Polling Standards at the New York Times?
Harry Enten | March 18, 2010
Topics: Ann Selzer , Can I Trust This Poll , Field Poll , New York Times , Sampling
When I visited the Daily Kos blog this afternoon, I was greeted by the following headline "Chamber of Commerce Skews Polling in Dem Swing Districts" linking to a New York Times blog piece. In the Times piece, author Robb Mandelbaum explains that the Times cannot publish results from the partisan Chamber surveys because
Instead of randomly selecting their respondents, the Chamber of Commerce sampled from voter lists, a practice The New York Times and many other media pollsters do not endorse because the lists are often outdated and are generally not representative -- they do not include unlisted telephone numbers, for example.
In other words, the New York Times claims it will not publish polls conducted using registration based list sampling (RBS).
As I am not familiar with the New York Times' "stringent standards" for publishing poll results, I was admittedly perplexed when I read about the New York Times' opposition to RBS polling. Why? Because I had seen them publish polls in the past that use RBS.
Just today, in fact, the Times published an RBS result in an a blog discussing Senator Barbara Boxer's bid for re-election:
'A new Field Poll shows that the three candidates hoping to unseat Senator Barbara Boxer have gained ground. Senator Boxer, who is in her third term, trails Tom Campbell, a former congressman, 44 to 43 percent, and leads Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, 45 to 44 percent.'
The Field Poll, one of the oldest and most widely respected polling firms in California, uses RBS technology "when conducting surveys of the state's registered voter population". A search of the New York Times' archive reveals 20 mentions of the Field Poll in the last 12 months.
The Field Poll is not the only firm to use RBS technology. The vaunted pre-caucus Iowa Poll conducted by Ann Selzer rode RBS to being the only poll to predict a Kerry/Edwards 1-2 finish in the 2004 Democratic Iowa Caucus, and it accurately projected Obama and Huckabee victories in the 2008 Iowa Caucuses. The New York Times has quoted Selzer's pre-caucus polls.
Of course, I would still be somewhat suspicious of the Chamber of Commerce sponsored polls, and Mandelbaum implies the Times is too. They are after all polls conducted by a Republican leaning firm for an organization against the current healthcare reform bill. But for the New York Times' to claim they never publish RBS polls is laughable.
Indeed, It appears that the Times accepts list based samples in some instances but not others. So what is the New York Times' standard for publishing RBS polls?
By Harry Enten | March 18, 2010 8:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)
Comments
Of course, I would still be somewhat suspicious of the Chamber of Commerce sponsored polls..."
Yet there seems to be no suspicion on this site of Democrat-leaning polls. The Daily Kos questioning a poll and claiming it is skewed is like Keith Olbermann accusing someone else of engaging in hyperbole.
Posted on March 19, 2010 12:06 AM
Mark, I believe the position of this site is to always include all polls, (except SV for obvious reasons), and give the user the tools to filter which ones they want included.
The point of this post is to question the New York Times for leaving out a right-leaning poll so it seems slightly absurd to attack the site for being biased towards left-leaning polls.
Posted on March 19, 2010 9:40 AM
John writes: "The point of this post is to question the New York Times for leaving out a right-leaning poll so it seems slightly absurd to attack the site for being biased towards left-leaning polls."
You have it exactly correct, John.
What these "conservatives" do is just always imagine that there is some bias against them, that the whole world is defrauding them, no matter how absurd the claim is.
The facts don't matter--everything is "liberals" (which in their definition includes Goldwater/Reagan conservatives like McCain and Specter)engaging in nefarious plots.
If you try to explain global warming science to them, they just scream that it is all a plot by Al Gore--Gore somehow convinced 97 percent of the world's climate scientists to become involved in a conspiracy. If you try to explain the dangers of secondhand cigarette smoke they scream that it is a commie plot by the Surgeon General (Did Reagan appoint a Communist as Surgeon General?).
But my favorite is when the claimed Gore was trying to steal the 2000 election by asking that an accurate vote count be made in Florida.
Posted on March 21, 2010 10:29 AM
John writes: "The point of this post is to question the New York Times for leaving out a right-leaning poll so it seems slightly absurd to attack the site for being biased towards left-leaning polls."
You have it exactly correct, John.
What these "conservatives" do is just always imagine that there is some bias against them, that the whole world is defrauding them, no matter how absurd the claim is.
The facts don't matter--everything is "liberals" (which in their definition includes Goldwater/Reagan conservatives like McCain and Specter)engaging in nefarious plots.
If you try to explain global warming science to them, they just scream that it is all a plot by Al Gore--Gore somehow convinced 97 percent of the world's climate scientists to become involved in a conspiracy. If you try to explain the dangers of secondhand cigarette smoke they scream that it is a commie plot by the Surgeon General (Did Reagan appoint a Communist as Surgeon General?).
But my favorite is when the claimed Gore was trying to steal the 2000 election by asking that an accurate vote count be made in Florida.
Posted on March 21, 2010 10:31 AM
"RBS technology "? uh...you mean RBS methodology.
Posted on March 22, 2010 1:56 PM
I have to make my actual name post work to respond to comments, but yes moderate... I erred... Methodology, not technology. Funny you can read over something a thousand times and not see the simplest of errors.
Posted on March 23, 2010 3:34 AM
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