2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forum538 - "Which Polls Fared Best (and Worst) in the 2012 Presidential Race"
Interesting review of the error of pollsters in the 2012 election. Amazingly, the most well known firms, Gallup and Rassmussen decided to throw away their credibility in 2012 to support the Republican narrative.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/which-polls-fared-best-and-worst-in-the-2012-presidential-race/?src=me&ref=general
Our method of evaluating pollsters has typically involved looking at all the polls that a firm conducted over the final three weeks of the campaign, rather than its very last poll alone. The reason for this is that some polling firms may engage in herding toward the end of the campaign, changing their methods and assumptions such that their results are more in line with those of other polling firms.
There were roughly two dozen polling firms that issued at least five surveys in the final three weeks of the campaign, counting both state and national polls. (Multiple instances of a tracking poll are counted as separate surveys in my analysis, and only likely voter polls are used.)
Trajan
(19,089 posts)Do they not poll ?
TomCADem
(17,390 posts)...Subsidiary. No reason to double count Rassmussen.
Chemisse
(30,813 posts)ErikJ
(6,335 posts)stlsaxman
(9,236 posts)I can just hear Mara... "Andy, you HAVE to give results that don't make it look like it's anything other than a tight race, 'cause we're showing Romney getting trampled and my bosses at FOX will FIRE me!"
UCmeNdc
(9,600 posts)As a so called major polling company Gallup should be very embarrassed that their polling was so off from reality. This makes Gallup look like they have no idea how to correctly poll.
jimmy the one
(2,708 posts)Here's another poll of polls, dunno if they measure just the presidential election or combine with lesser races/down ballots etc..
Here our pride & joy PPP (democrat run poll) is rated #1 best, but I am shocked beyond words -------- that PPP, accd'g to your list on poststart, that PPP is a robo dial poll, which is generally considered c.r.a.p. acronym = computer responsive automated poll, & generally not quality polling.
Poll Rigger Rasmussen rated poor on both lists - scott rasmussen couldn't persuade voters to vote republican by padding to the right this time, ha. Rass was fairly accurate in 2008, because it tightened up the race after september, realizing obama was gonna win, so went for credibility rather than race rigging - prior to october rass was padding mccain by 3 to 5 pts over reputable poll avgs..
Fordham University has published a ranking of the most accurate pollsters of the 2012 in terms of national trends, and (both) top spots were held by Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, the North Carolina-based firm.
1. PPP (D)* [Robo DIAL?????!!! - I'm shocked]
1. Daily Kos/SEIU/PPP*
3. YouGov* --- UK, british based!
4. Ipsos/Reuters*
5. Purple Strategies
6. NBC/WSJ -- good show nbc
6. CBS/NYT ---- good show cbs
6. YouGov/Economist
9. UPI/CVOTER
10. IBD/TIPP
11. Angus-Reid*
12. ABC/WP*
13. Pew Research*
13. Hartford Courant/UConn*
--------------------- halfway mark, half above half below
15. [8 tied at 15th] CNN/ORC
15. Monmouth/SurveyUSA [Robo Dial]
15. Politico/GWU/Battleground
15. FOX News
15. Washington Times/JZ Analytics [Old Zogby, WashTimes rightwing]
15. Newsmax/JZ Analytics [John Zogby again, rightwing newsmax]
15. American Research Group
15. Gravis Marketing --- Robo Dial
23. Democracy Corps (D)*
24. Rasmussen
24. Gallup
26. NPR
27. National Journal*
28. AP/GfK
[link:http://|http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/fordham-study-public-policy-polling-deemed-most-accurate]
there was a tv show 'vote america 2012' starring monty torres which had a subtle rightwing bias, portraying romney in a good light & tending to badmouth obama with 'politifacts' more in favor of romney/ryan. Monty, brigham young grad nuff said?, generally pointed out that PPP had a 'democrat bias' but never once that I saw noted that rasmussen was a rightwing pollster, just tended to give rasmussen more credit than it's ever deserved. Eat crow monty torres.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)significantly since it was issued.