Public Service-I Just Got An E-Mail From Zogby With Confusing Poll Numbers

[DemocratSinceBirth]

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=739

[reachout]

1. confusing?

How so?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. All The Other Polls Have Bush Going Down

This Has Bush Going Up....

[reachout]

Okay

I see what you mean. I guess I just always figure on at least a 3% margin or error. While the change falls within the furthest range of that, it is still within MOE.

Still, assuming it's not just a MOE matter, I think I would give Zogby's commentary some credence.

"This is a bounce, clearly a reversal of a downward spiral. The President was helped by an appearance before the United Nations in the middle of polling. Americans do like their President to be seen as a leader on the world stage. Bush was also helped by Clark's entrance into the Democratic race, which muddied the waters a bit."


Sure we here see through the nonsense in Bush's UN speech, but it had enough feel-good ambiguity to play in Middle America.

Plus, it will take some time for things to settle down after Clark's entrance. The general populace was just starting to get some idea of who the Dem candidates were, and it will take them awhile to sort this out.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. I'm Not Knocking Zogby

Polling Is A Science That's Hard To Get Right.....

With the proliferation of cell phones, fax machines, caller ids, etcetera it's getting harder and harder to get a representative sample...

[diplomats]

10. This might not be that much of a surprise

Remember, Zogby had Bush dropping from 52 percent in August to 45 percent in early September. That's a 7-point drop in a month. If you look at Zogby polls, they hardly ever show huge fluctuations like that. That was probably an aberration. Keep in mind Bush at 50 percent is still lower than he was in August. And as Zogby himself said, his U.N. appearance could've helped (and that will obviously wear off). I think it's good that Dean, Kerry and Clark all trail by 10 percent, which I don't consider a big deficit at all at this point.

[gWbush is Mabus]

5. could be the methodology

weights are added "to reflect voter proportions" or something.

it doesn't say the methodology for determining the weights.

[bryant69]

3. Could be Methodolgy

Could be timing--he's been in the press a lot lately--more visible--perhaps people are just reacting to that.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. TY

but I attribute this "bump" to polling error...

He went down in all the other polls:

Newsweek

Gallup

WSJ

[RobertSeattle]

6. Seattke RW Talk Radio was talking this up

With so little positive news to report regarding the Bush Admin our local RW Talk Radio guy latched onto this "good news" today. Pretty funny.

[JaneQPublic]

7. Last month's 45% poll was probably a glitch

As much as I enjoyed seeing it, it was a tad bit lower than all the other polls at the time. Zogby's current polling number of 50 is closer to what all the other polls are now showing.

So, if you throw out the 45, Zogby's numbers show a slow but steady decline, not a bump in support for Chimpy.

One of the CNN political analysts made an interesting point last week: Apparently, Poppy Bush was still polling in the 60's at this exact point in his first term. Of course, he eventually dipped into the 30's before getting beat by Clinton. I'm expecting a similar fate for his son.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. The Best Way To Look At Polls

is to do a poll of polls and use the average


or


throw out the outliers;the highest and lowest...

[diplomats]

12. Exactly

Bush's uptick to 50 percent is still less than his Zogby number in August, which was 52 percent.

[Dogmudgeon]

11. Zogby polled LIKELY voters

Most polling is done with registered voters, or a random sample.

Republicans are much more likely to vote than Democrats; politically, they are more motivated and much more opinionated, so a sample of likely voters will be skewed toward the GOP relative to registered voters.

Zogby is still pretty accurate, though.

--bkl