Drudge's Shock NC poll taken ON THE WEEKEND

[wyethwire]

Drudge is touting his shock poll showing Bush-Cheney leading Kerry-Edwards 54-39.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/polls/tables/live/2004-07-12-nc-poll.htm

But the poll was taken July 9-11. That is a Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Weekend polls are notoriously unreliable. This one even more so, because 25,000 Kerry-Edwards supporters were at a rally on Saturday and weren't home to answer the phone!

[Warpy]

1. The more the polls are skewed

to overrepresent the types of people who don't own answering machines, cell phones, call waiting, caller ID, and voice mail, the more overconfident the Bush gang will be, and that's good. They won't see the avalanche coming, and possibly won't try to pull that "delay elections" crap they're talking about.

[annxburns]

3. Great minds think alike ....

Warpy, this is exactly how I feel too. Whenever I see this type of thing I smile because it means we fight and the repukes relax.

I want Karl Rove confident. I want him pandering to his base. I want him to not see what is coming ....

[LiberalTechie1337]

2. All this spin could actually help us

it could motivate more people to get to the polls. Living in a red state, I make it a point to vote because we need all the votes we can get.

[supernova]

4. Duplicate poll

Discussion here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1978304

[NightOwwl]

5. I hate it when

Repubs insist that polls are wrong whenever their guy is going down, but right every time he's ahead.

That being said, I don't necessarily believe this poll because I trust absolutely nothing about this administration and I'm sure their minion poll-takers have certain tricks used to skew the polls in their favor.

[wyethwire]

6. Even National Review thinks its a bogus poll

http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/04_07_11_corner-archive.asp#035563

Gallup’s new poll in North Carolina showing a sizable Bush-Cheney lead over Kerry-Edwards should be greeted with great celebration by the state’s Republicans, who have worried about the president’s relatively weak numbers in the state and the potential for damage down in the ballot, such as in the competitive U.S. Senate race between Erskine Bowles and Richard Burr and the reelection bid of Democratic Gov. Mike Easley. However, my guess is that many thoughtful Republicans will see the finding as an aberration. Both public and private GOP polls have consistently shown a single-digit race for months, some with margins as small as four to five points. Gallup hasn’t done an oversampled polled in NC this year, as far as I know, and may have used a questionable screen for likely voters.

Indeed, Bush-Cheney leads Kerry-Edwards by only six points (49 percent to 43 percent) among registered voters in the Gallup survey. The margin jumps to 54 percent to 39 percent among “likely” voters, which smells fishy to me.

[fsbooks]

7. maybe they are counting the BBV effect

Knowing of course that many Democratic votes will be inaccurately counted as Republican.

[Tweed]

8. 25,000 people at a rally is nothing over a three day period

25,000 people at a rally
North Carolina has a population of 8 million
Less then .5% of North Carolina's population was at that rally (assuming that everyone at the rally was from NC).

The poll was taken over a three day period
The rally took six hours out of peoples' day at the most
Each day had 12 hours of acceptable calling time so only 1/6 of the time was taken up by the rally.

Shall I stop there? I would say that the rally had NOTHING to do with these poll results. This isn't a surprise folks! Did you think we were going to take North Carolina? This is like Bush people cursing because the latest number for Vermont came in and it looks like its going for Kerry.

[Lex]

9. Polls done only over the weekend are notoriously unreliable.

Nobody who is well-versed in polling techiniques seem to put much faith in this poll.

I'd like to several different polls to see if this one holds up.

[troublemaker]

10. Weekend polling typically favors Democrats, not Republicans

thats why FOX polls only on week-days