Gallup Tracking Poll Thread [Obama vs McCain]

[Sam Spade]

The move towards undecided is coming from two different areas..  Maybe I'll discuss it later. 

But it's to be expected - voter opinions about this election are far from hardened yet.  And it's quite possible that very little happens in the next two months to change this, since:

1. The conventions are very late.
2. There is almost always (in the modern era) a respite period in between the primary and the general elections where things settle down before throttling up again.

[Sam Spade]

Today was the removal of a strong McCain sample and Obama only bounced back to the 4% lead, not the 6% one he had last week - that's the classic sign of tracking poll movement.  We'll see whether it continues, holds steady or moves back...

[Sam Spade]

lol I can't believe that. Fake poll ("air connu").

Gallup's long-established national tracking poll is a "fake poll" based on a 34% subsample that you intuitively feel is wrong?  Or is this a joke? 

Gallup did crazy in 2004. Completely off. Hence, I'm cautious with this firm.

On the state level, not their tracking poll, I thought.

Gallup didn't do a tracking poll in 2004 after the 2000 disaster (which has been corrected for now, as far as I can tell).

Their final poll would have been directly had they not allocated the undecideds as follows:

Actual Poll
Bush 49, Kerry 47, Nader 1

After Undecided Allocation
Bush 49, Kerry 49 (+2), Nader 2 (+1)

Frank Newport must have been on crack when he made that move.  Break them evenly!

[Sam Spade]

in the form of hawk...

Wednesday 25 June, 2008

Obama - 45% (-1)
McCain - 45% (+2)

Based on the language in the release, I suspect that it's just a strong McCain sample.  Time will tell...

[Sam Spade]

I had a sneaking suspicion you'd be unable to resist posting this, Sam. 

I had a sneaking suspicion that no one else would want to. 

(its been up for about 30 minutes, at least)

[Sam Spade]

(its been up for about 30 minutes, at least)

I was on my way to!  Some of us don't subscribe to the damn Gallup RSS feed. 

I subscribe to the RSS feed? - that's news to me.  I'm too cheap to subscribe to anything except for this site.  I do know it was posted to RCP over 30 minutes ago - that's what I was reading it from.

[Sam Spade]

lol I can't believe that. Fake poll ("air connu").

Gallup's long-established national tracking poll is a "fake poll" based on a 34% subsample that you intuitively feel is wrong?  Or is this a joke? 

Gallup did crazy in 2004. Completely off. Hence, I'm cautious with this firm.

On the state level, not their tracking poll, I thought.

Gallup didn't do a tracking poll in 2004 after the 2000 disaster (which has been corrected for now, as far as I can tell).

Their final poll would have been directly had they not allocated the undecideds as follows:

Actual Poll
Bush 49, Kerry 47, Nader 1

After Undecided Allocation
Bush 49, Kerry 49 (+2), Nader 2 (+1)

Frank Newport must have been on crack when he made that move.  Break them evenly!

Problem is not really their last result which was not so horrible. The problem is their polls during the campaign. Very erratic. Fake bounce. etc (The biggest problem was the bad composition of their sample)

Maybe that, like Rasmussen in 2004, Gallup has improved his way to poll the country. Their tracking poll seems not bad. But I stay cautious, especially in summer.

That's the way Gallup's original poll is (not the tracking poll).  It's supposed to be doing that before the election.

[Sam Spade]

If there was a bad sampling one day, how soon will it work its way out of the average?

Tomorrow.

[Sam Spade]

Just bumping around...  The real Gallup numbers are probably still around Obama +2 to +3%, as they have been for a few weeks now.

[Sam Spade]

Just bumping around...  The real Gallup numbers are probably still around Obama +2 to +3%, as they have been for a few weeks now.

So you don't think the 'attacks' on McCain's military service as a qualification to be president are having any impact?

Dave

No.  I think everyone's tuned out right now.  Wait until mid-August or so.

[Sam Spade]

just more bumping around - the race has not fundamentally changed at all, and probably will not change for another month.

[Sam Spade]

Be patient, folks...

[Sam Spade]

It could simply be the case that Obama's base is simply much busier than McCain's. This could help McCain since the election is on Tuesday, but the enthusaism gap is so big that it might not even matter.

Busier with what?

[Sam Spade]

Why are the tracking polls showing a closer race than the one-time polls that have Obama up by 6-7%? Which one's should we trust?

Truthfully, the tracking polls, simply because they are going to be less subject to bad samples (and the bad samples will exit the actual result over time).

But at this point in the campaign, it's fair enough to believe whatever you want. 

[Sam Spade]

Wednesday, July 30, 2008:

Obama - 46% (-1)
McCain - 42% (+1)

Today's results are based on Gallup Poll Daily tracking from July 27-29.

The percentage of voters favoring Obama for president swelled from 45% in July 21-23 tracking, conducted at the outset of Obama's weeklong visit to Europe and the Middle East, to 49% in July 24-26 interviewing conducted at the height of publicity surrounding the tour. At the same time, McCain's support ebbed from 43% to 40%, and the percentage of undecided voters fell from 7% to 4%.

With Obama now back on U.S. soil and filling less of the nightly news, voter preferences have nearly completely reverted to their pre-trip levels.

And this is still with the weekend numbers partially included.

I'm just hoping McCain taking the low road, going all negative, backfires now. I'm not holding my breath however. McCain can do no wrong !

Dave

No one's paying attention to what McCain's doing, at least not yet.

It has to do with Obama's campaign or Obama himself, as well-organized as they are, sending across the wrong message to that wavering 10%-15% who might be inclined to vote for him outside his base percentage.

[Sam Spade]

If Obama is actually up +2 (which is my own personal guess - 1.5 to 2, it's what the state poll average says too), then Obama +5 is within the MOE of these tracking polls, and quite frankly, so is McCain +1.

Also, what Alcon said - and you have to into account that bad samples may occur.

However, if there is actual movement back to Obama, it will become apparent, you just have to give it time to make sure that what appears like movement isn't just a bad sample or a mirage bounce (like the European trip).  It's kind of like a waiting game.

[Sam Spade]

Hmm, I must say I am baffled how his lead didn't grow with Saturday polling included.

Because, for the second time, you are ignoring natural volatility/bad sampling, and assuming that this is a flat-lined race with Obama spikes on weekends.  Also, consider rounding; it's possible, maybe likely (tendency toward the mean) that the previous result was a "weak" +5.

There may have been a higher than normal sample for Obama midweek?

Very possible, but again:  Consider rounding.  Consider margin of error.  We're seeing movement here at a very low confidence rate.  People trust polls too literally, and then assail them too much because of it.

In other words, we need to look at the forest, not the trees...  Really? 

[Sam Spade]

The Democratic margin in party ID will continue to decline over August and September - on that I will place money.

My question is - how is Gallup's tracking poll conducted, because presumably, it's not conducted like the normal Gallup poll is, otherwise we'd see the huge bumps - Alcon?

[Sam Spade]

There may actually be some slight movement towards Obama - but it's still too early to tell, yet.

[Sam Spade]

I don't see how there can be movement when nothing is happening...

I think Sam thinks people drift toward Obama when no one is paying attention. May or may not be true.

Nope.    Just reading the broader week-to-week movements and when something starts to appear over the period of a week, it could mean that something is occurring.  I want to see the results tomorrow and Thursday before saying anything definite, however.

Factually though, when no one is paying attention, Democrats do poll better, because more of their base voters tend to be tuned in.  But that is not the present environment.

[Sam Spade]

Looks like there might be a slight move back to Obama of a couple of points this past week, but I'm not 100% sure yet.

I should add that the state polling hasn't shown it yet, but that's usually slightly behind anyways.  Or at least SUSA's stuff hasn't shown it.  If this sign continues much longer, it might be a shadow bounce - wait and see... 

[Sam Spade]

bumping around...

[Sam Spade]

Sunday - August 24, 2008

Obama - 45% (-1)
McCain - 45% (+1)

bumping around...

[Sam Spade]

Be patient, folks. 

The only problem is that the VP bounce may be confused as a during-the-convention bounce, which may leave the convention bounce lower than anticipated.  I think the Obama people were trying to create duplicate bounces that the media would report as one, but I think they needed to name the VP on Thursday to make that possible.

[Sam Spade]

Surprised the Republicans haven't jumped on this one quicker...

Tuesday, August 26, 2008
McCain 46 (+1)
Obama 44 (-1)

http://www.gallup.com/poll/109834/Gallup-Daily-Bounce-Obama-Post-Biden-Tracking.aspx
Hard to tell yet, and it'll get muddled up in convention noise, but there may have been a negative bounce from the Biden pick.  damn nomo types...