Zogby: McCain pulls into lead in national poll!

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

ZOGBY SATURDAY: McCain outpolled Obama 48% to 47% in Friday, one day, polling. He is beginning to cut into Obama's lead among independents, is now leading among blue collar voters, has strengthened his lead among investors and among men, and is walloping Obama among NASCAR voters.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/.../826/297/648559

[William33 110]

Polls suc.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Zogby's a lib, he wouldn't lie about this

[Dan J 277]

Zogby's a lib, he wouldn't lie about this

Pollsters are generally for profit businesses, any perception of bias can be bad for business.

Its likely this poll will be discredited as an outlier since none of the other polls show McCain leading. If more polls show the same thing, then it would be taken more seriously.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Zogby's a lib, he wouldn't lie about this

Pollsters are generally for profit businesses, any perception of bias can be bad for business.

Its likely this poll will be discredited as an outlier since none of the other polls show McCain leading. If more polls show the same thing, then it would be taken more seriously.

3 days remain.

There's no time at this late date to "wait for other polls".

Which is exactly why the overly analytical style of the Obama campaign will now come back to bite them.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Here's what Nate Silver has to say about this poll:

Matt Drudge is touting the results of a one-day sample in a Zogby poll, which apparently showed John McCain ahead by 1 point.

There are a couple of significant problems with this.

Firstly, there is a reason that pollsters include multiple days of interviewing in their tracking polls; a one-day sample is extremely volatile, and have very high margins for error.

Secondly, the Zogby polls have been particularly volatile, because he uses nonsensical party ID weightings, which mean that his weighting process involves making numbers doing naughty things that they usually don't like to do.

Thirdly, Zogby polls are generally a lagging rather than a leading indicator. This is because he splits his interviewing period over two days; most of the interviews that were conducted in this sample took place on Thursday night, with a few this afternoon. The reason this is significant is because lots of other pollsters were in the field on Thursday night, and most of them evidently showed good numbers for Obama, as he improved his standing in 6 of the 7 non-Zogby trackers.

Finally, there was no favorable news for McCain to drive these numbers. Polls don't move without a reason (or at least they don't move much).

So go out to your Halloween parties and enjoy yourself, and we'll be back to covering the polls for you tomorrow.

[Dan J 277]

Zogby's a lib, he wouldn't lie about this

Pollsters are generally for profit businesses, any perception of bias can be bad for business.

Its likely this poll will be discredited as an outlier since none of the other polls show McCain leading. If more polls show the same thing, then it would be taken more seriously.

3 days remain.

There's no time at this late date to "wait for other polls".

Which is exactly why the overly analytical style of the Obama campaign will now come back to bite them.

Every pollster releases new polls just about every day, including weekends. We will have 40 new polls by the time polls close on Tuesday.

[Peikko 1,575]

I like this bit:

Secondly, the Zogby polls have been particularly volatile, because he uses nonsensical party ID weightings, which mean that his weighting process involves making numbers doing naughty things that they usually don't like to do.

[William33 110]

Can someone offer evidence of a Presidential election poll that has been accurate, over the last 20 years?

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From the National Council on Public Polls:

The 16 national presidential polls conducted in 2004 for the media had a very good year. The average candidate error was less than one percentage point (0.9%). Only two polls missed the final vote for either John Kerry or George W. Bush by more then two percentage points. Eleven polls had Bush ahead in his narrow win over Kerry. Four polls had Kerry ahead and one had it even. Four of the five were within sampling error. The other, is an Internet poll for which error due to sampling cannot be calculated.

Read the whole document for further analysis.

[William33 110]

From the National Council on Public Polls:

The 16 national presidential polls conducted in 2004 for the media had a very good year. The average candidate error was less than one percentage point (0.9%). Only two polls missed the final vote for either John Kerry or George W. Bush by more then two percentage points. Eleven polls had Bush ahead in his narrow win over Kerry. Four polls had Kerry ahead and one had it even. Four of the five were within sampling error. The other, is an Internet poll for which error due to sampling cannot be calculated.

Read the whole document for further analysis.

That worked well in 2004, yet I could have predicted that race without analysis. What is the 20 year rating?

[Peikko 1,575]

7/11, they've never been wrong

[Pooky 3,791]

I like this bit:

Secondly, the Zogby polls have been particularly volatile, because he uses nonsensical party ID weightings, which mean that his weighting process involves making numbers doing naughty things that they usually don't like to do.

I thought you had to be an economist to make numbers do naughty things?