What is up with North Carolina polling? (really weird numbers...)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/nc/north_carolina_mccain_vs_obama-334.html

4 most recent polls-

McCain +17
McCain +3
McCain +4
McCain +20

All within a couple days.

Obviously, 2 polling stations here have to be way off.

Does anyone know which 2 are correct? anyone great with numbers?

I would love nothing more than for Obama to win here (and, of course, the GE). Even a close battle would be great and show progress.

I have been at college for the last few weeks, so I haven't had much time to volunteer. I have 10 days off when I will be going home, in a month or so. I would love to help out if I know it will be close.

Anyone want to try to figure out which polling stations are more accurate? :)

The only poll that counts is the one on November 4th!!

but the polls were usually pretty accurate. People said Obama would win PA/OH/TEXAS/etc since the polls were close... but he didn't.

Most cell-phone users supported Obama.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/

--------------

RESULTS: North Carolina

Obama - 887,391 - 56% -- Delegates = 67

Clinton - 657,669 - 42% -- Delegates = 48

McCain - 383,085 - 74%

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Results TEXAS

Clinton - 1,462,734 - 51% -- Delegates = 65

Obama - 1,362,476 - 48% -- Delegates = 61

McCain - 697,767 - 51% -- Delegates = 121

-----------

RESULTS: Ohio

Clinton - 1,259,620 - 53% -- Delegates = 75

Obama - 1,055,769 - 45% -- Delegates = 66

McCain - 656,687 - 60% -- Delegates = 85

---------

RESULTS: Pennsylvania

Clinton - 1,275,039 - 55% -- Delegates = 85

Obama - 1,061,441 - 45% -- Delegates = 73

McCain - 595,175 - 73% -- Delegates = 0

----------------

TOTAL DELEGATES


2,201 = Obama -- 1,896 = Clinton --> Needed to Win: 2,118

Obama has 4,097 !!


1,575 = McCain -- 278 = Huckabee --> Needed to Win: 1,191

More here....http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/

for a polling company. I have no idea what is wrong with these numbers though. I believe that the 20+ and the 17+ are the inaccurate ones though.

Late in the cycle you naturally start getting more of them, and they are all over the map. I've been studying polls since '96 and I can't believe the obsession with state polls. Many states are notorious for poor polling, erring in the same direction every time, but pollsters merely ignore the tendencies and stick the phony numbers into their sample.

The averaging at the end of the cycle is generally pretty good, but otherwise during the bulk of the campaign you're much better off understanding the liberal/conservative breakdown of each state and therefore how it figures to vote based on the national margin. North Carolina is maybe 10-12 points right leaning at base instinct, perhaps slightly lower than that with Obama as our nominee given strength with the black vote, so figure in a dead even national race our deficit is high single digits.

North Carolina was never in play. There are still posters here who want to insist otherwise but frankly they don't know what they are talking about. Unless Obama explodes his national margin to at least +5 to +7, a state with 17% liberals and 40% conservatives is going to reject us by big numbers.

The fraud in this cycle has already taken place. It was the nonsense in the spring that Obama would bust open the electoral map. Somehow you had posters and even pundits buying it, that a classic swing state like Florida was out of play but nonsense states like Montana and North Dakota were available. It was always pure crap.

A friend told me that one NC blogger pointed out that an important bit of data to look at is voter registration, and that new Democrat voter registration is much greater than Republican. I don't know what the rate of change is for independent, though.

:P

McCain rallied the right wing, so some of the red states (like NC) will get a bit redder.

Take them with a grain of salt

State: North Carolina

Updated: 9/13/2008

Summary:
Obama - 48.1%
McCain - 46.6%
Not Sure/Other - 5.3%

"Make no mistake about it - we're keeping North Carolina purple. Typically a Red state, the race is close here."


Electoral Votes: 15, Too close to call

It's an online poll. A joke. I wouldn't waste time with it.

The fact that the Internet is the medium of transmission doesn't make it any less of a probability sample than polls that use the telephone as their medium; the same sampling principles are applied.

More pessimistically, you're right that it's a bogus poll, but by those criteria all telephone polls are too.

this year in predicting outcomes in quite a few caucus states.

One thing to think about with the traditional polls, they all use some mathmatical formulas to reduce RV to LV. In high turnout elections, those formulas often insert a conservative bias that does not show up in the vote.

my cousin and her family live near Raleigh and they are working their tails off for our team!