Sunday, September 21, 2008

Obama's Up!

Check out this latest poll from Gallup. But, before you do, let's have a brief discussion about the word "internals". "What does this mean?"you ask. I'll tell you. It means the pollster shows you how it arrived at its numbers by showing who was polled, what the sample size was and good stuff like that. Those are the internals. Unfortunately, pollsters don't always show their internals. So, when I tell you that some polls that favor McCain, might have asked more Republicans than Democrats, what does that bit of information do for your understanding of what they're telling us? Would that unrealistically skew the results? It tells me that something stinks in Denmark, that's what.

With 11 million more Democrats registered than Republicans, and more being registered every day, in every state, should polls be slightly weighted to the Democrats' side? Why, or why not? Please answer in essay form and put your pencils down at the end of the test time--just kidding!

This poll at least shows the sample size. Take a brief look here, and then at the link above in the first paragraph to read the internals for yourself. Click on it below, to see it more clearly.


Obama's up--but, what a roller coaster!



1 comment:

DoulaMomma said...

I have heard one explanation that polling methods are often outdated - for instance, they might rely on land lines when a younger demographic may have only cell phones. This is what I keep telling myself.

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