The Most Accurate Polls

[Exile]

November 07, 2012
The Most Accurate Polls

A Fordham University study ranked 28 polling firms on how their pre-election national surveys compared to the results on Election Day. The ranking:

1. PPP (D)
1. Daily Kos/SEIU/PPP
3. YouGov
4. Ipsos/Reuters
5. Purple Strategies
6. NBC/WSJ
6. CBS/NYT
6. YouGov/Economist
9. UPI/CVOTER
10. IBD/TIPP
11. Angus-Reid
12. ABC/WP
13. Pew Research
13. Hartford Courant/UConn
15. CNN/ORC
15. Monmouth/SurveyUSA
15. Politico/GWU/Battleground
15. FOX News
15. Washington Times/JZ Analytics
15. Newsmax/JZ Analytics
15. American Research Group
15. Gravis Marketing
23. Democracy Corps (D)
24. Rasmussen
24. Gallup
26. NPR
27. National Journal
28. AP/GfK

John Sides plots the data from the study on a nice chart

Tom Jensen of PPP told New York magazine the key to the firm's success: "We just projected that African-American, Hispanic, and young voter turnout would be as high in 2012 as it was in 2008, and we weighted our polls accordingly. When you look at polls that succeeded and those that failed that was the difference."

http://politicalwire.com/archives/20...ate_polls.html

[Exile]

The Accuracy of the Final National Polls

by John Sides on November 7, 2012 · 8 comments
in Campaigns and elections

Fordham University political scientist Costas Panagopoulos has compared the last pre-election national poll from each of the pollsters available in the Pollster data to the estimated national popular vote. He writes:

For all the derision directed toward pre-election polling, the final poll estimates were not far off from the actual nationwide vote shares for the two candidates. On average, preelection polls from 28 public polling organizations projected a Democratic advantage of 1.1 percentage points on Election Day, which is only about 1 point away from the current estimate of a 2.2-point Obama margin in the national popular vote (Obama 50.3% versus Romney 48.1%).

Following the procedures proposed by Martin, Traugott and Kennedy to assess poll accuracy, I analyze poll estimates from these 28 polling organizations. Most (22) polls overestimated Romney support, although some only slightly, while 6 overestimated Obama support. Most (22) polls overestimated Romney support, while six (6) overestimated Obama strength, but none of the 28 national preelection polls I examined had a significant partisan bias.

I’ve plotted the data above a simpler quantity than what Panagopoulos calculated, which conveys the thrust of his analysis. If the overall picture changes dramatically as the votes are counted, we will report back. I also hope to have something on the state polls soon.
For more on this subject, see Mark Blumenthal, Harry Enten, and Simon Jackman.
(Errata: This post has been corrected to account for my misunderstanding of what Panagopoulos had done. The data in my chart are not the basis of his analysis that I quoted above.)

[Mosiah]

That should do it for Gallup.

Remember how Mark Wignall single-handledly killed Carl Stone Polls with his total screw-up of an election some time ago?

[Hortical]

Informative stuff...don't care for national polls though, since the election is based on electoral votes by state. Also, so-called minorities are frequently undercounted in polls. The black turnout far exceeded 2008 figures.

[Karl]

Informative stuff...don't care for national polls though, since the election is based on electoral votes by state. Also, so-called minorities are frequently undercounted in polls. The black turnout far exceeded 2008 figures.

...di taking heads constant talk bout minorities lack of enthusiasm

[Hortical]

Black Vote in Ohio Fueled by Voter-ID Bills

Black Vote in Ohio Fueled by Voter-ID Bills




http://news.yahoo.com/black-vote-ohi...-politics.html