The Truth Behind Polls

[maseman]

Folks I work in the polling and research business. My company does not do political polling but I work with companies who do. I don't want to divulge too much info on myself to keep some privacy.

Here's the deal. Polls are expensive to conduct. The polling companies who do the national polls use typically 1,000 sample intab (n for you research geeks) for a national poll. That is a number that has shown to be the lowest sample size you can use for about the most stable data for the cost.

The Obama campaign has come out and said "Screw the national polling numbers" and that they will almost exclusively look at the states that they believe they can turn blue. The states that are locked blue or red they don't care about as much due to the electoral college. Let's be fair this really isn't anything new.

The reason we see so little state by state polling is because it is very expensive. You still need that hefty sample size of about n=1,000 for a reliable poll. You need that same number for all states. The news organizations don't have the resources to do state by state polling all over the place. (you can bet your ass the campaigns do it though. They just don't release the info for strategic reasons.)

Why do I post this? Quite frankly the national polls do not matter for two reasons. First, we saw Al Gore get more votes in the general election in 2000 and still lose the electoral vote. I know, I know the Supreme Court swung it to Bush. But nonetheless it proved that that can happen and it could happen again. The Obama camp is fielding state by state polls in their needed "win" states all the time and they will continue to do so.

Second, Polls are usually done via telephone. (there are some that are online but much less reliable.) A telephone study asks the respondent for a quick answer usually the day after an event like the speech last night. EVERYONE is talking about it, people just saw it, most are not tuned into politics like we are, a MILLION scandals can come out in the next week, etc. So many variables can change this thing that an individual poll makes no difference.

The news orgs buy and use them to give them more things to feature on, opine on, etc. The real polling is what is being done in the camps and how they use the data for commercials, ground workers, get-out-the-vote drives, money drives, etc.

[Captain Hilts]

1. I DID do political polling....yes, it's hard to assemble a consistent body of state polls....

The national poll is interesting only for trend data.