Can The Polls Be Wrong?
By Erick Posted in 2006 — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Can the polls be wrong? Consider this.
On October 5, 2002, the Atlanta Journal and WSB-TV conducted a poll showing Roy Barnes at 49% and Sonny Perdue at 42%. In mid-October of 2002, Mason-Dixon showed Roy Barnes at 48% and Sonny Perdue at 39%. On November 4, 2002, one day before the election, the Atlanta Journal/WSB-TV poll showed Roy Barnes at 51% and Sonny Perdue at 40%. The internal polling of the Barnes campaign showed similar results. So did the internals of the Perdue campaign, except the Perdue campaign was no longer looking at its internal polling. Instead, the campaign was looking at its GOTV ground game data and knew Perdue would win.
On November 5, 2006, Sonny Perdue beat Roy Barnes 51.4% to 46.3% with the Libertarian taking 2.3% of the vote.
The polls were wrong. Well, the polls, per se, were not wrong. They measured the temperature in the state at the time they were taken. But one day before the election a credible poll showed the Democrat winning and the actual results were a mirror image, with the Republican winning. Why?
Because the polls cannot measure the intensity of the GOP's ground game and that ground game is that good. It was put in place in 2000. It was refined in places like Georgia in 2002 and in Ohio in 2004. And now the GOP is set to unleash it again.
So keep this in mind -- the polls may be an accurate indicator of public sentiment, but the only result that counts occurs on November 7th inside polling booths. And that is to the GOP's advantage.
« When Negative Ads Backfire — Comments (4) | Spending Is The Problem — Comments (17) »
Can The Polls Be Wrong? 4 Comments (0 topical, 4 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
People need to quit reading these polls. The same media that was willing to run two inaccurate stories in 2004 (Nat'l Guard and missing explosives), call Florida in 2000 and use (probably intentionally) inaccurate exit polling in 2004 is not going to honestly report polls that in anyway don't try to depress Republican turnout. Conservatives just need to work hard and keep getting the word out and other like-minded conservatives to the polls.
the Newsweak poll from over the weekend is so out of whack, yet it was for nothing other than trying to convince Republicans not to even go out to vote.
Sitting out is a vote for KOS.
And the reason for that: huge change is turnout model. They don't have the time nor the money to do proper research on the impact in local districts of the GOP GOTV effors. Rasmussen was quoted last week as saying that the GOTV cannot overcome some of his polling deficits for the GOP but as the example in GA shows the effect of GOTV on a local House race can be huge. 15 points huge. Now a statewide Senate race will not show that same effect but I can see at least a 7% effect. Any Republican within single digits has a shot. Ignore the polls and vote at the only poll that counts: the election booth (or mail). You can not make a story out of a poll and yet the MSM takes polls to write articles. Bogus!!!!
I'm sure the GOTV program will be good this year and it may save some seats that otherwise might be lost. Early on, Ken Mehlman recognized that the GOTV had to be improved to stay competative in 2006. Based on reports from Mehlman and Rove, voter contacts are high and ahead of the pace they set in 2004. That's very good news, but I'm still worried. It seems to me that Republicans are depending on the GOTV program too much. I would be more optimistic if they were promoting their ideas as well.