Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:37:22 -0600
Reply-To: Mary <mlhoward@avalon.net>
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: Mary <mlhoward@AVALON.NET>
Subject: Re: Slightly OT: New Hampshire Polling Fiasco
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With the caucus rules in Iowa, those under 15% have to move candidates, so in Iowa we could physically see where people went.
Virtually all the Biden and Dodd supporters at our caucus went to Sen. Clinton; Richardson supporters were more split between Obama and Clinton. Anti-war supporters tended to go to Obama more, whereas those who supported Richardson because of his experience tended to go more towards Clinton.
Thus I'd see it as being a bit split, and if the war declines as an issue, I'd tend to think it would benefit Mrs. Clinton slightly more than Obama, since the focus would then shift more toward health care and the economy.
New Hampshire voters were not asked about their second choice, as Iowa voters were, and this would have affected the results, as I suspect those supporting Biden actually voted for Clinton, but am not sure.
-Mary
----- Original Message -----
From: ajay ohri
To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 11:07 AM
Subject: Re: Slightly OT: New Hampshire Polling Fiasco
Now that Richardson has dropped out , I was just wondering how it will
statistically affect the results.
Also could you pin a weightage to a specific event based on pre event and
post event voting probability (like Senator crying).
On 1/10/08, Swank, Paul R <Paul.R.Swank@uth.tmc.edu> wrote:
>
> There was an op-ed piece on this in the New York Times this morning. The
> writer, a former pollster, claims that it was nonresponse bias in that more
> poor whites voted for Clinton than Obama and that they are more likely to
> refuse to respond to a poll.
>
> Paul
>
> Paul R. Swank, Ph.D.
> Professor and Director of Research
> Children's Learning Institute
> University of Texas Health Science Center - Houston
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Peter
> Flom
> Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 10:26 AM
> To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Slightly OT: New Hampshire Polling Fiasco
>
> I think it is largely due to nonresponse bias.
>
> A huge proportion of people are simply refusing to answer polls (according
> to Pollster.com, a 20% response rate is GOOD (yeah, real good).
>
> So, if Hillary supporters are more likely to screen out calls.....that
> would do it. There is reason to think they might be more likely. For one
> thing, more of Hlllary's support was 'soft', and I would guess that soft
> supporters are more likely to screen calls
>
> Peter
>
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: Mary <mlhoward@AVALON.NET>
> >Sent: Jan 10, 2008 11:17 AM
> >To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >Subject: Slightly OT: New Hampshire Polling Fiasco
> >
> >Was wondering if any of you had any comments about how the polling was so
> wrong in New Hampshire- polling firms such as Zogby had the results as 42%
> Obama and 29% Clinton when it wound up being 39% Clinton and 36% Obama.
> >
> >Some suggestions have been:
> >
> >1. The weightings used to correct for undersampling did not adequately
> do so, particularly for women over 40 of lower income.
> >
> >2. The anticipation that large numbers of college students would turn
> out did not materialize, perhaps because there aren't as many college
> students in New Hampshire as there were in Iowa, or because estimates of
> turnout among them were overstated.
> >
> >3. The "Iowa bounce" was picked up in the polls, but not the deflation
> of that bounce that tends to happen about 4 days later.
> >
> >4. People lied and told pollsters that they were going to vote for Sen.
> Obama when they really voted for Sen. Clinton.
> >
> >5. People based their decisions on who to vote for based on the polls
> themselves; that they may have decided to vote for Sen. Clinton or go to the
> Republican side to vote for Sen. McCain after seeing that Sen. Obama had a
> comfortable lead in the polls.
> >
> >
> >Coming from Iowa, I tend to believe the last scenerio; I had been polled
> several times before the election and had said I would be voting for Bill
> Richardson, but BECAUSE of his low poll numbers I actually did not vote for
> him, but for Sen. Obama instead.
> >
> >Any comments? The idea that voters actually make decisions based on
> polls could have implications in many areas of sample survey research, so I
> am wondering if the statisticians out there or others have any comments on
> what went so wrong with the polling.
> >
> >-Mary
> > Univ. of Iowa
>
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