Pollster.com: May 4, 2008

My latest NationalJournal.com column, about the remarkable success of the non-poll statistical model created by Poblano of FiveThirtyEight.com, is now online.

By Mark Blumenthal on May 8, 2008 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

May 7, 2008

"Outliers" from the IN/PA and Beyond

By Mark Blumenthal

[I fell behind a bit on his feature over the last hectic week, so some of these are a little stale].

Kathy Frankovic considers the reasons for conflicting national numbers from CBS/NYT and Gallup earlier this week (see also my post on this topic); last week she had a terrific review of how question order can affect survey results.

Carl Bialik revisits the primary math post IN/NC and considers Brian Schaffner's superdelegate projection model.

CJR's Clint Hendler takes an in-depth look at the various popular vote counts.

David Hill says "every superdelegate can find one survey that confirms the outcome he or she intuitively prefers for the Obama-Clinton fight.

Jay Cost crunches the exits from IN and NC

John Cohen finds that most Republicans voting in IN and NC express "little other than a sincere preference for Clinton over Obama."

Brian Schaffner notes that turnout in IN and NC "exceeded the number of votes Kerry won in the states in the general election"

Tom Schaller thinks Hillary could have done better among African Americans (via Smith).

PPP's Tom Jensen tips his hat to SurveyUSA's Jay Leve

By Mark Blumenthal on May 7, 2008 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

POLL: Rasmussen Wisconsin (5/5)

By Eric Dienstfrey

Rasmussen Reports

Wisconsin
McCain 47, Obama 43... McCain 47, Clinton 43

By Eric Dienstfrey on May 7, 2008 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

POLL: Daily Tracking (Through 5/6)

By Eric Dienstfrey

Gallup Poll

National
Obama 47, Clinton 46
Obama 46, McCain 45... Clinton 46, McCain 45

Also
"Obama's Support Similar to Kerry's in 2004"
"Obama Beats McCain Among Jewish Voters"

Rasmussen Reports

National
Obama 47, Clinton 43
Obama 45, McCain 44... Clinton 47, McCain 44

Favorable / Unfavorable
McCain: 49 / 47
Clinton: 46 / 51
Obama: 51 / 46

By Eric Dienstfrey on May 7, 2008 2:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

NC-IN Follow-Up Links

By Mark Blumenthal

Here are links to exit poll and related analysis from:

Other pollster related news:

Brian Schaffner plots pollster performance
SurveyUSA report cards for NC and IN
PPP takes a victory lap
Mickey Kaus (8:45 entry) vents about hidden exit poll estimates

If you've seen other exit poll analysis or pollster related news, email me a link and I'll add it to the list.

By Mark Blumenthal on May 7, 2008 7:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (30)

May 6, 2008

Live Blogging North Carolina and Indiana Election Night

By Mark Blumenthal

I will be live-blogging here tonight on what we might learn -- and what we might do better to ignore -- from the exit poll in Indiana and North Carolina. More details to follow, but please feel free to use this as an open-thread on what is appearing on the net and elsewhere on the exit polls. Here are the links where official exit poll tabulations will appear shortly after the polls close at 8:00 p.m.:

Comments will appear in reverse chronological order -- all times Eastern.

12:30 - And finally...while some important votes are still being counted n Indiana, at least some conclusions about pollster performance are inescapable. First, it does appear that most of the polls significantly understated Barack Obama's percentage of the African American vote, especially in North Carolina, as they have in other states. According to the most current exit poll tabulations (as of this writing), Obama won over 90% of African Americans in both North Carolina and Indiana.

Second, it seems clear that in terms of the overall result, the winner** among the pollsters tonight was Zogby International. Their final polls had Obama ahead by 14 in North Carolina and up by 2 in Indiana -- a closer margin in Indiana than any survey reported in the final week. [Update: Not so fast. Another pollster -- PPP -- did as well or better, depending on the yardstick. The SurveyUSA report cards for Indiana and North Carolina, as well as the Brian Schaffner's graphic, show that Zogby and PPP both scored well, with PPP doing slightly better on 10 of 16 rankings].

I have certainly been critical of Zogby over the years, but credit is due. Pollster reader political_junkie was right with this comment earlier tonight: "It took a lot of courage for them to publish their 'outlier' results last night, one night before primary."

Third, the non-polling based statistical model developed by Poblano at FiveThirtyEight.com outperformed most of the polls. His models predicted a narrow (51.0% to 49.0%) margin in Indiana and a 17 point margin in North Carolina (58.6% to 41.4%).

10:16 - Better late than never, answering the question raised at 8:11: I am told that Edison/Mitofsky conducted a telephone poll of early voters in North Carolina to gather data to combine with the interviews completed at polling places. In Indiana, it was polling place interviews only.

10:11 -- Just posted by Poblano, who is doing his own modeling of the vote count:

I'm now showing Clinton winning Indiana by 1.8 percent, or about 23,000 votes. And one thing to remember about Indiana is the provisional ballot issue -- people who were rejected at the polls because they did not meet the state's ID requirements could still cast provisional ballots and prove their identity later. It's possible that we'll still have a hanging chads type of situation.

9:39 - Thatcher asks: "Did I just see MSNBC change their call from 'Too early' [to call] to "Too close'"? Yes you did.

9:32 - A friend passes along this blog post:

I am watching MSNC coverage of the Indiana and North Carolina Democratic Primary results and I am struck by how profligate the network is with almost all of the exit poll results for Indiana (which has not yet been called) except the aggregate percentages for each of the candidates! The race is "too close to call," but that doesn't explain this.

Why don't the networks tell us who "won" according to the exit polls? The polls have closed, so they can't affect the results? Are the exit polls so lacking in trustworthiness that they aren't really informative? If that is the case, why are the demographic breakdowns from the exit polls thrown around and talked as if they were gospel? (They don't even ment

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