). Anyway, her shop was retained to do a few Presidential polls for targetted states on behalf of a union so the union could decide where to spend their ad dollars for the last week. They did Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Missouri. After mocking the hell out of the voter id spreads used by Rassmussen, Zogby, etc. (and this is coming from a committed Dem who will be voting for Barry O) she said the results of their polling lead her to believe that McCain will definitely win FL, OH, NC, MO and NV. She says Obama definitely wins New Mexico. She said that Colorado and New Hampshire were absolute dead heats. She said she thinks there is a 55% chance Obama holds on in Pennsylvania and a 75% chance McCain wins Virginia. She absolutely laughed at the public polls showing Obama leading Virginia–and pointed out that all of those polls rely on Dem turnout being +4 and as much as +7, when in 2006, Republicans actually had the advantage by +3. She also pointed out that the numbers for Obama in SWVA look absolutely awful and that McCain is running 10 points better then Allen did in NoVa.
Anyway, her companies conclusion is that the election will come down to Colorado, New Hampshire and the Republican leaning district in Maine, which in her opinion might very well decide the Presidency (apparently the district in Nebraska that Obama thought he might be able to get is now off the table). She said she has very little doubt that the public polling is part of a "concerted voter suppression effort" by the MSM. She said IBD/TIPP was the only outfit doing public polling that was "worth a bucket of warm piss".<<<<<<<<<<
The turnout model scam of 2008 will be the big story of this election. In my last post on polls I noted how many of the polls out there are starting to fall into two camps. The first camp is the traditional approach using historic turnout models where party affiliation is actually quite close as both sides turn out their base equally well. The second model is new and unverified, and assumes there will be a huge difference in party affiliation turnout this year.
The first class of polls show a very tight race, the second class are so heavily weighted towards the dems they assume all the anger with the direction of the country has no impact on Democrats and their media puppets. The DC/NY Political Industrial Complex is mostly liberal in its make up, and it has recently become more and more isolated in its echo chamber. Just look at how it reacted to Sarah Palin. The end result is the polls of polls are showing a classic bimodal result with clusters of polls at one of these two modes: "traditional' and "extended" - just like the two turnout models now being openly produced by Gallup.
I think this pollster has it about right. LJStrata and DJStrata have been out doing the GOTV stuff this week and what they find here in our part of Northern Virginia is there are about equal numbers of Obama and McCain supporters, but the Obama supporters are more open, and the McCain supporters are a bit down because of the tilted polls. The GOP support is quiet, but just as massive as the Obama support.
Sadly, one of the better pollsters has gone to the dark side of the bimodal results. Rasmussen has decided to increase his Democrat edge to new heights, under the naive assumption Dem and GOP supporters are equally engaged in answering pollsters:
Like all polling firms, Rasmussen Reports weights its data to reflect the population at large. Among other targets, Rasmussen Reports weights data by political party affiliation using a dynamic weighting process (see methodology).
…
The targets are not set arbitrarily. Rather, they are established based upon survey interviews with a separate sample of adults nationwide completed during the preceding six weeks. A total of 500 nightly interviews are conducted for a total of 21,000 interviews over the six week period.
While it sounds reasonable, the fact is willingness to participate in polls may not be uniform between the left and right. And pollsters are more and more considered part of the problem, part of the Political Industrial Complex which the public blames for the country being on the wrong track by 90+%. There is a 'pox upon all your houses' mentality in the country that is starting to lump the media, the pollsters, the consultants in with the politicians from both sides. Trust in the political class is gone.
Rassmussen now gives the dems a questionable 33-40 edge in turnout (Indies at 27). Previously in September he had Rep-Dem-Indie (RDI) at 34-39-28. Each time he increased the dems edge McCain lost ground - duh!
Let's look at the latest Newsweek Poll which has Obama up 12%. One look at the internals gives the answer to the large lead. Supposedly from 1204 interviews they distilled out 1092 Registered Voters, which were further distilled down to 882 Likely Voters. Of these they claim 299 Reps, 380 Dems and 381 Indies.
If we do the math the total sample size for party affiliates is 1060 - which cleverly doesn't map to interviews, registered voters or likely voters. What is also interesting is they have error bars on their party ID? They claim the Rep error bar is +/-7 (which comes out to 2%.) and the indie/dem error bar is +/- 6. Not sure why they are not sure what party people claimed they were associated with was in doubt, but there it is.
Anyway, if we do the math the Newsweek RDI turnout model is 28-36-36. Recall Rasmussen's model was 33-40-27. I mean they are not even close!
One of the problems is a lot of people are still on the fence to some degree and pollsters are trying to push them into a lean for one candidate, but this is very shaky ground to be on. Look at this Minnesota poll which is making people sit up and take notice:
A St. Cloud State University poll shows that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama leads Republican opponent John McCain 42 percent to 37 percent in Minnesota.
…
After earlier surveys showed DFL challenger Al Franken with an edge, the SCSU poll shows Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman leading with 36 percent, compared with 27 percent for Franken. Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley trails with 16 percent.
Not only is McCain down only 5%, there are an enormous number of undecideds given the low numbers for both candidates. I included the surprise Senate seat race for comparison because it shows similar numbers for Coleman and Franken (with the Rep out fron), but there is a substantial number voting for a 3rd party candidate in that race. There is no major 3rd party candidate on the national level. In MN and with this poll, the race is wide open because of the enormous number of uncommitted voters. Obama could easily lose this state if this poll is to be believed.
So what do we have? We have polls using dynamic turnout models which link willingness to take a poll to willingness to get out and vote (a very suspect assumption IMHO). Especially since different pollsters are deriving vastly different turnout models as a result of this approach. All these polls share one thing, they tend to show massive Obama leads, while the traditional turnout models show a tight or tightening race.
So let's take a random snapshot of the RCP national polls and take a look at the bimodal (what I like to call Bi-Poller) nature of the polls out there. I will be placing Rassmussen in the non-traditional pool of course. So let's start there, with the 'extended' or highly doubtful polls.
Today we have in this group: Rasmussen Reports (Obama +8), Gallup (Expanded) (Obama +8), Newsweek (Obama +12), ABC News/Wash Post (Obama +9), CBS News/NY Times (Obama +13) and FOX News (Obama +9).
The average of these polls gives us an Obama lead of 8.4%. The interesting thing is I could look at the Obama lead in the poll and eyeball which polls were using turnout models which tilted to the dems. I of course checked the internals to make sure I was right and was surprised to only twice (Fox and Hotline, which I would have guessed would be in opposite camps).
Anyway, let's now look at the 'traditional' model polls: Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby (Obama +5), Gallup (Traditional) (Obama +7), Hotline/FD (Obama +7), IBD/TIPP (Obama +4) and GWU/Battleground (Obama +3).
The average of these polls is an Obama lead of 5.2%, which is a much closer race than the other fuzzy math polls indicate.II also want to note that the Reuters/Zogby poll has shown Obama's lead be cut in half, going from +12 to +5 in a very short span of time. The reason I call the other polls fuzzy math is because I noted a wildly fluctuating range of party ID models. The Rep-Dem-Indie (RDI) breakdown for the first set of polls above was interesting to see side by side:
1. Rassmussen RDI: 34-39-28 (Dems +5)
2. Newsweek RDI: 28-36-36 (Dems +8)
3. ABC/WaPo RDI: 29-37-30 (Dems +8)
4. CBS/NYT RDI: 28-40-31 (Dems +12)
5. Fox RDI: 37-43-16 (Dems +6)
Let me be clear, only one turnout model will be right. That means all of these will be wrong, and maybe one will be close to right. But the rest will be badly wrong given how much they diverge. For historical perspective here are the national numbers for 2000, 2004 and 2006:
1. 2000 RDI: 35-39-27 (Dems +4)
2. 2004 RDI: 37-37-26 (Dems +0)
3. 2006 RDI: 36-38-26 (Dems +2)
Is this year's election more like 2000 or 2006? I would state it is both and neither. It is a rejection election like 2006. But with Obama's ticket heavy with DC and Political Industrial Complex insiders one wonders where the 'change' is going to come from. And if Palin is drawing a huge, quiet protest vote of her own with the Maverick McCain the Dems will not be seeing a massive +8% wave at the polls. They would be lucky to get a +2 like they did when they swept Congress in 2006. It was not that there were fewer Reps and conservatives voting in 2006, the fact was the same numbers were out but experimenting with moderate dems (which won the races).
To assume the nation will now go full liberal is quite a leap of fantasy in my mind. We have now conclusive evidence that polls are falling into the more traditional model and those built on irrational exuberance. We don't know which group will be proven right until the election is over, but those built on historical data have a much better chance than those based on wild and unproven assumptions.
In the end the answer is turnout. If the GOP can mobilize like I have seen them mobilizing in the last few weeks, there will be a very stunned and shocked Political Industrial Complex come the morning after the election. And a very loud signal will have been sent to DC and NY and all the other elites who have led this country into a massive rut.
<A href="http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/6828" target=_blank>http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/6828
STRATA-SPHERE
Published by AJStrata at 10:59 am under 2008 Elections, All General Discussions
Reader Frogg passed along this really interesting commentary from a professional pollster who is (a) a die hard Obama supporter and (b) laughing at the public polls:
>>>>>>> I was having dinner a night ago with a friend of mine who is a statistician for a well-regarded private polling company. They do some work for Republicans in California, but most of the work they do is for Democrats or Democrat-leaning operations (Unions, etc.). Anyway, her shop was retained to do a few Presidential polls for targetted states on behalf of a union so the union could decide where to spend their ad dollars for the last week. They did Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Missouri. After mocking the hell out of the voter id spreads used by Rassmussen, Zogby, etc. (and this is coming from a committed Dem who will be voting for Barry O) she said the results of their polling lead her to believe that McCain will definitely win FL, OH, NC, MO and NV. She says Obama definitely wins New Mexico. She said that Colorado and New Hampshire were absolute dead heats. She said she thinks there is a 55% chance Obama holds on in Pennsylvania and a 75% chance McCain wins Virginia. She absolutely laughed at the public polls showing Obama leading Virginia–and pointed out that all of those polls rely on Dem turnout being +4 and as much as +7, when in 2006, Republicans actually had the advantage by +3. She also pointed out that the numbers for Obama in SWVA look absolutely awful and that McCain is running 10 points better then Allen did in NoVa.
Anyway, her companies conclusion is that the election will come down to Colorado, New Hampshire and the Republican leaning district in Maine, which in her opinion might very well decide the Presidency (apparently the district in Nebraska that Obama thought he might be able to get is now off the table). She said she has very little doubt that the public polling is part of a "concerted voter suppression effort" by the MSM. She said IBD/TIPP was the only outfit doing public polling that was "worth a bucket of warm piss".<<<<<<<<<<
The turnout model scam of 2008 will be the big story of this election. In my last post on polls I noted how many of the polls out there are starting to fall into two camps. The first camp is the traditional approach using historic turnout models where party affiliation is actually quite close as both sides turn out their base equally well. The second model is new and unverified, and assumes there will be a huge difference in party affiliation turnout this year.
The first class of polls show a very tight race, the second class are so heavily weighted towards the dems they assume all the anger with the direction of the country has no impact on Democrats and their media puppets. The DC/NY Political Industrial Complex is mostly liberal in its make up, and it has recently become more and more isolated in its echo chamber. Just look at how it reacted to Sarah Palin. The end result is the polls of polls are showing a classic bimodal result with clusters of polls at one of these two modes: "traditional' and "extended" - just like the two turnout models now being openly produced by Gallup.
I think this pollster has it about right. LJStrata and DJStrata have been out doing the GOTV stuff this week and what they find here in our part of Northern Virginia is there are about equal numbers of Obama and McCain supporters, but the Obama supporters are more open, and the McCain supporters are a bit down because of the tilted polls. The GOP support is quiet, but just as massive as the Obama support.
Sadly, one of the better pollsters has gone to the dark side of the bimodal results. Rasmussen has decided to increase his Democrat edge to new heights, under the naive assumption Dem and GOP supporters are equally engaged in answering pollsters:
Like all polling firms, Rasmussen Reports weights its data to reflect the population at large. Among other targets, Rasmussen Reports weights data by political party affiliation using a dynamic weighting process (see methodology).
…
The targets are not set arbitrarily. Rather, they are established based upon survey interviews with a separate sample of adults nationwide completed during the preceding six weeks. A total of 500 nightly interviews are conducted for a total of 21,000 interviews over the six week period.
While it sounds reasonable, the fact is willingness to participate in polls may not be uniform between the left and right. And pollsters are more and more considered part of the problem, part of the Political Industrial Complex which the public blames for the country being on the wrong track by 90+%. There is a 'pox upon all your houses' mentality in the country that is starting to lump the media, the pollsters, the consultants in with the politicians from both sides. Trust in the political class is gone.
Rassmussen now gives the dems a questionable 33-40 edge in turnout (Indies at 27). Previously in September he had Rep-Dem-Indie (RDI) at 34-39-28. Each time he increased the dems edge McCain lost ground - duh!
Let's look at the latest Newsweek Poll which has Obama up 12%. One look at the internals gives the answer to the large lead. Supposedly from 1204 interviews they distilled out 1092 Registered Voters, which were further distilled down to 882 Likely Voters. Of these they claim 299 Reps, 380 Dems and 381 Indies.
If we do the math the total sample size for party affiliates is 1060 - which cleverly doesn't map to interviews, registered voters or likely voters. What is also interesting is they have error bars on their party ID? They claim the Rep error bar is +/-7 (which comes out to 2%.) and the indie/dem error bar is +/- 6. Not sure why they are not sure what party people claimed they were associated with was in doubt, but there it is.
Anyway, if we do the math the Newsweek RDI turnout model is 28-36-36. Recall Rasmussen's model was 33-40-27. I mean they are not even close!
One of the problems is a lot of people are still on the fence to some degree and pollsters are trying to push them into a lean for one candidate, but this is very shaky ground to be on. Look at this Minnesota poll which is making people sit up and take notice:
A St. Cloud State University poll shows that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama leads Republican opponent John McCain 42 percent to 37 percent in Minnesota.
…
After earlier surveys showed DFL challenger Al Franken with an edge, the SCSU poll shows Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman leading with 36 percent, compared with 27 percent for Franken. Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley trails with 16 percent.
Not only is McCain down only 5%, there are an enormous number of undecideds given the low numbers for both candidates. I included the surprise Senate seat race for comparison because it shows similar numbers for Coleman and Franken (with the Rep out fron), but there is a substantial number voting for a 3rd party candidate in that race. There is no major 3rd party candidate on the national level. In MN and with this poll, the race is wide open because of the enormous number of uncommitted voters. Obama could easily lose this state if this poll is to be believed.
So what do we have? We have polls using dynamic turnout models which link willingness to take a poll to willingness to get out and vote (a very suspect assumption IMHO). Especially since different pollsters are deriving vastly different turnout models as a result of this approach. All these polls share one thing, they tend to show massive Obama leads, while the traditional turnout models show a tight or tightening race.
So let's take a random snapshot of the RCP national polls and take a look at the bimodal (what I like to call Bi-Poller) nature of the polls out there. I will be placing Rassmussen in the non-traditional pool of course. So let's start there, with the 'extended' or highly doubtful polls.
Today we have in this group: Rasmussen Reports (Obama +8), Gallup (Expanded) (Obama +8), Newsweek (Obama +12), ABC News/Wash Post (Obama +9), CBS News/NY Times (Obama +13) and FOX News (Obama +9).
The average of these polls gives us an Obama lead of 8.4%. The interesting thing is I could look at the Obama lead in the poll and eyeball which polls were using turnout models which tilted to the dems. I of course checked the internals to make sure I was right and was surprised to only twice (Fox and Hotline, which I would have guessed would be in opposite camps).
Anyway, let's now look at the 'traditional' model polls: Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby (Obama +5), Gallup (Traditional) (Obama +7), Hotline/FD (Obama +7), IBD/TIPP (Obama +4) and GWU/Battleground (Obama +3).
The average of these polls is an Obama lead of 5.2%, which is a much closer race than the other fuzzy math polls indicate.II also want to note that the Reuters/Zogby poll has shown Obama's lead be cut in half, going from +12 to +5 in a very short span of time. The reason I call the other polls fuzzy math is because I noted a wildly fluctuating range of party ID models. The Rep-Dem-Indie (RDI) breakdown for the first set of polls above was interesting to see side by side:
1. Rassmussen RDI: 34-39-28 (Dems +5)
2. Newsweek RDI: 28-36-36 (Dems +8)
3. ABC/WaPo RDI: 29-37-30 (Dems +8)
4. CBS/NYT RDI: 28-40-31 (Dems +12)
5. Fox RDI: 37-43-16 (Dems +6)
Let me be clear, only one turnout model will be right. That means all of these will be wrong, and maybe one will be close to right. But the rest will be badly wrong given how much they diverge. For historical perspective here are the national numbers for 2000, 2004 and 2006:
1. 2000 RDI: 35-39-27 (Dems +4)
2. 2004 RDI: 37-37-26 (Dems +0)
3. 2006 RDI: 36-38-26 (Dems +2)
Is this year's election more like 2000 or 2006? I would state it is both and neither. It is a rejection election like 2006. But with Obama's ticket heavy with DC and Political Industrial Complex insiders one wonders where the 'change' is going to come from. And if Palin is drawing a huge, quiet protest vote of her own with the Maverick McCain the Dems will not be seeing a massive +8% wave at the polls. They would be lucky to get a +2 like they did when they swept Congress in 2006. It was not that there were fewer Reps and conservatives voting in 2006, the fact was the same numbers were out but experimenting with moderate dems (which won the races).
To assume the nation will now go full liberal is quite a leap of fantasy in my mind. We have now conclusive evidence that polls are falling into the more traditional model and those built on irrational exuberance. We don't know which group will be proven right until the election is over, but those built on historical data have a much better chance than those based on wild and unproven assumptions.
In the end the answer is turnout. If the GOP can mobilize like I have seen them mobilizing in the last few weeks, there will be a very stunned and shocked Political Industrial Complex come the morning after the election. And a very loud signal will have been sent to DC and NY and all the other elites who have led this country into a massive rut.
<A href="http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/6828" target=_blank>http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/6828
I was wondering why Obama has been spending money for commercials on local TV here when I thought California had maybe a .5% chance of going red in this election...I guess this could be why.
I still think we'll unfortunately go blue, but maybe I ought to find the LA ACORN office and see if there's still time to register under multiple voting aliases...
I still think we'll unfortunately go blue, but maybe I ought to find the LA ACORN office and see if there's still time to register under multiple voting aliases...
obama advertises everywhere because he has more money than god. mccain dots not because he has run out of money.
You're missing the point, Hilo.
Why would Obama need to advertise in California when the state is typically a layup for democrats? In fact, why is he advertising anywhere at all anymore? You and the rest of the dems on this board have claimed this election has been over and in the bag for a looooong time now. What's the point of Obama wasting all that money on advertising? I don't know of any sound businessman who would say "we've already achieved our goal, but let's keep spending advertising money towards achieving our goal anyway..."
Obama wants to redistribute wealth? Why not lead by example and give all his remaining campaign contribution money to the homeless or whatever?
Maybe because he's an elitist, liberal prick who knows this election will be a lot fucking closer than these ridiculous polls would indicate?
You're missing the point, Hilo.
Why would Obama need to advertise in California when the state is typically a layup for democrats? In fact, why is he advertising anywhere at all anymore? You and the rest of the dems on this board have claimed this election has been over and in the bag for a looooong time now. What's the point of Obama wasting all that money on advertising? I don't know of any sound businessman who would say "we've already achieved our goal, but let's keep spending advertising money towards achieving our goal anyway..."
Obama wants to redistribute wealth? Why not lead by example and give all his remaining campaign contribution money to the homeless or whatever?
Maybe because he's an elitist, liberal prick who knows this election will be a lot fucking closer than these ridiculous polls would indicate?
Interesting that a party whose leader comes from an aristocratic New England family and whose candidate is the son of an admiral who was the son of an admiral calls a 1/2 black guy whose mother used food-stamps "elitist". I guess it is because he won scholarships and was an achiever whereas the afore mentioned republicans went to school on daddy's money and prestige and barely got by.
RNC goes up in Montana?
This is the state with Ron Paul on the ballot...can he play spoiler?
The state and its three electoral votes are now competitive?
A Democratic media buying source says -- and Republicans now confirm -- that the RNC's independent expenditure arm has bought television ads in the state.
The ads begin Wednesday.
In 2004, George W. Bush won Montana by 20 points.
This is the state with Ron Paul on the ballot...can he play spoiler?
The state and its three electoral votes are now competitive?
A Democratic media buying source says -- and Republicans now confirm -- that the RNC's independent expenditure arm has bought television ads in the state.
The ads begin Wednesday.
In 2004, George W. Bush won Montana by 20 points.
http://elections.gmu.edu/early_vote_2008.html
not sure left/right leaning but really only site where i see the early vote tracked like this
not sure left/right leaning but really only site where i see the early vote tracked like this
More food for thought...for the left wing polling experts here. :nohead:
Polling standard deviation is much much higher than usual ... which means that the polls that turn out to be wrong will be off much more than in the past.
If you graph out McCains polls there are no data point clusters. Obviously the polls depend on how the pollsters "guessed" at the turnout models.
It's not based on good data...or by definition, you would see more data clustering.
It's like I've said all along...the polls are completely useless this year. There is no history to go on...and in fact most polls are being used to manipulate public opinion...rather than show it.
The early California data backs up my points quite well. Much better than any of the wild ass speculation some dim wits in a gambling forum have to offer here. :lol:
Polling standard deviation is much much higher than usual ... which means that the polls that turn out to be wrong will be off much more than in the past.
If you graph out McCains polls there are no data point clusters. Obviously the polls depend on how the pollsters "guessed" at the turnout models.
It's not based on good data...or by definition, you would see more data clustering.
It's like I've said all along...the polls are completely useless this year. There is no history to go on...and in fact most polls are being used to manipulate public opinion...rather than show it.
The early California data backs up my points quite well. Much better than any of the wild ass speculation some dim wits in a gambling forum have to offer here. :lol:
Polls Close — No Really, Fer Real
By Dirty Harry on General
Rasmussen has it within three. Obama dropping to 50%, McCain sits at 47%.
Gallup has it within two. Obama dropping to 49, McCain sits at 47%.
Do not let this recent spate of state polls demoralize you. State polls are lagging indicators behind the national trend.
The states are also within striking distance.
The polls are also all weirdly and heavily weighted to Democrats when all the early voting trends thus far don't show much of an increase over 2004.
Obama and his minions in the media are bluffing with this inevitable thing.
Believe me, they're bluffing.
It's all about the trend.
The trend's the thing.
The trend's your friend.
ope:
By Dirty Harry on General
Rasmussen has it within three. Obama dropping to 50%, McCain sits at 47%.
Gallup has it within two. Obama dropping to 49, McCain sits at 47%.
Do not let this recent spate of state polls demoralize you. State polls are lagging indicators behind the national trend.
The states are also within striking distance.
The polls are also all weirdly and heavily weighted to Democrats when all the early voting trends thus far don't show much of an increase over 2004.
Obama and his minions in the media are bluffing with this inevitable thing.
Believe me, they're bluffing.
It's all about the trend.
The trend's the thing.
The trend's your friend.
ope:
