At 11:16 PM 10/27/2004 -0500 Julia Thompson wrote: >> I am continuing to look closely at the State Polls that come in, as well as >> TV ad buys, and candidate visits to get a feel for how this race is >> developing. When it comes to State polls, I tend to put a lot of stock in >> Gallup generally (as they are the granddaddy of pollsters) and in >> Mason-Dixon particularly. Mason-Dixon has a long track record, and in >> particular has batted nearly 1.000 in their 2000 and 2002 state polls. >> (Mason-Dixon does not do national polls, only state-by-state polls.) > >Combined results of lots of state polls, plus the raw data, can be found >at http://www.electoral-vote.com/ > >And if you are so inclined, you can get a little meter that gets the >predicted total for the day from the site to put on your webpage at >http://www.electoral-vote.com/info/enhancements.html > >I don't think that you, JDG, will be terribly impressed with the >politics of the person who maintains the site, but dealing with all the >data is a great service, IMO. (I've heard praise of the daily analysis >by someone who doesn't agree with the politics.)
Julia, I am surprised that you heard good things about electoral-vote.com's analysis. Most people I know think that his methodology is incredibly bad. Basically, he makes two mistakes in his methodology: 1) He only makes use of the most recent poll, rather than considering all recent polls as a group. This is frankly just plain silly. 2) He treats all polls equally, regardless of reputation. Some polls have a great past track record, like Mason-Dixon, other polls have an almost unbelievably bad past track record, and have an unproved and unaccepted methodology - like Zogby interactive. This methodology has produced wacky results for him all year - I think he had UT in Kerry's column at one point! Even now, he has CO in Kerry's column, even though Kerry is dropping ads and cancelling visits from the State. I personally prefer the following site's analysis: http://www.uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/GENERAL/CAMPAIGN/2004/polls.php Although even the above site's analysis is flawed, as it has it only uses polls.... thus it has WV "undecided" even though nobody has campaigned there in months, simply because noone has released a publicly available poll from the State.... They also somehow have forgotten to switch HI to "undecided", despite the most recent poll showing Bush ever so slightly up there. What I do like about this site, is that they simply ignore those polls that have, shall we say, a "colorful" track record - which is helpful. In terms of just getting raw data, though, I also enjoy checking: www.tripias.com/state JDG _______________________________________________________ John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] "The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03 _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
