The Sienna poll is also terrible. It was a poll of registered voters without looking at voting history. So yes, I wouldnt trust it either. I wish I could critique Quinnipiac and look at what they did but they dont publish any information on how they sample. Also, dont get me started on Rasmussen and their methods. In summation, there are a handful of polls that I think are any good. The big media polls (ABC/Wash Post, NBC/WSJ, CBS/NYT and Fox News) and yes I said Fox News. You can say what you want about them (and there's plenty you can say) but the polls that they directly pay for are easily one of the best if not the best in terms of sampling quality.
Right and most good polls dont operate under the illusion of some special surge in turnout. They use likely voters as a criteria which takes into account past turnout. They only look at people who have had a consistent history of voting. The big thing that I havent seen from the Republicans to justify their hopes of a mass of new turnout is where this surge will come from. The Obama election's surge was based largely on younger people who normally didnt vote. In 1994, the Religious Right turned out in droves when they traditionally hadnt had anywhere close to that turnout. I'm just curious as to where specifically the tea party surge is going to come from. The problem is that the tea party dont occupy an obvious demographic that you can measure. In 2008 and in 1994, you had clear demograhpics that you could look at. So it's a complete crapshoot right now since no one even knows what the past voting history of tea partiers is.
I don't believe this is the case. Polls that measure registered voters consistently weaker GOP results than polls that measure likely voters. If they were just looking at historic voting patterns, this wouldn't be the case - there's nothing historical that suggests GOP voters vote more than Dem voters. What's causing the distortion is that they poll the enthusiasm gap and then use that to adjust the likely voter models. GOP voters are consistently more enthusiastic, so the likely voter models bump them up. Here's an old Gallup statement on how they determine likely voters: http://www.gallup.com/poll/110272/registered-voters-vs-likely-voters.aspx Gallup's system consists of asking respondents a battery of questions about past voting, current interest in the election, and self-reported interest in voting. These include such questions as "How much thought have you given to the upcoming election for president?", "Do you happen to know where people who live in your neighborhood go to vote?", "Have you ever voted in your precinct or election district?", "Do you yourself plan to vote in the presidential election this November?", and "Rate your chances of voting in November's election for president on a scale of 1 to 10." Putting all of this information together, we can assign each voter a score based on our estimate of his or her probability of actually voting. Based on assumptions about actual turnout, we use the scores to select the pool of voters that we think best represents a realistic pool of likely voters come Election Day. Some of it is historical, but some of it is based specifically on enthusiasm for the current election.
What does it matter? The bottom line is the number of Republicans coming out in the primaries is enormous. Who cares if they are Tea party Republicans or not?
Rassmusen and Pew were the only two to get the 2008 presidential election right The network polls did fairly poor compared to everyone else.
I am dumbfounded as to why the dems decided to delay the tax vote. I mean, other than being giant p*****s with little or no intelligence.
Pollsters should. If they are assuming all GOPers are coming out at the levels of tea partiers, then their likely voter models are totally messed up if that's not the case. The point is that their models have gotten the GOP primaries totally wrong; I believe they are making the same mistake with the general election.
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They don't want the vote they place regarding taxes to be used against them in the midterms. I'm not sure why that's surprising.
Universally it does. The vote is "Tax cut for 98% of Americans. Yes or no?" Dems vote Yes. What does the GOP do? Either the Dems get their policy passed, or they get to campaign that the GOP voted against tax cuts and/or is holding the tax cut hostage for the rich. Poll after poll, the public wants the tax cuts on the rich to expire. How does holding a vote favor the GOP?
In message. The democrats suck at conveying the message on their terms. You think if the democrats in these danger spots really thought the perception of it would be what you just said that they would delay the vote? They are desperate to try to hold some of these seats, yet they still don't want the vote.
I don't disagree that they are stupid, but I disagree that their stupidity is why they aren't voting on this. It's fear.
I think they are scared because they are stupid. Those Dems in battlefield seats are losing right now. Maintaining the status quo doesn't help them. They need something to run on - instead they are punting the only potential gamechanging issue they have. I agree that it could backfire if/when they screw up the messaging. But what difference does it make if they are losing already anyway?
Historically the tax debate has always been a third rail issue with Dems. Just the mention of it spooks them, but here they have an issue that could force the opposition into a corner and the dems punt. Sigh, same as it ever was…. Why should I vote for the dems if they aren't strong enough to vote for my interests.
