Intermarkets' Privacy Policy Support
Donate to Ace of Spades HQ! Recent Entries
Quick Hits
Recycled Garbage: The Leftwing Identity-Politics Media Claims That Biden Never Said You Were Garbage and If He Did, That's Because You Are Tim Walz: I Competely Support Late Third-Term Abortions Of Course: The Democrat Lunatic Who Shouted "Alluha Akbar" As He Shot a Jewish Man on the Way to Synogogue Is a, Get This, Illegal Alien Allowed Into the Country in the Past 18 Months by Harris-Biden Supreme Court Overturns Hawaiian Judge's Insane Ruling -- Sought by the DOJ -- To Force Virginia to Put Illegal Alien Illegal Voters BACK on the Voting Rolls "The Only Garbage I See Floating Out There Are His Supporters:" Biden Goes Even Further Than "Deplorables" Wednesday Morning Rant Mid-Morning Art Thread The Morning Report 10/30/24 Daily Tech News 30 October Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024 Captain Hate 2023 moon_over_vermont 2023 westminsterdogshow 2023 Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022 Dave In Texas 2022 Jesse in D.C. 2022 OregonMuse 2022 redc1c4 2021 Tami 2021 Chavez the Hugo 2020 Ibguy 2020 Rickl 2019 Joffen 2014 AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups
|
« Joe Biden Asks an Awful Lot from a Guy in a Wheelchair |
Main
| Sullivan Taken to the Woodshed (?!!) Update: Commenter Claiming to from the Atlantic Dishes » September 09, 2008
Weighting on Party: Why It's DangerousConservatives have long complained that polls often oversample Democrats. They get angry when a poll fails to "properly" weight the numbers according to assumed party identification -- reducing the proportions of Dems and increasing the proportions of Reps to the guestimated partisan breakdown. I used to say this myself. I believe I was wrong, and that those who urge this are wrong now. Here's the thing: Party identification is not inelastic. It does not remain fixed at 38 Dem/32 Rep/30 Independent (or whatever ratio you might guess at). It changes all the time. Many people are right on the edge of being Democrats or Independents -- when the Democrats please them, they say they're Democrats. When the Democrats piss them off, bang, they're Independents. Same deal on the Republican side. People kept complaining that 2006 polls didn't include enough Republicans, because the fraction of Republicans was 5% or so lower than longterm historical averages, or what recent (2004) numbers would suggest. But most polls, including Gallup, nailed the 2006 results. Republicans were not undersampled, mostly. What was going on was that a lot of people who were formerly self-identifying Republicans were disgusted by the Mark Foley scandal, Katrina, and the worsening situation in Iraq and told the pollsters they were Independents. Because, actually, they were. The affinity they once had with the GOP had too much abused of late. I'm told by someone I trust a great deal that one of the most dangerous things to weight on is Party ID. This is a pollster saying this. Yes, some demographics can be weighted on (age gets weighted a lot, almost always, because there are always too many older people being called and too few young people) and sometimes other demographic designators whose proportional representation in the population we know for a certain fact out to the thirtieth decimal place -- sex, race, economic bracket, education level. These things do not change. We always know how many Asian people there are in the country. (And thank god for that -- gotta keep tabs. They know karate and ninja skillz.) But party ID is never known with a great deal of accuracy, and furthermore can change from week to week, sometimes fairly dramatically. You want to know why Zogby is sometimes very accurate and sometimes seems like he's making up bizarre numbers randomly? Because he weights on party ID. Sometimes his guess as to the current ratio of partisan ID is accurate and he nails a spot-on poll and embarrasses the competition. But very often his guess is wrong and the numbers he winds up producing seem to have come in from Mars. It's not so much a bad practice as a dangerous practice. Well, I guess that makes it a bad practice, actually. Now, here's the weird thing this cycle: You know how you guys have often urged pollsters to weight on party? And correct for oversized samples of Democrats? The thing is -- now pollsters are getting, it seems, oversized samples of Republicans. And pollsters who do weight on party will knock those self-identifying Republicans down in numbers to get them closer to the long-term average or best guess as to current representation. But what if Sarah Palin has made many actual new self-identifying Republicans, just as Mark Foley made many self-identifying Independents and Democrats? Pollsters that weight on party will have less dramatic swings and show closer contests, as they will be massaging down and diminishing numbers that actually reflect the true state of affairs. Case in point: Rasmussnen. Rasmussen weights on party. For a variety of reasons, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll is less volatile than some other polls and always shows a somewhat smaller convention bounce than reported by others. This is primarily because we weight our results by party identification (see methodology). Looking at the data before adjusting for partisan identification, the Republican convention appears to have created a larger surge in party identification than the Democratic convention the week before. If this lasts, it could have a significant impact on Election 2008. Note: "If it lasts." At the moment they're assuming this is either bad numbers, or some other anomaly. "If it lasts" presumably they'll change how they weight the various party IDs and give Republicans a larger fraction of the population -- but only if the trend continues long enough to convince them it's real. Anyway, I think it's interesting, that. Rasmussen used to show better-than-usual numbers for Republicans, because they would weight on party ID and boost Republican affiliation while diminishing Democratic affiliation, guessing at the right "real" mix. And now, with Hurricane Sarah blowing a lot of Independents to the Republican side, they're doing the opposite, now correcting for "too many" Republicans. That's why they're showing the race dead even, while Gallup shows a 5 point lead (or even a 10 point one). I don't think it's established, clearly, that Zogby and Rasmussen are wrong to do this. But how accurate their weighting depends, ultimately, on their guess as to the "real" partisan breakdown in America -- and sometimes they can just be off, and sometimes they can fail to take into account a real shift in partisan ID. Or at least not take it into account until weeks after the trend has been detected in other polls. Something to keep in mind when looking at the much-touted WSJ/NBC poll tonight, too. PS: Ed Morrissey found a poll a few months ago where not only did the jagoffs doing the poll sample far more Democrats than Republicans, but on top of that they weighted the Democrats into an even higher proportion -- up to something like 43% or thereabouts. So sometimes the partisan weighting is not merely dangerous, but positively dishonest. | Recent Comments
Decaf:
"Reminds of a story my brother, a historian, told m ..."
Tim "Born to Kill" Walz: "Trump is Micheal Myers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ..." Xipe Totec: "The most pathetic Ford evah! The ALL NEW, Piece of ..." ...: "I think it has helped them quite a bit, for decade ..." People's Hippo Voice : "Why do people act like betting markets have some s ..." whig: "337 Why do people act like betting markets have so ..." ShainS -- In Trump's America, Garbage Throws YOU Out! [/b][/i][/s][/u] : "In hindsight it seems obvious. Yes, many people wa ..." gKWVE: "[i]how did they identify male Orthodox Jews, and h ..." Xipe Totec: "Babylon Bee: Millions of garbage bags seen lining ..." ChrisW: "It's like when the media told us that football cro ..." 18-1: "[i]In the 80s and 90s he was going off on Japan. C ..." Obligatory Seinfeld reference : ">>>An all white fiesta? What the hell is that? ..." Recent Entries
Quick Hits
Recycled Garbage: The Leftwing Identity-Politics Media Claims That Biden Never Said You Were Garbage and If He Did, That's Because You Are Tim Walz: I Competely Support Late Third-Term Abortions Of Course: The Democrat Lunatic Who Shouted "Alluha Akbar" As He Shot a Jewish Man on the Way to Synogogue Is a, Get This, Illegal Alien Allowed Into the Country in the Past 18 Months by Harris-Biden Supreme Court Overturns Hawaiian Judge's Insane Ruling -- Sought by the DOJ -- To Force Virginia to Put Illegal Alien Illegal Voters BACK on the Voting Rolls "The Only Garbage I See Floating Out There Are His Supporters:" Biden Goes Even Further Than "Deplorables" Wednesday Morning Rant Mid-Morning Art Thread The Morning Report 10/30/24 Daily Tech News 30 October Search
Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Primary Document: The Audio
Paul Anka Haiku Contest Announcement Integrity SAT's: Entrance Exam for Paul Anka's Band AllahPundit's Paul Anka 45's Collection AnkaPundit: Paul Anka Takes Over the Site for a Weekend (Continues through to Monday's postings) George Bush Slices Don Rumsfeld Like an F*ckin' Hammer Top Top Tens
Democratic Forays into Erotica New Shows On Gore's DNC/MTV Network Nicknames for Potatoes, By People Who Really Hate Potatoes Star Wars Euphemisms for Self-Abuse Signs You're at an Iraqi "Wedding Party" Signs Your Clown Has Gone Bad Signs That You, Geroge Michael, Should Probably Just Give It Up Signs of Hip-Hop Influence on John Kerry NYT Headlines Spinning Bush's Jobs Boom Things People Are More Likely to Say Than "Did You Hear What Al Franken Said Yesterday?" Signs that Paul Krugman Has Lost His Frickin' Mind All-Time Best NBA Players, According to Senator Robert Byrd Other Bad Things About the Jews, According to the Koran Signs That David Letterman Just Doesn't Care Anymore Examples of Bob Kerrey's Insufferable Racial Jackassery Signs Andy Rooney Is Going Senile Other Judgments Dick Clarke Made About Condi Rice Based on Her Appearance Collective Names for Groups of People John Kerry's Other Vietnam Super-Pets Cool Things About the XM8 Assault Rifle Media-Approved Facts About the Democrat Spy Changes to Make Christianity More "Inclusive" Secret John Kerry Senatorial Accomplishments John Edwards Campaign Excuses John Kerry Pick-Up Lines Changes Liberal Senator George Michell Will Make at Disney Torments in Dog-Hell Greatest Hitjobs
The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny More Margaret Cho Abuse Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed" Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means Wonkette's Stand-Up Act Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report! Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet The House of Love: Paul Krugman A Michael Moore Mystery (TM) The Dowd-O-Matic! Liberal Consistency and Other Myths Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate "Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long) The Donkey ("The Raven" parody) |