Non-Gallup/Rasmussen tracking polls thread

[Smash255]

Diageo Hotline Poll - 10/23
Obama 48% (+1)
McCain 43% (+1)

GWBattleground - 10/23
Obama 49% (nc)
McCain 45% (-2)

This is where I see the race today.  Not commenting on the internals, just the topline.

Why is that?  Because those are the two most friendly ones for McCain??

[TheGlobalizer]

Diageo Hotline Poll - 10/23
Obama 48% (+1)
McCain 43% (+1)

GWBattleground - 10/23
Obama 49% (nc)
McCain 45% (-2)

This is where I see the race today.  Not commenting on the internals, just the topline.

Why is that?  Because those are the two most friendly ones for McCain??

Yes, because I'm a crook like everyone else who isn't on the Obama lovefest bandwagon.

[Rowan]

IBD/TIPP
Obama 44.8%
McCain 43.7%

Ut ohh...

[J. J.]

IBD/TIPP
Obama 44.8% (-0.9)
McCain 43.7%  (+1.7)

Ut ohh...

I would say "ut ohh..." is right.  We now have two of the three major tackers showing greater than two point drop for Obama in two days.  It is not repeated on Rasmussen.  Watch tomorrows 'bots.

[Sam Spade]

IBD/TIPP
Obama 44.8% (-0.9)
McCain 43.7%  (+1.7)

Ut ohh...

I would say "ut ohh..." is right.  We now have two of the three major tackers showing greater than two point drop for Obama in two days.  It is not repeated on Rasmussen.  Watch tomorrows 'bots.

There's only one 'bot' poll.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

IBD/TIPP
Obama 44.8%
McCain 43.7%

Ut ohh...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-71JQmELrs

[Verily]

IBD/TIPP also has McCain leading 18-25 year olds 74-22, which is just hilarious. You can't blame that on small sample sizes; that's either a disastrous likely voter model or some serious sampling problems (polling only Liberty University students, say). If that number were changed to a relatively reasonable 58-40 Obama, Obama would have a substantial lead (assuming IBD/TIPP has 18-25 year olds as about 9-10% of their sample, which was the 2004 numbers).

[J. J.]

IBD/TIPP
Obama 44.8% (-0.9)
McCain 43.7%  (+1.7)

Ut ohh...

I would say "ut ohh..." is right.  We now have two of the three major tackers showing greater than two point drop for Obama in two days.  It is not repeated on Rasmussen.  Watch tomorrows 'bots.

There's only one 'bot' poll.

I thought there would be a bank of 'bots?

[TheGlobalizer]

IBD/TIPP
Obama 44.8%
McCain 43.7%

Ut ohh...

=

[Lunar]

[Lunar]

538 stipulates:

What are the odds, given the parameters above, that a random sampling of 98 voters aged 18-24would distribute themselves 74% to McCain and 22% to Obama?

Using a binomial distribution, the odds are 54,604,929,633-to-1 against. That is, about 55 billion to one.

So, there is an 0.000000002% chance that IBD/TIPP just got really unlucky. Conversely, there is a 99.999999998% chance that one of the following things is true:

(i) They're massively undersampling the youth vote. If you only have, say, 30 young voters when you should have 100 or so in your sample, than the odds of a freak occurrence like this are significantly more likely.
-or-
(ii) Something is dramatically wrong with their sampling or weighting procedures, or their likely voter model.

My guess is that it's some combination of the two -- that, for instance, IBD/TIPP is applying a very stringent likely voter model that removes you from the sample if you haven't voted in the past two elections, which would rule a great number of 18-24 year olds out.

[J. J.]

Lunar, the subset problem has been discussed.

[Alcon]

Lunar, the subset problem has been discussed.

Where, and to what conclusion?

[Lunar]

Lunar, the subset problem has been discussed.

Sigh.


Subsets are allowed to fluctuate, say, McCain winning 15% of African-Americans, but if McCain is winning 80% of African-Americans, are we allowed to question the all-mighty poll?

The math clearly takes these previous "discussions" into account.

[TheGlobalizer]

Yeah, I think we throw out the sample.  It's buggered.

[J. J.]

Lunar, the subset problem has been discussed.

Where, and to what conclusion?

This thread, IIRC, about 4-5 days ago.  It was just too small a sample size to be able to generalize.

[Lunar]

Lunar, the subset problem has been discussed.

Where, and to what conclusion?

This thread, IIRC, about 4-5 days ago.  It was just too small a sample size to be able to generalize.

The math takes the small sample size (98) into account.

[Alcon]

Lunar, the subset problem has been discussed.

Where, and to what conclusion?

This thread, IIRC, about 4-5 days ago.  It was just too small a sample size to be able to generalize.

Um, that's not true.  You can still calculate a Margin of Error for a (relatively) small sample size, and apply it.  The MoE is higher.  It isn't high enough to make that result not highly suspicious.

[TheGlobalizer]

Um, that's not true.  You can still calculate a Margin of Error for a (relatively) small sample size, and apply it.  The MoE is higher.  It isn't high enough to make that result not highly suspicious.

MOE = 150%

[Alcon]

Um, that's not true.  You can still calculate a Margin of Error for a (relatively) small sample size, and apply it.  The MoE is higher.  It isn't high enough to make that result not highly suspicious.

MOE = 150%

MoE = +/-10%

That subsample = Obviously flawed well out of MoE range

[J. J.]

Um, that's not true.  You can still calculate a Margin of Error for a (relatively) small sample size, and apply it.  The MoE is higher.  It isn't high enough to make that result not highly suspicious.

MOE = 150%

MoE = +/-10%

That subsample = Obviously flawed well out of MoE range

Actually, there were others with similar results.  I raised the question about it.  It seems to be a very small sampling.

[Sam Spade]

Daily Tracker Table - October 23, 2008

Poll Name	Obama	McCain	Margin	Change	Observation
Zogby	52.2%	40.3%	O+11.9%	O+2.3%	Who knows - it's Zogby!
Rasmussen	51.66%	44.83%	O+6.83%	O+1.77%	Good McCain sample fell off today, replaced by good Obama sample, good Obama sample falls off tomorrow (all relative to the mean)
Battleground	49%	45%	O+4%	O+2%	Hard to tell.
Hotline	48%	43%	O+5%	NC	Not much movement here as far as I can see.
R2000/DKos	51%	41%	O+10%	NC	No real change going on here
Gallup
Expanded	51%	45%	O+6%	M+2%	Looks like Gallup midweek movement to me.
Traditional	50%	46%	O+4%	M+1%	Ditto.
IBD/TIPP	44.8%	43.7%	O+1.1%	M+2.6%	Looks like a good McCain sample fell on.
ABC/WP	54%	43%	O+11%	NC	No real change as far as I can tell here.
POLLS AVERAGE	50.15%	43.29%	O+6.86%	O+0.06%	Race looks stable to me.

[Alcon]

Um, that's not true.  You can still calculate a Margin of Error for a (relatively) small sample size, and apply it.  The MoE is higher.  It isn't high enough to make that result not highly suspicious.

MOE = 150%

MoE = +/-10%

That subsample = Obviously flawed well out of MoE range

Actually, there were others with similar results.  I raised the question about it.  It seems to be a very small sampling.

Which makes it immune to the laws of margin of error? 

[Verily]

FTR, anyone wanting to calculate an MoE, it's 100/[sqrt(sample size)]. Assuming IBD/TIPP has about 9-10% of respondents as 18-25, that's around 100 respondents, for an MoE of about 10%. 74-22 McCain under such as MoE means that McCain is at at least 64% among the group--definitely not true.

In fact, 538 did a calculation to Obama being ahead by twenty points among the youth and the odds of being that far off. I think 538 might be slightly overestimating Obama's actually lead among under-25s, but he comes out to the odds of a 74-22 McCain sample being 55 billion to one. (Take an Obama lead of 9 points, Kerry's lead in the demographic, and the odds are still well into the millions to one.)

[Alcon]

FTR, anyone wanting to calculate an MoE, it's 100/[sqrt(sample size)]. Assuming IBD/TIPP has about 9-10% of respondents as 18-25, that's around 100 respondents, for an MoE of about 10%. 74-22 McCain under such as MoE means that McCain is at at least 64% among the group--definitely not true.

In fact, 538 did a calculation to Obama being ahead by twenty points among the youth and the odds of being that far off. I think 538 might be slightly overestimating Obama's actually lead among under-25s, but he comes out to the odds of a 74-22 McCain sample being 55 billion to one. (Take an Obama lead of 9 points, Kerry's lead in the demographic, and the odds are still well into the millions to one.)

Thanks I was trying for that calculation myself, and failing miserably.

It points to a methodology error.