20 (!) count'em 20 new state polls - Updated in polling section

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

When I add these polls to pollbooth, they will push Bush above 270 by moving 5 of 7 states out of the toss-up column.

Oregon and New Mexico move to Lean Kerry, while West Virginia, Florida, and Ohio (by the vary barest of margins) move to lean Bush.  Wisconsin and New Hampshire stay toss-ups.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

When I add these polls to pollbooth, they will push Bush above 270 by moving 5 of 7 states out of the toss-up column.

Oregon and New Mexico move to Lean Kerry, while West Virginia, Florida, and Ohio (by the vary barest of margins) move to lean Bush.  Wisconsin and New Hampshire stay toss-ups.

The Tennessee result looked a bit high for Bush to me, and Washington and Iowa results looked a bit high for Kerry, but other than that, these mesh very well with the other stuff I have seen.

PS - I see in Pollbooth you are using that LA Times piece of %^%^%^%!...

I emailed the LA Times polling folks, the actual partisan breakout was:

Democrats 38%
Republicans 24%
Other: 38%

They are defending this as a representative sample!

Yeah, I know it's a terrible poll, but I have no objective reason to disqualify it....so far, I haven't been rejecting polls just because the party ID breakdown is off, so I figure I shouldn't start because of this poll, even though it is the worst I've seen.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Yeah, I know it's a terrible poll, but I have no objective reason to disqualify it....so far, I haven't been rejecting polls just because the party ID breakdown is off, so I figure I shouldn't start because of this poll, even though it is the worst I've seen.

Fred's All Beef Double Decker Burger Poll has Bush +9 in the "deluxe with cheese" subsample.  Can I get that in Pollbooth too...?



The LA Times is a member of the National Council on Public Polls and that last poll broke at least 5 or 6 or the required disclosure guidelines of the organization.  For what (little) it is worth NCPP has started an investigation.

They "may" have to publish some token "clarification" or something, but in reality, nothing will come of it.

OK...but the LA Times poll was reported in the media nationwide, so it would be hard to just ignore.  And Pollbooth posts enough national polls that it is fairly resiliant to flaws in a single poll...adding the LA Times poll changes Kerry's margin the the 3-week weighted average by less than 0.5%.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

does their partisanship skew their numbers to the right by a point or 2?

The honest answer is I don't know.

Historically speaking these guys are deadly accurate - These guys are a good as Zogby claims to be - These guys poll for about a dozen Senators, and dozens of Congessman.  They are hired because they are good.

POS is a combat polling firm - and when you run a campaign, you want your polls to be accurate, not biased.  You need to know the truth, whatever that truth is. - No point putting time and money into a state you can't win.

If anything, when you polling internally for a campaign you actually try to be just a tad pessimistic, if anything.

A lot of these states, Washington, Oregon, Iowa, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, etc actually look a tad optimistic to the Kerry side IMHO.

The suspicion of bias in polls by partisan firms comes not so much from the belief that individual polls are biased, but that only a small percentage of these polls ever become public.  Candidates generally only release polls that show them in a favorable light.  And even if the poll "leaked out", it is possible that the leak was intentional.  

I don't know how Vorlon came upon these polls, but in this case, they don't seem to be part of a Republican spin operation.