Susquehanna Polling/Tribune-Review: PA: Tie

[King]

That's actually a 4 point Obama bounce from their last poll.

Yeah.

Their last poll was an internal for the Pennsylvania Republican Party.  There really can't be a direct comparison.

Both were polls by Susquehanna Polling & Research Institute.  That's my direct comparison.

[King]

That's actually a 4 point Obama bounce from their last poll.

Yeah.

Their last poll was an internal for the Pennsylvania Republican Party.  There really can't be a direct comparison.

Both were polls by Susquehanna Polling & Research Institute.  That's my direct comparison.

Compare internals to public polls at your own peril - even if they are from the same pollster.  There's an agenda behind internals that isn't there for public polls.

Well, the last Susquehanna that wasn't an internal had Obama up 47-45 in early October.  Their non-internals are just as big of outliers and favorable to Republicans as their Tribune polls.  But even if you don't believe that, 47-45 to 47-47 is almost no movement.

[King]

Predicting Obama +8 when the final is Obama +11 is not close enough, especially when used to argue a state Obama is probably only going to win by 5 is tied.

[King]

Predicting Obama +8 when the final is Obama +11 is not close enough, especially when used to argue a state Obama is probably only going to win by 5 is tied.

If a pollster does not get the exact margin you discredit them? Marist was off by 3 as well in PA (other direction). Do you discredit all their polls for this reason as well?

I'm not discrediting Susquehanna.   What I'm saying is that it doesn't prove they're accurate.   Not a single real pollster (Strategic Vision was proven to be fake) missed the train that Obama won Pennsylvania.  No real pollster could have possibly be wrong.  He won the election by 10.5 points.  

If they predicted it with precision, then maybe you could sway me that this poll could be right.  Missing it by 3 is not precision.  They predicted a solid D state in 2008 to go D.   As far as I'm concerned, they are an outlier among a dozen other pollsters who were "good in 2008" on PA and say PA is Obama's.