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January 5, 2008

Poll of Pollsters: Rating the NH Pollsters

By Mark Blumenthal

A week ago I posted results from our poll of pollsters on how they rated and ranked their colleagues in Iowa. Tonight, their ratings of the New Hampshire pollsters.

First, a bit of review. The results below give us a sense of the pollster's relative reputations among their colleagues. Needless to say, reputation does not necessarily correlate with accuracy. The surveys of all pollsters -- those with good reputations and bad -- are subject to survey errors, random and otherwise. Even the best pollsters are fallible.

Second a review of our own methodology: Just before Christmas, we sent email out invitations to just over a hundred pollsters. A little less than half (46) responded and completed the entire survey online. Of those, 21 are media pollsters and and 25 campaign pollsters (14 Democrats and 11 Republicans). There is no "margin of error" for these data because they represent nothing more or less than the views of the pollsters that participated. Like the respondents to any survey, we promised to keep their identities confidential.

The questions we asked were the same as for Iowa. We asked: "How reliable do you consider surveys of NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY voters done by each of the following organizations, very reliable, somewhat reliable, not very reliable or not reliable at all?" We also provided an explicit "do not know enough to rate" option for each organization.

In New Hampshire, the pollsters rated most reliable are ABC News/Washington Post (72% reliable), CNN/WMUR/University of New Hampshire (65%), CBS News/New York Times (61%), the Pew Research Center (59%) and the Boston Globe/University of New Hampshire (56%). Keep in mind that the same University of New Hampshire Survey Center partners with both CNN/WMUR and the Boston Globe.

As in Iowa, the two lowest scoring pollsters are Zogby International and the American Research Group. The "not at all reliable" score is again by far the highest (54%) for Zogby.

The media pollsters are once again more positive about their colleagues work than the campaign pollsters, although both groups provide generally similar rankings.

We also asked our pollster-respondents to select the "pollsters you consider MOST and LEAST reliable in New Hampshire." Once again, a local survey organization stood out. The University of New Hampshire Survey Center (combining its partnerships with both CNN/WMUR and the Boston Globe) is the first choice of slightly less than a third (31%) of our respondents. Notice, however, that slightly more (34%) have no particular favorite in New Hampshire.

And finally, on the question of the least reliable pollster in New Hampshire, Zogby International once again ranked first. More than a quarter (28%) of the campaign pollsters and half (52%) of the media pollsters picked Zogby International.

Again, reputation is just one way to judge a survey organization. A good reputation is no guarantee of accuracy. However, as we learned in Iowa, reputation can tell us a lot.

By Mark Blumenthal on January 5, 2008 11:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

POLL: Rasmussen NH Primary

By Eric Dienstfrey

A new Rasmussen Reports automated survey of likely primary voters in New Hampshire (conducted 1/4) finds:

• Among 441 likely Republican primary voters, Sen. John McCain runs at 31%, former Gov. Mitt Romney at 26%, Rep Ron Paul at 14%, former Gov. Huckabee at 11%, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani at 8%, former Sen. Fred Thompson at 5%.

• Among 510 likely Democratic primary voters, Sen. Barack Obama leads Sen. Hillary Clinton (37% to 27%) in a statewide primary; former Sen. John Edwards trails at 19%, Gov. Bill Richardson at 8%.

• All other candidates receive less than five percent each. The margin of sampling error is 4.5% for each subgroup.

By Eric Dienstfrey on January 5, 2008 9:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

POLL: Concord Monitor/Research 2000 New Hampshire Primary

By Eric Dienstfrey

A new Concord Monitor/Research 2000 statewide survey of likely primary voters in New Hampshire (conducted 1/4 through 1/5) finds:

• Among 400 likely Republican primary voters, Sen. John McCain runs at 35%, former Gov. Mitt Romney at 29% in a statewide primary; former Gov. Mike Huckabee trails at 13%, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani at 8%, Rep. Ron Paul at 7%.

• Among 400 likely Democratic primary voters, Sen. Barack Obama runs at 34%, Sen. Hillary Clinton at 33%; former Sen. John Edwards trails at 23%.

• All other candidates receive less than five percent each. The margin of sampling error is 5% for each subgroup.

By Eric Dienstfrey on January 5, 2008 9:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

POLL: ARG New Hampshire Primary

By Eric Dienstfrey

A new American Research Group statewide survey of likely primary voters in New Hampshire (conducted 1/4 through 1/5) finds:

• Among 600 likely Democratic primary voters, Sen. Barack Obama leads Sen. Hillary Clinton (38% to 26%) in a statewide primary; former Sen. John Edwards trails at 20%.

• Among 600 likely Republican primary voters, Sen. John McCain leads former Gov. Mitt Romney (39% to 25%) in a statewide primary; former Gov. Mike Huckabe trails at 14%, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani at 7%, Rep. Ron Paul at 6%.

• All other candidates receive less than five percent each. The margin of sampling error is 4% for each subgroup.

By Eric Dienstfrey on January 5, 2008 9:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

POLL: CNN/WMUR/UNH New Hampshire Primary

By Eric Dienstfrey

The first in a succession of CNN/WMUR/UNH statewide tracking surveys (CNN article, WMUR article, UNH Dem results, Rep results) of likley primary voters in New Hampshire (conducted 1/4 through 1/5) finds:

• Among 313 likely Republican primary voters, Sen. John McCain runs at 33%, former Gov. Mitt Romney at 27% in a statewide primary, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani trails at 14%, former Gov. Mike Huckabee at 11%, Rep. Ron Paul at 9%.

• Among 359 likely Democratic primary voters, Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton both recieve 33% in a statewide primary; former Sen. John Edwards trails at 20%.

• All other candidates receive less than five percent each. The margin of sampling error is 5% for each subgroup.

By Eric Dienstfrey on January 5, 2008 9:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

POLL: Suffolk University New Hampshire Primary

By Eric Dienstfrey

The fourth in a succession of Suffolk University/7NEWS statewide tracking surveys of likely primary voters in New Hampshire (conducted 1/3 through 1/4) finds:

• Among 500 likely Democratic primary voters, Sen. Hillary Clinton runs at 36%, Sen. Barack Obama at 29% in a statewide primary; former Sen. John Edwards trails at 13%.

• Among 500 likely Republican primary voters, former Gov. Mitt Romney runs at 30%, Sen. John McCain at 26% in a statewide primary; former Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani both trail at 11%, Rep. Ron Paul at 8%.

• All other candidates receive less than five percent each. The margin of sampling error is 4.4% for each subgroup.

By Eric Dienstfrey on January 5, 2008 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

POLL: Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby New Hampshire Primaryo

By Eric Dienstfrey

The second in a succession of Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby statewide tracking surveys of likely primary voters in New Hampshire (conducted 1/1 through 1/4) finds:

• Among 893 likely Democratic primary voters, Sen. Hillary Clinton receives 32%, Sen. Barack Obama 28% in a statewide primary; former Sen. John Edwards trails at 20%, Gov. Bill Richardson at 7%.

• Among 887 likely Republican primary voters, Sen. John McCain runs at 32%, former Gov. Mitt Romney at 30% in a statewide primary; former Gov. Mike Huckabee trails at 12%, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani at 9%, Rep. Ron Paul at 7%.

• All other candidates receive less than five percent each. The margin of sampling error is 3.3% for both subgroups.

By Eric Dienstfrey on January 5, 2008 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

January 4, 2008

In Iowa, Somebody Was Right**

By Mark Blumenthal

Needless to say, from the pollster's perspective, there were three big winners in Iowa last night: Barack Obama, Mike Huckabee and J. Ann Selzer, the pollster for the Des Moines Register.

As regular readers know, the final Register "Iowa Poll," released on New Year's Eve, showed Barack Obama leading Hillary Clinton by a seven-point margin (32% to 25%), followed closely by John Edwards (at 24%). The result was stunning, indicating a better Obama showing by far than in other recent polls. Only two polls released during the latter half of December had shown Obama even nominally "ahead," and neither margin was large enough to attain statistical significance. Earlier that day, our "sensitive estimate" (based on all other recent polls, but set to be more sensitive to the most recent) gave Clinton a 4.5 point lead over Obama. The Reuters/Zogby tracking survey released that morning (and conducted even more recently than the Register poll) showed Clinton leading Obama by 4 points (30% to 26%).

The explanation for the difference was even more stunning. "Obama's rise," the Register reported, was "the result in part of a dramatic influx of first-time caucusgoers, including a sizable bloc of political independents." The poll showed 60% saying this would be their first caucus and 40% identifying their party preference as Democratic. No other poll that disclosed similar results to Pollster.com came close on either measure. Within an hour or so of its release, the Register poll had been condemned by the Clinton and Edwards campaign pollsters as inaccurate, "at odds with history" and based on an "unprecedented new turnout model." The only way the poll would be accurate, Edwards consultant Joe Trippi said later, is if "220,000 people vote."

Despite the dark insinuation, Selzer had not changed her methodology. She had "assumed nothing" about the demographics or party allegiance of the likely caucus goers interviewed by her company. Instead, as she explained it to the News Hour, "we put our method in place, and we let the voters speak to us." In the face of massive skepticism, some of which seemed to come even from the Register's most prominent columnist, she stood by her numbers.

And yesterday, those findings were vindicated. Obama won by an 8-point margin in the official results and by approximately seven-points on the (more comparable) entrance poll head count estimate. The turnout was 239,000, nearly double the number from 2004. And the entrance poll put the share of first-time caucus participants at 57%. The only mismatch was on party -- 23% were independent or Republican on the entrance poll as compared to 45% on the Register survey.

I would urge some caution on making too much of the inconsistency on party. The jury may still be out on that issue. Pollsters sometimes get slightly different results on that question depending on the exact wording, the structure of answer categories or on the nature of other questions asked earlier in the survey.

In this case, it is also worth remembering that 100% of the caucus-goers were registered Democrats b