Non-Gallup/Rasmussen tracking polls thread

[Franzl]

IBD/TIPP
Obama 46.5%(+0.7)
McCain 43.3%(+1.4)

this poll has been all over the place.

[Franzl]

Statistically Obama should overperform his poll margins 50% of the time

but beware if he doesn't, because in all 50% of the cases in which that doesn't happen...it's the Bradley Effect!

[Franzl]

Obama now leads nationally by 6.7%

Which is still out of the MOE.

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No, but it looks like thre was one in OH, MD, and MA in 2006, but not in PA or TN.  Wait until I finish, but a good clue is AZ.    And keep this in mind, the Bradley Effect is not a voting phenomenon, but a polling phenomenon.

Arizona was a Bradley Effect state? HAHAHAHAHAHAH!

[Franzl]

What, are you saying there might be another reason McCain overperformed in Arizona besides race?

actually...I think it was the "Grandpa Effect" (you heard it here first!): people couldn't admit that they would vote for someone old enough to be their grandfather...but on Election Day....they just couldn't restrain themselves....

[Franzl]

I actually think it's the left-handed effect.  Obama is left-handed and most people aren't, so they lie to pollsters but only in Arizona and Iowa.

It makes perfect sense, shutup!

perhaps because both states include the vowels "a, i and o"?

    We need to review Idaho...that MAY be a potential left-handed effect state....of course very minor...maybe 1-2 points.

[Franzl]

Bottom line on the Bradley effect is even if we could prove it has existed for every black candidate (which of course we can't) the sample size would still be too small to prove it was because of race as opposed to the 50 million other reasons why polls can be wrong. We'll have to wait until there's been several hundred black candidates all with sufficient polling data on their elections before we can reach any definitive conclusions one way or another.

If I was cynical, I'd say that the people who invented the concept of a "Bradley effect" did so because they didn't want black candidates to be nominated for office by the political parties. Since I'm not, I won't say that.

Actually, that is not quite the case.  Wilder underpolled, but won.

what does that have to do with the theory?

[Franzl]

It's Nym's pseudo-conspiracy theory that the Bradley Effect was invented to discourage black people from running for office.  Wilder won, but underpolled.

Now I don't believe in the "conspiracy theory", but the fact that Wilder managed to win has nothing to do with the theory behind it. The mere fact the he underpolled...assuming that was due to race...could be enough to scare parties enough to refrain from nominating black candidates, in theory.


As a non-related comparison, which of the following polls is better? (final result is Smith +2)

A: Smith +20
B: opponent +2

By your logic, Poll A must be more accurate, because it correctly predicted the winner.