Pollster.com

December 8, 2007

POLL: Newsweek/PSRA Iowa Caucuses

By Mark Blumenthal

A new Newsweek/PSRA survey (story, results, conducted 12/3 through 12/5) finds:

• Among 395 likely Democratic caucus goers, Sen. Barack Obama leads Sen. Hillary Clinton by a statistically insignificant margin (35% to 29%) in a national primary; former Sen. John Edwards receives 18% and Gov. Bill Richardson 12%.

• Among 275 likely Republican caucus goers former Gov. Mike Huckabee leads former Gov. Mitt Romney (39% to 17%); Sen. Fred Thompson receives 10%, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani 9%, Rep. Ron Paul 8% and Sen. John McCain 6%.

• All other candidates receive less than five percent.

From the Newsweek release: "Likely Republican caucus-goers are 16% of all Iowa adults 18+ (weighted cases). Likely Democratic caucus-goers are 24% of all Iowa adults 18+ (weighted cases)."

Compare to comparable statistics for the October Des Moines Register poll (12% and 10% respectively) as well as the actual turnout for the 2004 Democratic caucuses (5.5%) and the Republican caucuses in 2000 (3.9%) and 1988 (5.3%).

Update: Several commenters question whether the six-point Obama lead could possibly be statistically "insignificant." I used that word above to paraphrase the conclusion from the Newsweek article:

While the Illinois senator's lead among Democratic caucus-goers in this poll is not large enough to be statistically significant, things seem to be trending his way, Hugick said.

Hugick's calculation is correct. For this sample of 395 likely caucus goers, a six point margin is not large enough to be "statistically significant" assuming the commonly accepted 95% level of confidence. Remember, the margin of sampling error (+/- 6% in this case) applies to the percentage for each candidate separately, not to the margin between candidates.

While the Obama lead is not "significant" at a 95% level of confidence, it would be significant if we were willing to relax our level of confidence to about 85%. See Gary Langer's column from earlier this week for more detail on this issue.

By Mark Blumenthal on December 8, 2007 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

"Outliers" for 12-7

By Mark Blumenthal

The New York Times' Megan Thee looks at the challenge to telephone poll sampling posed by cell phones.

My neighbor Joel Achenbach blogs on political polls as only Joel Achenbach can. Don't miss his discussion of "squishiness bias."

Carl Bialik takes a more serious look at the term "statistical tie" and finds that some pollsters (including yours truly) prefer to avoid it.

Frank Newport posts "ten things Americans think about Mormons and a Mormon president."

The Pew Research Center finds that 4 out of 5 likely caucus goers in Iowa say they have receiving recorded phone calls from the campaigns.

First Read's Aswini Anburajan goes to Nielsen "to get ratings and demographic information on just who watches Oprah Winfrey" in Iowa, South Carolina and the nation.

Dante Scala has evidence of a coming Huckabee media buy in New Hampshire.

Compete (a web analytics company) has posted an Election 2008 Data Hub that allows comparison of candidates by their web traffic (via Swampland).

John Distaso and Tom Fahey have the latest on the criminal investigation being conducted in New Hampshire into survey calls that allegedly conveyed negative information about Mitt Romney.

By Mark Blumenthal on December 8, 2007 3:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Quick Links to New Polls

By Mark Blumenthal

Eric and I picked the wrong afternoon to attend to Pollster.com business out of the office. Here are quick links to two new polls released this afternoon:

• Newsweek released a new survey of likely caucus goers in Iowa (article, full results).

• The Edwards campaign released selected results from an internal survey of Iowa likely caucus goers via TPM Election Central and Chris Cillizza. The former has a scan of the full memo.

Stay tuned for more complete updates

By Mark Blumenthal on December 8, 2007 1:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 7, 2007

Time's "How America Decides" Polls

By Mark Blumenthal

While media outlets and pollsters often assert their disinterest in the "horse race," the partnership of Time and SRBI have produced a new set of surveys of Iowa, New Hampshire and the nation that appear to omit trial heat questions altogether. Here's how the analysis by Time's Mark Halperin and Amy Sullivan puts it:

Political polls usually function as Ouija boards that campaigns and pundits can use to try to predict the outcome of an election. We're more interested in figuring out how voters make the decisions that lead to that outcome. Is it a gut reaction, an emotional response to a candidate who makes them feel proud or angry? Are voters more interested in character traits like leadership and sincerity or in policy positions that match their own?

The especially unique aspect of the survey -- at least for the moment -- is that virtually all of the numbers appear, not in the Time article, but in a very slick interactive Flash chart that allows a graphical comparison of results on all questions across all three samples for any two of the candidates running. The graphic may seem a bit confusing at first -- they key is to use your mouse to point to any spot along the trend line after selecting candidates from the pull down menus. It's definitely worth a click.

My one complaint about the presentation is that Time has so far provided virtually none of the most basic methodological information that usually accompanies media polls. How many interviews? When were they conducted? And who was interviewed? That is, are the numbers in the charts based on the views of all adults, of likely general election voters or of primary voters? I suspect this omission is temporary, as the Time/SRBI team is typically a leader in disclosure. SRBI, for example, always posts a complete "filled in" questionnaire with all results for every question, including demographics. I'm assuming SRBI will do the same for this survey soon.

UPDATE: They have. Follow this link to the full report, including the usual full disclosure of methodology, on the SRBI web site (thanks to Mark L).

By Mark Blumenthal on December 7, 2007 6:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

POLL: ARG Nevada Caucus

By Eric Dienstfrey

A new American Research Group statewide survey of likely caucus goers in Nevada (conducted 12/1 through 12/6) finds:

• Among 600 Democrats, Sen. Hillary Clinton leads Sen. Barack Obama (45% to 18%) in a statewide caucus; former Sen. John Edwards trails at 14%.

• Among 600 Republicans, former GOv. Mitt Romney narrowly leads former Gov. Mike Huckabee (29% to 23%) in a statewide caucus; former Mayor Rudy Giuliani trails at 17%, Sen. John McCain at 7%, former Sen. Fred Thompson at 5%.

• All other candidates receive less than five percent each.

By Eric Dienstfrey on December 7, 2007 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The Gender Gap In Turnout Likely To Widen

By Margie Omero

[Today's Guest Pollster's column comes from Margie Omero, President of Momentum Analysis, a Democratic polling firm based in Washington, DC.]

I posted last week about the "Single Anxious Female" moniker, and how coverage of this demographic group largely trivializes women. In fact, not only are women across marital status groups voting at a higher rate than men, this gender gap in turnout has existed for years, and is poised to widen further.

Census data here and here [2006 data found with this program] show that women have been turning out at higher rates than men in every Presidential election since 1980, and in every mid-term election since 1986. Not just raw numbers (there are more women than men, so even a lower turnout rate among women could still mean more women voters), but the percentage of adults who report voting. The graph below shows the difference between women and men's turnout rates (abbreviated as "women - men"). Note that the gap is more dramatic in Presidential years.

This pattern is not surprising. Not only have women been making societal gains in political influence, but women's educational attainment also increased dramatically during the same period. Again using census data, in the last mid-term election, for the first time more women than men had some college education (among adults 25 and older). This bodes well for a continued increase in women's turnout.

And despite the attention on young and/or single women not voting, it is younger women who comprise this gender gap in turnout. The table below shows 2004 turnout by age and gender. It is only among the oldest voters that men vote at a higher rate than women.

Naturally age and education are related. Younger women are more likely to have some college education than their male counterparts; the reverse is true among older men and women. But even within each education level (with one small exception), younger women are voting at a higher rate than younger men.

Looking at these numbers, I see a positive story not being told. The data suggest women's turnout will continue to increase, particularly in a Presidential year. And the gender gap in turnout is particularly large among younger voters, regardless of their level of education. But while women are becoming increasingly influential in elections, they are being told by the media their voting behavior is just another thing that requires improving. Surely there is a way to mobilize women and make their issues heard without hyperbole and finger-pointing. In a future post, I'll look at some of the assumptions made about why women aren't voting, and what the data really show.

By Margie Omero on December 7, 2007 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

POLL: USA Today/Gallup Reps vs Dems on Issues

By Eric Dienstfrey

Additional results from the recent USA Today/Gallup national survey of 1,006 adults (conducted 11/30 through 12/2) finds:

• More Americans think the Democratic Party would do a better job than the Republican party when dealing with healthcare policy (59% to 29%), the economy (50% to 38%), protecting Americans' rights and freedoms (49% to 36%), the housing market (48% to 33%), Iraq (48% to 38%), taxes (44% to 42%), and corruption in government (42% to 29%).

• More Americans think the Republican Party would do a better job than the Democratic party when dealing with terrorism (48% to 38%), illegal immigration (44% to 37%), and moral values (43% to 39%).

By Eric Dienstfrey on December 7, 2007 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

POLL: AP-Ipsos 08 Primary

By Eric Dienstfrey

A new AP/Ipsos national survey (story, results)of 1,009 adults (conducted 12/3 through 12/5) finds:

• Among 469 Democrats and those who lean Democratic, Sen. Hillary Clinton leads Sen. Barack Obama (45% to 23%) in a national primary; former Sen. John Edwards trails at 12%.

• Among 376 Republicans and those who lean Republican, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani leads former Gov. Mike Huckabee (26% to 18%) in a national primary; Sen. John McCain trails at 13%, former Gov. Mitt Romney at 12%, former Sen. Fred THompson at 11%.

• All other candidates receive less than five percent each.