At this point, should we ignore the polls?!

[jefferson_dem]

Easy to say, harder to do, especially for a junkie like me. However, a sound argument for tuning out all the poll noise at this point is made by the good professor at http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/

For many political junkies, including myself, following the presidential tracking polls has become a daily obsession. We wait with baited breath each morning for Zogby to release his latest results. At the stroke of noon, we log onto the Rasmussen website to get our second daily fix. Finally, at 5 p.m. we eagerly await the latest update on the Washington Post/ABC News tracking poll. Some of us have even discovered a fourth tracking poll, done by an organization called TIPP (the TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics). The TIPP tracking poll usually releases its daily update sometime in the afternoon.

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So does it make sense to monitor the daily movements of these tracking polls? The answer is that if you’re hoping to learn something about real trends in support for the presidential candidates, it probably doesn’t make sense. That’s because there is no correlation between the day-to-day movements of the four tracking polls. In other words, they don’t move together—each poll’s movements are unrelated to all of the other polls’ movements. For example, the average correlation between the daily movements of the Zogby Poll and the daily movements of the other three polls is -.18. The average correlation for the Rasmussen Poll is -.07, the average correlation for the TIPP Poll is -.09, and the average correlation for the Washington Post/ABC News Poll is -.12. The combined average for all four tracking polls is -.11. These weak negative correlations mean that there is actually a slight tendency for the polls to move in opposite directions.

What these results indicate is that the day-to-day movements of the tracking polls are essentially random. Rather than reflecting real shifts in voter preferences, the day-to-day movements of the tracking polls are simply reflecting sampling error. This doesn’t mean that the overall results of these polls are wrong. In fact, the average margin between George Bush and John Kerry in the tracking polls has been very close to the average margin in other recent national polls. It just means that the day-to-day shifts in the tracking polls are probably not real and that the real level of support for George Bush and John Kerry within the electorate has not changed over the past few weeks: the presidential race has been very close since the beginning of October and it is likely to remain that way until Election Day.

So relax political junkies. Stop obsessing over the daily movements of the tracking polls and get a life! Follow the World Series. Follow your favorite college or professional football team. Follow the weather report. Follow something that is more real than the day-to-day movements of the tracking polls.

http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/

[ciaobox]

1. kick baby

:kick: