NV Emerson: UTDH +7

[Skye]

Is Emerson known for being too D friendly or just generally wrong?

just generally being wrong. They always get widly wrong results by either
A. Having 40% undecided
B. Having wildly crazy margins and crosstabs that give a terrible top result

Having a high number of undecideds is usually why people give them crap.

This poll is probably an outlier. But still, no reason to count Heller out.

[Skye]

Emerson, long time no see. Still making polls, huh. Interesting, interesting.

Call me a skeptic or a hack, but I have some doubts about this Emerson poll.

Edit: Just thought I would mention it, but Emerson is currently giving Dean Heller a better chance to win than Ted Cruz.

This poll last month had Sisolak up 10

That doesnt help Emerson's case...

Why would a pollster have such huge swings?

To answer your question, there is old article on 538 that basically explains it: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/heres-proof-some-pollsters-are-putting-a-thumb-on-the-scale/

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[Skye]

In 2014 the Republicans swept the statewide offices and the legislature.  

On the coattails of a super popular Republican governor without a real opponent.

In 2012 as Obama won by 6.6%, Heller was able to win by 1.16%

Yeah, that was because Shelley Berkley was involved in a scandal.

I'm certainly not on the "Heller's DOA" Atlas bandwagon, but let's be frank. Usually Dems are better positioned than Republicans in NV.

[Skye]

I thought it might be interesting to see how some of these pollsters being discussed now performed in 2016. Emerson's last poll of NV showed both Clinton and Cortez-Masto leading by 1, and they both won by 2.4. That's not a huge error. In fact, it's perfectly normal if not a little better than average.

And in the presidential race, the most accurate NV poll was, wait for it ... Gravis. Yes, Gravis. Their last poll showed Clinton up two, and she won by two. Their Senate poll actually overestimated Cortez-Masto by 4 points or so. This year, they have most recently shown Rosen +2.

I know it's common practice to look at crosstabs to discredit polls that don't "fit," but the crosstabs always have large margins of error anyway and are not supposed to be viewed as very predictive. As Nate Cohn discussed recently in a Twitter thread, some of us might know too much for our own good. https://mobile.twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1050579929203642368

Taking a jab right at Atlas I see.