***About that Monmouth Poll*** Director admits they screwed the pooch

[DemocratSinceBirth]

[bearsfootball516]

1. There was a LOT of gloating about this poll...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. The pooch poll?

[onetexan]

68. Lol

[DemocratSinceBirth]

69. I was instructed that we can not criticize Patrick Murray and his tweet really wasn't a mea culpa.

[brush]

37. What the hell is going on? That letter is dated Aug. 8th. That's 20 days ago and the poll they're...

supposed to be apologizing for came out just a couple of days ago.

Is this another screw up by Monmouth?

[TCJ70]

43. Probably just dropped the 2 off of today's date...the 28th.

[brush]

47. Another reason to doubt their credibility/accuracy. Can they get anything right?

[LincolnRossiter]

3. Everyone's making too much of this. It was an outlier. Outliers happen. I don't see why the guy

feels the need to strike this apologetic tone. He went on CNN the day it was released and said it "may be an outlier." Assuming they didn't do something hinky just to make a splash (they're a very reputable establishment, so that seems unlikely), they didn't do anything wrong.

It isn't their fault that the media are a bunch of salivating dogs who want nothing more than to report a nail-biting "horserace." Or that supporters of candidates other than Biden started 97 threads acting as though Biden was finished.

[DrToast]

6. Exactly! The problem....

...isn’t that they screwed up. It’s that people don’t understand poling enough to realize this is going to happen occasionally.

[LiberalFighter]

30. Which demonstrates again that Kornacki is an idiot for putting a lot into that one.

[Scurrilous]

4. ...

[Vegas Roller]

5. He is being disingenuous

They could have continued gathering more data to increase the sample size to reduce the MOE and not adjust the CIs to favor an agenda.

I have no doubt someone at Monmouth has an agenda and the poll was released to build momentum for one candidate or reduce the momentum of another candidate.

They were caught because so many polls were released right after and now have to eat crow.

[DrToast]

7. Continuing to gather more data would be inappropriate

They can’t/shouldn’t change poll methodology in mid-poll!

What’s the point of polling if you’re just going to rig the methodology to get something close to the consensus. You might as well not even do a poll in that case.

As the statement says, the poll was nearly identical to the previous polls they’ve done. I don’t remember anyone complaining about the methodology then.

Outliers happen.

[Vegas Roller]

19. They have a fixed sample of 1200 people

They could only reach 297.
They should have tried harder to reach the remaining whom they couldn't reach until they had an adequate sample size and a respectable MOE.

No change in methodology required.

[Skya Rhen]

10. I must say that I completely agree with you and the statement Murray made about Joe doesn't help him

There’s a growing sense that Biden is something of a starter nominee, a candidate that voters can glom onto while they search for someone who better suits their values. “I did not meet one Biden voter who was in any way, shape or form excited about voting for Biden,” Patrick Murray, who heads the Monmouth University Polling Institute (which recently released a poll giving Biden a significant lead in Iowa) told The New York Times. “They feel that they have to vote for Joe Biden as the centrist candidate, to keep somebody from the left who they feel is unelectable from getting the nomination.”


https://newrepublic.com/article/154835/biden-bubble-burst

[Celerity]

59. a conspiracy, eh?

I have no doubt someone at Monmouth has an agenda and the poll was released to build momentum for one candidate.

smdh

[Vegas Roller]

63. YMMV nt

[BannonsLiver]

8. Wow.

Now I’m wondering if one of our resident unskewerers will unskew the unskewing.

[Vegas Roller]

22. He/she is busy with a calculator as we post .....

Wait for a post with "OMG", "CRASHES" or "PLUMMETS"

[BannonsLiver]

62. Don't forget: "The polls are what the polls are."

Another hackneyed pseudo intellectual line.

[cwydro]

65. Someone has sure gotten under your skin.

[Cha]

66. It is such a

pressing question!!

[BannonsLiver]

67. Bigger fish to fry now

I suspect bolded paragraphs and smileys are being readied to discredit the Suffolk poll as we speak.

[Cha]

70. No doubt!

[DrToast]

9. I see no pooch being screwed.

Where does he say they messed up?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. Uh, in his mea culpa.

[DrToast]

18. Oh...can you link to that?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

23. The whole tweet is a mea culpa.

The poor guy is such a mess he doesn't even know what day it is.

[mr_lebowski]

41. Actually he's just saying 'outlier polls happen' & you are mistaken, no mea culpa there nt

[DemocratSinceBirth]

44. How am I mistaken?

1) I'm an anonymous person
2) His poll created a good deal of consternation among primary followers.
3) That being said life is too short to debate whether some polling director issued or didn't issue a mea culpa.

[mr_lebowski]

45. You're mistaken insofar as mea culpa means 'it's my fault', which he never says ... pretty simple nt

[DemocratSinceBirth]

46. I added 3

3) That being said life is too short to debate whether some polling director issued or didn't issue a mea culpa.

[mr_lebowski]

52. Fair enough ;)

[cwydro]

64. ...

[Peregrine Took]

56. I agree. He defended his poll - same methods as all the other years.

He just put out the facts as they gathered them. Then everyone got bent out of shape over the results.

[highplainsdem]

11. He might not have felt as much need to defend his methodology if he hadn't told the NYT a week

earlier that he just couldn't find any enthusiasm for Biden among Iowa voters, including those who told him they were voting for Biden.

Telling the Times that Democratic voters aren't excited about voting for Biden "in any way, shape or form" and then within days releasing a national poll showing Biden suddenly trailing both Sanders and Warren looked a bit odd.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287257160

[Cuthbert Allgood]

12. He did not say that they screwed the pooch. He said it's an outlier.

That's very different. As the notice says, outliers happen.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. We're parsing words here.

His poll was off and spectacularly so, hence the tweet. Everything else is commentary.

[DrToast]

17. No "screwed the pooch" implies they screwed up

They didn’t. As such, he has no reason to claim they “screwed the pooch.”

You’re putting words in his mouth....errr...keyboard.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

20. If my model said Basketball Team X would win by twenty and they lost by ten

If my model said Basketball Team X would win by twenty and they lost by ten what would you say about the efficacy of my model?


He even got the wrong date on his mea culpa. The poor fella's a mess,

[DrToast]

24. I'd probably judge the model on how it was constructed

And whether or not it conformed to proper statistical modeling techniques.

[LincolnRossiter]

26. FYI, there's absolutely no way for you to say the poll was "spectacularly off" without

actual votes being cast.

I'm a Biden supporter and all of this handwringing over one stupid poll is silly and unbecoming. It was an outlier. It's been swallowed up by the preponderance of all other available data.

That's all. There's no scandal here. No one got screwed. This blip outlier of a poll isn't something historic or altogether important.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

28. " There's absolutely no way for you to say this without actual votes being cast."

Theoretically, but that's a thin reed to base one's credibility on, hence the admission he screwed the pooch.

[LincolnRossiter]

31. Oh grow up. You can't call a poll "off" without comparing it to actual results. It's really simple.

And he didn't write that he "screwed the pooch." That's your sophomoric take. He wrote that the poll is clearly an outlier.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

32. That's a lot of ad hominems to pack into two sentences.

I will be the bigger person, take the high road, and not respond in kind.

[LincolnRossiter]

35. Thank you. My feelings are very fragile.

NT.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

36. You're welcome

Empathy is part and parcel of liberalism.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

27. He makes it clear that they used the same methodology.

Polls are off some times. Saying that he admitted the "screwed the pooch" is most clearly NOT what he said. Or what happened.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

29. If he didn't screw the pooch why did he issue the mea culpa?

Since there aren't actual results, i.e. a national Democratic primary to be held soon, why didn't Murray say all the other polls are wrong?

[TCJ70]

34. You keep saying "mea culpa"...where is that?

“Mea culpa” means to admit fault. There is none of that in the statement linked in the OP.

[DrToast]

38. Spoiler Alert: There isn't one.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

39. You're right.

I re-read it. He tweeted out how accurate his poll was and how the several other pollsters were outliers.

No. The guy is such a mess he thinks it's August 8th.

[TCJ70]

40. A poll can be accurate AND an outlier.

It just depends on who answers the poll.

In regards to the date...most likely scenario is he dropped the 2 off today’s date. Which is Aug 28.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

42. I give up, mea culpa.

Life is too short to debate whether some polling director issued or didn't issue a mea culpa.

[DrToast]

48. I'm glad...

I’m glad you admit you screwed up your post.

It happens.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

49. I'm glad you took my act of graciousness as an opportunity to take a shot at me.

That being said I will be the bigger person, take the high road, and not respond in kind.

[DrToast]

50. Too late

Also, how is it taking a shot at you by acknowledging what you just admitted to?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

51. It's never too late to be the bigger person.

You should try it.

[honest.abe]

54. In pollster world, generating an outlier is equivalent to "screwing the pooch".

I am starting to feel sorry for the poor pooch!

[Skya Rhen]

13. Wow - Murray is repeatedly making mistakes - the date on top of the letter is even wrong... SMH

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. Maybe because he's shook.

[LincolnRossiter]

33. I noted that and just chuckled to myself that this won't help the guy.

He shouldn't have issued the statement. He didn't apologize, but it had a very sheepish and apologetic tone. Unless Monmouth manipulated data they didn't do anything wrong.

[crazytown]

21. Dated August 8?

What's going on here?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

25. The poor fella's a mess.

[highplainsdem]

53. Editing. The Aug. 8 date on his statement is obviously a typo. Monmouth had an

Iowa poll out on Aug. 8 but that isn't the one he's referring to.

[Eliot Rosewater]

55. I say half of us deal with these polls, and most importantly which of our

candidates has the best chance of removing the fascist traitor.

The other half of us try and figure out how to help our elections dept to protect them from the KGB attack going on right now!

Not sure how, but we need to work on that.

[LanternWaste]

61. You forgot an outlier ion your mix...

...who bring up irrelevancies while projecting their own specific inaction onto everyone else.

[padah513]

57. I wasn't mad that they got the numbers skewed

What bothered me more than anything was the glee from some DU'ers at the prospect of one of our candidates taking a hard tumble. I won't mention any names you know who you are. Aren't we all members of the Democratic Party? Why is there always so much vitriol towards our candidates? Some call it being passionate but I seriously wonder sometimes. It's like we're sliding more and more into tRump territory every day and I wonder what's next? We start coming up with adolescent names to call any of our own candidates that we don't like?

[calguy]

60. At this point I don't take any poll too seriously

whether it's good or bad for my candidate. They just don't mean that much until after the Christmas Holidays and we get into the New Year. Way too much football to enjoy between now and then.