Monday, May 5, 2008

Which Poll Is Correct?

I doubt the polls are correct. They have been wrong in every contest. When they predicted an Obama victory in New Hampshire, they were wrong. When they predicted an Obama win in Nevada, again, they were wrong. On Super Tuesday (It seems so long ago), they were saying Obama had caught up and took the lead in California, they were wrong. Then came Texas and Ohio. Again, the same thing happened. In Pennsylvania everyone and their mother thought Obama had closed the gap and overtaken Hillary Clinton's lead, therefore upsetting her and ending the race. Instead, she won by nearly 10% points and is still in the race.

My opinion is that there may be several factors at play: 1) people are not forthcoming with their answers when they are polled, the pollsters are asking the questions in such a way to get the answers they desire, the sample is so small that they don't capture the sentiment of the people, or it could be that you just cannot poll issues like race or gender.

Indiana and North Carolina go to the polls tomorrow and here are some of today's final polls from the states, starting with North Carolina.
- Zogby has Obama ahead, 48% to 40%.
- PPP has Obama ahead 53% to 43%.
- Insider Advantage has Obama ahead 48% to 45%.
- ARG has Obama leading 50% to 42%.
Not too much to note from these polls other than Insider Advantage only having Obama getting 79% of the African American vote, which is why they are showing a closer race than other pollsters. Everyone else has Obama getting over 85% of the African American vote. If you give him 85% of the African American vote in the Insider Advantage poll, and leave everything else as is, he leads 51% to 43%. No pollster has Clinton ahead in the state and all signs point to an Obama win tomorrow, the question will be by how much.

As for Indiana...
- Insider Advantage has Clinton leading 48% to 44%.
- Survey USA shows Clinton with a big lead, 54% to 42%. No other pollster has her with a double digit lead in the state.
- Zogby shows Obama in the lead, 44% to 42%.
- Suffolk has Clinton leading 49% to 43%.

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