YouGov/Polimetrix: Democrats Lead in Generic Ballot

[Beet]

2010 Congress: Generic Ballot
Adults: 43% Democrat, 37% Republican
Registered voters: 45% Democrat, 44% Republican (chart)

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/us_national_survey_yougov_8283.php

Full report:

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/20100831%20trackingreport.pdf

[Rowan]

Why is this thread worthy?

[Holmes]

Who's YouGov?

[Dgov]

Interesting that a poll that gives Obama a 43-53 Approval rating has the Dems up 6 in the Generic ballot.  Though that suggests  most of the undecideds disapprove of Obama, which can't be good for the Democrats come November

[Associate Justice PiT]

     The lack of likely voter numbers here is a bit annoying. One should use a likely voter screen once it gets this close to the election.

Who's YouGov?

     Online pollster. British, I believe.

[Torie]

Interesting that a poll that gives Obama a 43-53 Approval rating has the Dems up 6 in the Generic ballot.  Though that suggests  most of the undecideds disapprove of Obama, which can't be good for the Democrats come November

The poll has had the Dems ahead on the generic forever, or among registered voters, close. It is better to look at intra trends within a single polling outfit, for stuff like this I would think. In any event, the split does not fit very well with the CD specific polls spilling out all over the place.

[Torie]

    The lack of likely voter numbers here is a bit annoying. One should use a likely voter screen once it gets this close to the election.

Who's YouGov?

     Online pollster. British, I believe.

Gallup is not using a likely voter screen yet either however, and it has the GOP up by 10%.

[Phony Moderate]

Who's YouGov?

     Online pollster. British, I believe.

Owned by the Conservative Party as well, IIRC.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Who's YouGov?

British pollster, has a reasonably good reputation over there and is reasonably accurate as far as I remember.

[memphis]

I fully expected the link to be a rickroll.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

YouGov have a reasonable record over here; they didn't do brilliantly in the recent General Election here, but then no polling company did. Fwiw, they work from internet panels and assumptions, which means that their internals will always be insane.

[Ronnie]

Eh, this is a British company.  I'm not too worried.

Does this company have a good record in the US?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Owned by the Conservative Party as well, IIRC.

I'd not heard that, but the founders are certainly Conservative members (one is now an MP). But it's most high-profile figure - Peter Kellner - is a solid Labour man and the husband of Cathy Ashton.

[tpfkaw]

Hasn't YouGov given the Democrats the advantage all year?

[Zarn]

YouGov always seems to be at odds with others.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

I regularly take YouGov polls. They send you e-mails to take online polls and after each one you get points to redeem for prizes. I've can't vouch for the integrity of their reward system as I'm still saving up for what is by now probably a quite dated iPod shuffle.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Why would anyone want to look at a registered voter sample?

[Tender Branson]

Outlier poll !

The trend is clear: The Republicans by 57-40 on election day.

[CARLHAYDEN]

2010 Congress: Generic Ballot
Adults: 43% Democrat, 37% Republican
Registered voters: 45% Democrat, 44% Republican (chart)

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/us_national_survey_yougov_8283.php

Full report:

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/20100831%20trackingreport.pdf

Polimetrix is one of three major organizations using internet panel polls (the others being Zogby and Harris).

I personally think that for reasons of cost, speed and ability to generate significant subsamples, this is the future of survey research.

Having said that, such panels are more difficult to achieve a reasonable approximation of the actual electorate than convention telephone surveys as the panels, even when they approximate the actual electorate in demographic characteristics, tend to be ideologically extreme.

This is definitely the case with Polimetrix, which lists heavily to the left.

The proportion of self-dentified Democrats among the "registered voters" is 45.5% in the Polimetrix poll you cited.

[The Vorlon]

2010 Congress: Generic Ballot
Adults: 43% Democrat, 37% Republican
Registered voters: 45% Democrat, 44% Republican (chart)

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/us_national_survey_yougov_8283.php

Full report:

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/20100831%20trackingreport.pdf

Polimetrix is one of three major organizations using internet panel polls (the others being Zogby and Harris).

I personally think that for reasons of cost, speed and ability to generate significant subsamples, this is the future of survey research.

Having said that, such panels are more difficult to achieve a reasonable approximation of the actual electorate than convention telephone surveys as the panels, even when they approximate the actual electorate in demographic characteristics, tend to be ideologically extreme.

This is definitely the case with Polimetrix, which lists heavily to the left.

The proportion of self-dentified Democrats among the "registered voters" is 45.5% in the Polimetrix poll you cited.

I agree with Carl.

The future of polling is the internet, the future just isn't here yet.

YouGov is trying, as is Harris.  In a few years I suspect they will work quite well.

That being said, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Here is a graph of 63 yougov generic ballot polls spanning the entire Obama presidency.

In that time, their data suggests essentially no change with perhaps a 1 or 2% shift to the GOP.

Given the last (almost) 2 years, does that trend-line seem to even remotely match up with reality?

[Vepres]

Outlier poll !

The trend is clear: The Republicans by 57-40 on election day.

DemocRAT hack!!!!!!!!111111111111