Okay, I can finally prove all you sample weighters are wrong

[King]

Yes indeed. Folks with very similar beliefs put different political labels on themselves.  Somewhere should write a paper exploring the motivations behind label preferences.

Reaganfan's posting history is the paper exploring the motivations.

[Wonkish1]

Malia, I repeated numerous times, but okay.

Since I personally don't want to give out my personal information let's do it this way: Loser donates to the other parties national convention and then posts the confirmation email on the thread with the personal information removed.

What do you think about $50? The bet is that if the D + spread is 7 or above you win and if the D + spread is 6 or less I win. Deal?

Also anything we can do to keep each other honest(mainly you because I'm not worried about myself going through with it if I lose)? Like maybe agreeing that the Mods are supposed to delete our account and block our IP if we fail to honor?

No it's not 1 poll. Notice how it states(20 polls for 2011) and at the bottom it states that 2011 had more than 20,000 respondents. The margin of error listed there is 1 pt not 2. You're confused. They conduct the poll numerous times over the course of the year and then they publish the average of all of them at the end of the year(Jan 2012 for all of 2011).

Battleground found the similar results. And that is **not one poll** that is an average of all of the polls over each of those years.

Yes you are confused. All I said was that the margin of error for each answer in a poll divided into 2 answers is different than the margin of error for each answer in a poll that is divided into 3 answers. To be specific and not give the wrong impression it's more so true as the percentages approach the 1/n where n is the number of questions asked. A poll question with 3 possible answers, but 1 of which barely registers and 2 of which are much higher has a margin of error for each answer more similar to a poll with 2 possible answers than one with 3. Since, the Party ID and ideology ID feature answers that are much closer to 33, 33, 33 means that those numbers should be closer to their real % than a head to head poll with 2 possible answers. I.e. the margin of error is for each answer is less.

Think about it this way. Let's say I had a poll with 100 different answers in it that each polled at 1%. Do you really think that a margin of error of 3 or 4 pts applies to each answer? No it doesn't. So you think the odds of a single result being off by a multiple of 300 or 400% is likely? No it's not. On the flip side if a result that has 45% has a margin of error of 3 or 4% than if it was off it wouldn't be off by 300 or 400% it would be off by 3/45 = 6% of that singular result.

[King]

D+6 or above and I'm in, since D+6 is what I am officially predicting, though there's probably something better we can donate to than a political party, but winner will get to pick.

[Wonkish1]

D+6 or above and I'm in, since D+6 is what I am officially predicting, though there's probably something better we can donate to than a political party, but winner will get to pick.

I like winner picks somewhere to donate to(as long as it doesn't involve giving out personal info to each other).

I'm in for $50. D + 5 or less and I win. D + 6 and you win.

Deal?

[King]

You have a deal, brotha.

[King]

Wonkish, given the tragic events of Hurricane Sandy, I would appreciate it if you were to donate $50 to the American Red Cross.

[Mehmentum]

Interesting, there was an uptick in Liberals by 3 points since 2008 and a 1 point increase in Conservatives.  A sign of polarization? 

[Bigbzy89]

Democrats winning moderates by 15% shows how out of step and reactionary the GOP is today. So much for Democrats being out of touch Marxists.

Democrats are a diverse broad coalition while the Republican party is a narrow base of angry fat old white tea party males afraid of change.