NYT LIVE POLL THREAD:

[Zaybay]

To give an idea how volatile these polls are, McGrath is now leading by 3 points, 47/44

[Zaybay]

My mother says that she is disgusted by Ojeda's gun policy and said she would either abstain or support Miller. Hopefully his district sees it differently though.

In what way? He is pretty moderate, and probably right leaning, on gun issues.

I have to agree with BD2020 here, he is moderate on gun issues. It even says that on the little blurb about him on the NYT poll. If there was anything to get angry at Ojeda for, guns doesnt seem like the strongest issue.

[Zaybay]

My mother says that she is disgusted by Ojeda's gun policy and said she would either abstain or support Miller. Hopefully his district sees it differently though.

In what way? He is pretty moderate, and probably right leaning, on gun issues.

I have to agree with BD2020 here, he is moderate on gun issues. It even says that on the little blurb about him on the NYT poll. If there was anything to get angry at Ojeda for, guns doesnt seem like the strongest issue.

She is VERY sensitive on guns, and this was enough for her:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd9qGDRnso8

Fine, he's no NRA stooge, but he is no moderate on guns either. Maybe when factored in with all the crazies he is though, idk... either way it was too much for my mom, and frankly even too much for me as I am ultra liberal on that issue. Difference is, I still support him and want him to win, and I hope the people of WV 3rd look more favorably on Ojeda for this so he can win.

wait, so is your mom anti-gun and thats why she's voting for Miller, or is she pro-gun and doesnt think Ojeda is pro-gun?

If its the former, then I would like to point out that Ojeda would do more to reform guns than the Republican stooge Miller would.
And if its the latter, then I would refer that she look at the rest of Ojeda and Miller, and make a choice based on what she finds.

[Zaybay]

1. This is a poll conducted by landline and has had a rather shaky history.

2. The poll isnt even done yet.

3. The campaign season is starting

I love how Atlas thinks that a race is in their corner due to polling, and liking the candidate, and yet they think its titanium R when they get a poll that is slightly unfavorable(Im looking at you, Wallace haters!). Anyway, its clear that Miller will probably finish above Ojeda in this poll, but, as I stated before, this is not some god-tier level polling, and the part where voters actually care is coming up.

[Zaybay]

1. This is a poll conducted by landline and has had a rather shaky history.

2. The poll isnt even done yet.

3. The campaign season is starting

I love how Atlas thinks that a race is in their corner due to polling, and liking the candidate, and yet they think its titanium R when they get a poll that is slightly unfavorable(Im looking at you, Wallace haters!). Anyway, its clear that Miller will probably finish above Ojeda in this poll, but, as I stated before, this is not some god-tier level polling, and the part where voters actually care is coming up.

The poll does include cell phones; they actually called more cell phones than landlines! Anyway, I think the problem here is that West Virginia Democrats pretty much always fade down the stretch as the campaign heats up, so the fact that Ojeda is already down even as campaign season is starting is really bad news for him (unless the poll suddenly becomes pro-Ojeda in the last 120 responses). Miller also has lower name recognition, so she's more likely to gain from a vigorous campaign season.

Usually Siena doesnt do cellphones, but that is a positive development.

As for the WVDEM party, there really isnt any precedent for this, and seems to stem from 2014, which was an R wave year. And I think its clear that Ojeda isnt a stooge for the WVDEMS.

And, also, this is just one pollster, one that has gotten rather odd results so far in many races, so I would take such polls with a grain of salt, especially since, according to their own numbers, Ojeda is actually leading with 2016 voters, but they were screened out.

And, lastly, normally, I would agree that, since Miller is lower in name rec, she has more to gain. But if you look at what she has so far, it seems that its worse for her to gain name rec. She is almost 50/50 for people hating her, and people who havent heard of Ojeda and Miller and are just ticking the R box would probably switch to Ojeda when finding out about Miller.

Anyway, I would rather debate this poll when its done.

[Zaybay]

This is a methodological fiasco and a sad, shabby disgrace. Genuinely disappointed that there are any posters here who have taken this farce at all seriously.

What specifically is wrong with their methodology (as opposed to wrong with how people interpret it before it is actually done)?

their weighing process. Basically, its weighed by 3 factors, census data, education, and voter history. The problem is that mostly the census data, and voter history.
1. The census data means that trends in the district, seen in IL or VA, would not appear, so a district that has seen a shift in demographics would still have its 2010 demographics. Even NYT says that this process isnt even used by most pollsters.
2. Voter history is a big one, as it gets rid of the possible new voters that enter the system. This is a problem that a lot of pollsters have, but usually they move to voters who are likely to vote by now. Siena hasnt.(they have it as a subcategory you can see, which actually shows that WV-03 is even, but its not used in the overall number)

There are other small methology bugs, but these are the two main ones.

And there is still the prevailing problem that all Siena polling has and never bothers to fix, their incumbency fixing. Basically, they will give incumbents an edge in who is sampled because incumbents. This may be fine in neutral years, but in wave years or even favoured years, its incredibly bad, and can lead to the NY polls they have released, which all have a more GOP favoured sample than 2016 and 2014.

[Zaybay]

This is a methodological fiasco and a sad, shabby disgrace. Genuinely disappointed that there are any posters here who have taken this farce at all seriously.

What specifically is wrong with their methodology (as opposed to wrong with how people interpret it before it is actually done)?

their weighing process. Basically, its weighed by 3 factors, census data, education, and voter history. The problem is that mostly the census data, and voter history.
1. The census data means that trends in the district, seen in IL or VA, would not appear, so a district that has seen a shift in demographics would still have its 2010 demographics. Even NYT says that this process isnt even used by most pollsters.
2. Voter history is a big one, as it gets rid of the possible new voters that enter the system. This is a problem that a lot of pollsters have, but usually they move to voters who are likely to vote by now. Siena hasnt.(they have it as a subcategory you can see, which actually shows that WV-03 is even, but its not used in the overall number)

There are other small methology bugs, but these are the two main ones.

I read their explanation of their weighing process on their methodology page and the poll page and I don't see census data or voter history mentioned among their factors.

"In general, we follow a pretty standard set of weights and weight categories. We weight by age, party, gender, region, race, likely turnout and education."

"Here, we’re weighting by age, party registration, gender, likelihood of voting, race, education and region, mainly using data from voting records files compiled by L2, a nonpartisan voter file vendor."

Likelihood of voting is based off of past voting as well as what the person says. If you are to say, "Ill definitely vote" and then respond that you havent voted recently, they wont mark you as a likely voter.

As for the census data one, its what they base the demographics on, so its not weighing, but it would be preferable if they used 2017 census numbers instead.


Edit: forgot to mention this, but if you want to see the weighing in action, look at all the races they have surveyed so far. You may notice a trend in the percentages, one that is statistically impossible. Besides MN-03, all of them are within 1% of each other, which may be believable, if they all were similar districts. But they arent, and getting all of these districts to have a 1% difference has around a 5% chance of occurring normally.

[Zaybay]

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What specifically is wrong with their methodology (as opposed to wrong with how people interpret it before it is actually done)?

their weighing process. Basically, its weighed by 3 factors, census data, education, and voter history. The problem is that mostly the census data, and voter history.
1. The census data means that trends in the district, seen in IL or VA, would not appear, so a district that has seen a shift in demographics would still have its 2010 demographics. Even NYT says that this process isnt even used by most pollsters.
2. Voter history is a big one, as it gets rid of the possible new voters that enter the system. This is a problem that a lot of pollsters have, but usually they move to voters who are likely to vote by now. Siena hasnt.(they have it as a subcategory you can see, which actually shows that WV-03 is even, but its not used in the overall number)

There are other small methology bugs, but these are the two main ones.

I read their explanation of their weighing process on their methodology page and the poll page and I don't see census data or voter history mentioned among their factors.

"In general, we follow a pretty standard set of weights and weight categories. We weight by age, party, gender, region, race, likely turnout and education."

"Here, we’re weighting by age, party registration, gender, likelihood of voting, race, education and region, mainly using data from voting records files compiled by L2, a nonpartisan voter file vendor."

Likelihood of voting is based off of past voting as well as what the person says. If you are to say, "Ill definitely vote" and then respond that you havent voted recently, they wont mark you as a likely voter.

Gonna need a source on that otherwise you are just making an assumption.
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[Zaybay]

their weighing process. Basically, its weighed by 3 factors, census data, education, and voter history. The problem is that mostly the census data, and voter history.

1. The census data means that trends in the district, seen in IL or VA, would not appear, so a district that has seen a shift in demographics would still have its 2010 demographics.

Demographic change is a slow process (not actually that much difference between 2018 demographics and 2010 demographics in most places), and in any case it appears most likely that they are using more recent ACS rather than 2010 data (the methodology page mentions the ACS frequently). In addition, for some demographics like age and sex, those are directly in the voter file on the level of the individual voter, so no census data is needed. In some states, individual race data is also available, so in those cases they will be using that, not census/ACS data.

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Which is a deficiency in the methodology used by most pollsters, not a deficiency in their methodology. Their methodology going off the voter file is more like the higher quality polls that campaigns use internally than most public polls.

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I disagree strongly that it is bad to poll using voter history. Voter history is a much better predictor of actual voting than self-reporting. Granted, one should not automatically screen out an entire category of people (e.g. people who did not vote in 2014), but they are not in fact doing that.

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In some districts, you are correct, its too small of a change to actually make a difference, but in others it definitely is. Take the IL districts. These have seen a large influx of more affluent and minority voters, which can be seen in the 2017 census data. But the poll uses 2010 census data, so they are still weighing it by 2010 margins, which is a large problem. Again, it wouldnt be a problem if they just updated the census they were using, but they didnt.

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No, it isnt. Using census data is usually a terrible idea to sumarize an electorate for it leaves out voters who may show up more often, voting age voters, and voters who have passed on and are still in census data. Most pollsters dont use it because it gets a bad result that only works if the electorate is similar to census data, which it never has been. For instance, if we were to use census data in GA, then Hillary should have lost the state by 10 points. But this didnt account for
A. The changing demographics of who was in the state
B. The likelihood of demographics to punch above their weight
Which is why pollsters who didnt use the census were better off than their counterparts, and why most pollsters dont use data that is rather easy to find.

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Sometimes, yes, it is a better idea to use voter history than voter self-reporting. But in midterms, and especially wave years, it isnt. Waves and midterms bring out different groups of people into the voting block, and get rid of others. Using past voter data has proven unreliable in 2006, 2010, 2014, and even this voting cycle. It was voter history that got Northam+3 in the end, and it was voting history that thought Lamb would lose by 5(they switched to a selfID one in the end, which got Lamb+1), not to mention AL, AZ, and OH. Self voting ID was much more reliable in all of these races. Most pollsters know this, and its why most switch over to a self Voter ID after Labour day. Siena doesnt do this, which hurts its credibility.

[Zaybay]

Likelihood of voting is based off of past voting as well as what the person says. If you are to say, "Ill definitely vote" and then respond that you havent voted recently, they wont mark you as a likely voter.

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Your claim doesn't follow from their's.  They don't say how much they weight someone saying they'll "definitely vote" vs past voting history.  For all we know, an answer of "definitely vote" overrides voting history and puts them in the "will vote" category.  They may just look into voting history to augment the "very likely" or lower categories.

Its a Siena poll, and this is what they always do. Im making my assumption based on how they weighed their previous polls, such as NY, and thats how they have done it. Perhaps they switched to accommodate the NYT, but I doubt it.

[Zaybay]

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Ive already talked with another poster about this. They use both equally, and will devalue a caller if they havent voted recently. So the definitely category is both them saying definitely, and them voting recently. This was also done in Siena's other polls.

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If you really think every district that is rated tossup is going to be within 1% of each other, than I dont know what to say. Its rather statistically improbable, that all the districts rated tossup would be within 1%, and, TBH, it doesnt surprise me, considering this is Siena, who only switches to the same system everyone else uses in October. But if you want to follow a questionable pollster, which has over-sampled Rs in every poll they have done, and are using 2010 census data, then go right ahead.

[Zaybay]

Why not, instead of bickering about what the NYT/Sienna might be doing, we instead actually link to their explainer on what they are doing and go from there.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/upshot/live-poll-method.html

hmmm, its both worse and better than I thought.

Better: I was wrong about the census data, in fact, it doesnt even look like they use it period.

Worse: They are using 2014 as a baseline..........

[Zaybay]

Next poll is for Will Hurd's district. Will be interesting to see the results.

[Zaybay]

Don't look now, but Ojeda is catching up again in WV-03.

Only down by 2 points now, 45-43. LOL at those who were writing him off based on an incomplete poll within the MOE.

Watch it end with a 1 point difference. Though I am happy that hes gaining again!

[Zaybay]

Love it when Atlas discards a candidate based on a poll that uses 2014 for its sample, has multiple flaws, and has a small sample of only 500 people. But I guess Atlas will be Atlas.

[Zaybay]

Love it when Atlas discards a candidate based on a poll that uses 2014 for its sample, has multiple flaws, and has a small sample of only 500 people. But I guess Atlas will be Atlas.

It doesn't just use 2014 for its sample (although for a district like TX-23 especially, that probably wouldn't be too far off).

No, they do, its in the official methodology that thats what they use. 2014 is the baseline for these polls.

[Zaybay]

VA-07, TX-23, & TX-SEN are probably going to be shifted to Likely R soon. This also bodes poorly for AZ-SEN there seems to be a real weakness for Dems in the sunbelt I would probably say Sinema is an underdog at this point.

realllllly hope your being sarcastic.

[Zaybay]

Perhaps this is what happens when you put faith in a mediocre pollster that has a small sample size, while using 2014 as the baseline for the demographics used. You get buggy numbers.

[Zaybay]

Perhaps this is what happens when you put faith in a mediocre pollster that has a small sample size, while using 2014 as the baseline for the demographics used. You get buggy numbers.

Wait what, is that true? Any pollster using 2014 as a baseline in this era is doing a huge disservice.

check their methology page, all of these numbers have been using 2014 as a base.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/upshot/live-poll-method.html

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So, basically all of these numbers of gender, age, demographics, and whatnot are based on who turned out in 2014, which explains why all of these polls seem to be more R-friendly.

[Zaybay]

democrats again trying hard to dismiss a poll where they don't like the result

nothing new really..

it's by far the best poll of any given congressional district. it's not a gold standard cause you don't have a gold standard in a district like tx 23 or any house district tbh

and i would always take an individual poll of a district even with 300 lv rather than generic national ballot of 1000 rv

1. I have been a vocal critic of this poll the entire time, Im not jumping ship due to poor results.

2. We do actually have a golden standard for house races, Monmouth

3. This poll dosnt really do LV.....its still an RV poll. So your getting a poll of around 500 RV voters, which is the worst combo possible.

[Zaybay]

democrats again trying hard to dismiss a poll where they don't like the result

nothing new really..

it's by far the best poll of any given congressional district. it's not a gold standard cause you don't have a gold standard in a district like tx 23 or any house district tbh

and i would always take an individual poll of a district even with 300 lv rather than generic national ballot of 1000 rv

1. I have been a vocal critic of this poll the entire time, Im not jumping ship due to poor results.

2. We do actually have a golden standard for house races, Monmouth

3. This poll dosnt really do LV.....its still an RV poll. So your getting a poll of around 500 RV voters, which is the worst combo possible.

you would agree though that this poll is better than any other poll in any of these districts? and certainly more meaningful than generic national ballot

Well, no, because we have gotten Monmouth polling and other top pollsters in some of these districts. And in the case of GCB vs house polling, I would say it depends. In districts like WV-03 and TX-23, which have special factors, House polling is better. But in most of the CA, IL, PA, NJ, and such races, GCB gives a better picture.

[Zaybay]

Well we have 2 monmouth polls from wv-3 and ca-48 from june or july, would love to see them poll wv-3 again.

I just want more polls from them period.

[Zaybay]

Perhaps this is what happens when you put faith in a mediocre pollster that has a small sample size, while using 2014 as the baseline for the demographics used. You get buggy numbers.

Freaking Siena is a mediocre pollster?

I've seen it all in this place.

Zaybay is a gigantic D hack. He is a world class contortonanist who tries to twist anything as good for dems, or discredit anything that isn't good for dems.

Sure pal, if you want to blindly believe polls without diving in to see the gears underneath, go right ahead.

Call me what you want, that doesnt change the quality of the polls.

Its odd, everyone seems focused on a choice of words "mediocre", and not my reasons for using them(small sample size, using 2014 voting numbers, still using RV)
 

[Zaybay]

If anyone seriously believes Ted Cruz is up 7 and Hurd is up 9 in Texas-23 in this current year, you need your head examined. Your first clue should be Trump's approval rating in a district Hillary Clinton of all people won by 4 points at a point in time where Trump is polling in the high-30's, low-40's nationally.

The problem I have accepting such a result is that Hurd barely won in 2014 - a Republican wave year, and in 2016, he also almost lost to his challenger, although TX's swing against Trump could have hurt him too, but that also means he should be even more vulnerable now.

On the other hand, it's been in print for a while now that both parties seem to think Hurd is, for the time being, polling ahead, so maybe it turns against him in the final weeks, like waves tend to do, or it doesn't. TX-23 being a Latino-heavy district gives me pause, as they aren't always a reliable base for Democrats (in both turnout and support).

My opinion is that even if Hurd holds on this year, he has a good chance of being knocked off in 2020.

CA-21 is another one where Democrats would have better odds in 2020.

Looking at the districts that should be D but arent, CA-21, TX-23, the FL seats, all of them share one thing, its a majority Hispanic seat with a white population that is heavily R. I can see these seats being competitive in 2020, but in 2018, unless Hispanic turnout increases, these seats will likely stay GOP until 2020.

[Zaybay]

Perhaps this is what happens when you put faith in a mediocre pollster that has a small sample size, while using 2014 as the baseline for the demographics used. You get buggy numbers.

Freaking Siena is a mediocre pollster?

I've seen it all in this place.

Zaybay is a gigantic D hack. He is a world class contortonanist who tries to twist anything as good for dems, or discredit anything that isn't good for dems.

Sure pal, if you want to blindly believe polls without diving in to see the gears underneath, go right ahead.

Call me what you want, that doesnt change the quality of the polls.

Its odd, everyone seems focused on a choice of words "mediocre", and not my reasons for using them(small sample size, using 2014 voting numbers, still using RV)
 

I think people are taking issue with your blanket characterization of Siena as a mediocre pollster.  Criticizing these particular polls for their methodology is reasonable.

It was just word choice, literally any other word could go there, Im not writing a college essay with these posts, you know. I actually like Siena when they switch to a LV model, because they stop using terrible methology. Ive already made my opinion on Siena's current methology, anyway.