WWTBAM Bored

Sir_Galahad wrote:According to today's AP Poll, McCain has pulled into a virtual tie with Obama. If you follow such things, this is a good sign.

Weyoun wrote:While I would like McCain to win, honestly, I just don't see this is plausible.

Polls are snapshots of highly fluid campaigns. In this case, there is a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points; that means Obama could be ahead by as many as 8 points or down by as many as 6. There are many reasons why polls differ, including methods of estimating likely voters and the wording of questions.

Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political science professor and polling authority, said variation between polls occurs, in part, because pollsters interview random samples of people.

"If they all agree, somebody would be doing something terribly wrong," he said of polls. But he also said that surveys generally fall within a few points of each other, adding, "When you get much beyond that, there's something to explain."

The AP-GfK survey included interviews with a large sample of adults including 800 deemed likely to vote. Among all 1,101 adults interviewed, the survey showed Obama ahead 47 percent to 37 percent. He was up by five points among registered voters.

gsabc wrote:While this is interesting regarding the poll:
"A significant number of the interviews were conducted by dialing a randomly selected sample of cell phone numbers, and thus this poll had a chance to reach voters who were excluded from some other polls."

I find this contradictory:
Opening line, 2nd paragraph of story: "The poll, which found Obama at 44 percent and McCain at 43 percent, ..."
But then, further down: "The AP-GfK survey included interviews with a large sample of adults including 800 deemed likely to vote. Among all 1,101 adults interviewed, the survey showed Obama ahead 47 percent to 37 percent. He was up by five points among registered voters."
So which is it? Were there that many more Obama backers in the "unlikely to vote" group? And who did the deeming?

While over in the "it ain't over till it's over" aisle:
"Some 24 percent of likely voters were deemed still persuadable, meaning they were either undecided or said they might switch candidates. Those up-for-grabs voters came about equally from the three categories: undecideds, McCain supporters and Obama backers. "

Gonna be an interesting election night.

Sir_Galahad wrote:Probably because you have been listening and/or reading too much of the liberal media who is trying to
convince you that it is all over and you should STAY HOME and not even bother to vote.

15QuestionsAway wrote:And why wouldn't reports of big Obama leads depress Obama turnout as well?

ToLiveIsToFly wrote:One other thing to note is that when polls list their margins of error, that's a 95% confidence interval. Which means we should expect that for about 1 in 20 polls, the reality is outside the margin of error. And we're getting 20 national tracking polls every two days or so.

Timsterino wrote:Do national polls really mean crap anyway? What really matters is what each individual state does. Candidates do not win elections based on the national popular vote anyway.

15QuestionsAway wrote: Obama voters (at least) are highly motivated. Look at the statistical breakdown in early voting. If McCain voters aren't as highly motivated, perhaps it has to do more with the candidate.

silverscreenselect wrote:

15QuestionsAway wrote: Obama voters (at least) are highly motivated. Look at the statistical breakdown in early voting. If McCain voters aren't as highly motivated, perhaps it has to do more with the candidate.

And the anti-Obama Democrats I have heard from are highly motivated to vote as well, so that may not mean that much. In 2004, fewer than 1% of early voters said they would have changed their votes if they had waited until election day, so what you have here are the most partisan. Those who might change their votes, along with the true undecideds, which I have heard could be 15-20% of the total, won't be voting early, and those will make the decision. Traditionally, those wind up breaking one way or another pretty heavily.

I feel that there are a number of anti-Obama Democrats, blacks and independents who don't want to tell a pollster, especially a young sounding pollster who they plan to vote for, so they either refuse to be polled or lie about who they are backing.

Bob Juch wrote:

silverscreenselect wrote:

15QuestionsAway wrote: Obama voters (at least) are highly motivated. Look at the statistical breakdown in early voting. If McCain voters aren't as highly motivated, perhaps it has to do more with the candidate.

And the anti-Obama Democrats I have heard from are highly motivated to vote as well, so that may not mean that much. In 2004, fewer than 1% of early voters said they would have changed their votes if they had waited until election day, so what you have here are the most partisan. Those who might change their votes, along with the true undecideds, which I have heard could be 15-20% of the total, won't be voting early, and those will make the decision. Traditionally, those wind up breaking one way or another pretty heavily.

I feel that there are a number of anti-Obama Democrats, blacks and independents who don't want to tell a pollster, especially a young sounding pollster who they plan to vote for, so they either refuse to be polled or lie about who they are backing.

Are you one of those?

ToLiveIsToFly wrote:

Timsterino wrote:Do national polls really mean crap anyway? What really matters is what each individual state does. Candidates do not win elections based on the national popular vote anyway.

True, but the national polls have some relation to the state polls, and they can inform them. We're not at the point where we have a dozen or so state polls coming out every day. If the last poll for a given state is X days old, and the national polls have moved Y points toward one candidate or the other, it's likely that if another state poll were conducted today, it will have moved somewhat toward the same candidate.

It's way above my pay grade to tell you how much based on all the information out there, but the movement of national polls DOES mean something.

Bob78164 wrote:

ToLiveIsToFly wrote:

Timsterino wrote:Do national polls really mean crap anyway? What really matters is what each individual state does. Candidates do not win elections based on the national popular vote anyway.

True, but the national polls have some relation to the state polls, and they can inform them. We're not at the point where we have a dozen or so state polls coming out every day. If the last poll for a given state is X days old, and the national polls have moved Y points toward one candidate or the other, it's likely that if another state poll were conducted today, it will have moved somewhat toward the same candidate.

It's way above my pay grade to tell you how much based on all the information out there, but the movement of national polls DOES mean something.

That's exactly what Nate Silver does at FiveThirtyEight.com. In each state's results box (along the right-hand margin), there's a "Trend-Adjusted" result. That's what he thinks the reported polls for that state would have said (on average) if updated to today.

He then applies a further adjustment based on demographics to come up with a "snapshot" (his best guess of the state result if the election were today), and then still another adjustment to project the race to Election Day itself. --Bob

Bob Juch wrote:

In this case, there is a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points; that means Obama could be ahead by as many as 8 points or down by as many as 6.

Estonut wrote:

Bob Juch wrote:

In this case, there is a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points; that means Obama could be ahead by as many as 8 points or down by as many as 6.

I am not a statistician, but this doesn't make sense. If the margin of error is +/- 3.5 points, how does that translate to ahead by up to 8 or down by up to 6? Wouldn't the estimated high and low have to differ by no more than 7?

silverscreenselect wrote:

Estonut wrote:

Bob Juch wrote:

I am not a statistician, but this doesn't make sense. If the margin of error is +/- 3.5 points, how does that translate to ahead by up to 8 or down by up to 6? Wouldn't the estimated high and low have to differ by no more than 7?

It's more complicated than that. Suppose that a poll shows Obama 45, McCain 45 and 10 undecided, with a three point margin of error. What that means is that there is a very high probability, in the neighborhood of 95 to 98%, that Obama's actual total will be somewhere between 48 and 42 percent, and an equally high probability that McCain's total will be somewhere between 48 and 42 percent. So under this scenario, it is within the margin of error for either McCain or Obama to be up by as much as six percent.

Estonut wrote: That doesn't explain how the window could be 14 points in the previous example where the margin of error is +/- 3.5 points. In other words, if they say candidate X is at 45 with a margin of error of 3.5 points, then he is really between 41.5 and 48.5, with the range being exactly double the margin of error.

Estonut wrote:

Bob Juch wrote:

In this case, there is a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points; that means Obama could be ahead by as many as 8 points or down by as many as 6.

I am not a statistician, but this doesn't make sense. If the margin of error is +/- 3.5 points, how does that translate to ahead by up to 8 or down by up to 6? Wouldn't the estimated high and low have to differ by no more than 7?