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Ramsussen can be trusted as much at the NY Times. Every polling group has an agenda and leans one way or the other. A few are a little more objective. It is important to take each poll for what it is worth, at the time..Polls change daily, polls are based on who is doing the polling and who they are talking to...You believe the story, most realize any poll taken by most universities can not be totally trusted. that is why we should look at a variety of materials to get a more balanced over view.
All I can say is that in 2004 or 2008 (can't remember which), Rasmussen and Pew came the closest of all the pollsters in predicting the outcome numbers of the Presidential race. I thought it was 2008.
I don't understand what the New York Times did because I don't see a discussion of confidence levels and margins of error differences between pollsters. You can't just subtract like this if each pollster has a different margin of error and a different confidence level:
"Our process here is quite simple: we’ve taken all such polls in our database, and assessed how accurate they were, on average, in predicting the margin separating the two leading candidates in each race. For instance, a poll that had the Democrat winning by 2 percentage points in a race where the Republican actually won by 4 would have an error of 6 points."
None of the polls are unbiased. None that I have seen are open, transparent or accountable. Can you gain access to their data and methodology? Have you seen who is funding them and their revolving doors? Do you know anything about the NEP and reports of them getting information from actual election machines?
I find it amazing that people trust such things and give them credibility.
None of the polls are unbiased. None that I have seen are open, transparent or accountable. Can you gain access to their data and methodology? Have you seen who is funding them and their revolving doors? Do you know anything about the NEP and reports of them getting information from actual election machines?
I find it amazing that people trust such things and give them credibility.
They all describe their methodology. You just have to look for it on the pollster's website. The newspapers/TV media don't usually report it.
I used to have a beef with Gallup who used to poll any adult who picked up the phone about Obama's approval rating. It wasn't what they did so much as the TV news media thinking it was predictive of something. It wasn't. For all we know, a third of Gallup's sample were illegal aliens and another third were not registered to vote. Well, they could still approve/disapprove of Obama but the news media opinion jockeys' used to run with the numbers like they would be predictive of election results which they were not since for all we know 2/3 of the sample were not allowed to vote.
They all describe their methodology. You just have to look for it on the pollster's website. The newspapers/TV media don't usually report it.
I used to have a beef with Gallup who used to poll any adult who picked up the phone about Obama's approval rating. It wasn't what they did so much as the TV news media thinking it was predictive of something. It wasn't. For all we know, a third of Gallup's sample were illegal aliens and another third were not registered to vote. Well, they could still approve/disapprove of Obama but the news media opinion jockeys' used to run with the numbers like they would be predictive of election results which they were not since for all we know 2/3 of the sample were not allowed to vote.
Describing it and you seeing it are 2 different things. They are selling you a product. It is just like a drug company study. Who is ScottRasmussen?
2004 was when there was a complete reversal of polls vs election results. They actually conformed the polls to match after the fact. The margin of error was huge.
Ramsussen can be trusted as much at the NY Times. Every polling group has an agenda and leans one way or the other. A few are a little more objective. It is important to take each poll for what it is worth, at the time..Polls change daily, polls are based on who is doing the polling and who they are talking to...You believe the story, most realize any poll taken by most universities can not be totally trusted. that is why we should look at a variety of materials to get a more balanced over view.
Nita
You left out one very important item. Poll results are also based on who PAYS for them. It isn't like these polls are sponsored by the League of Women voters and are as unbiased as you can get. They are paid for by the parties, even the campaigns themselves. Naturally the outcome will be geared towards the desired results of the client paying for them.
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