Politics & Current Events
ohioloveyou
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my read shelf:
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Polls
Those of you who follow polls closely, why do you do so? I am legitimately curious. I tend to follow polls only very close to election time or after a debate because there is so much that could happen in between now and then. Also probably because all my analyzing politics classes from college and grad school are screaming in my head when I think about the ways the numbers can be twisted and the crazy margins of error.
So please, enlighten me as to why I should check the numbers every day or even more frequently. AndrewB, I'm looking at you.
my read shelf:
Re: Polls
The individual polls can be way off; however, the RCP average usually is very close to the actual result. There's only one state I can think of in 2008 where the RCP average was wrong, and that was NC.
They really show momentum, and I enjoy looking at them to find out more about the races, like which are tossups and so forth.
The tone of the post is condescending. Was that intentional?
There's a whole page of 2008 data on RCP that can be referenced, but the overall average for 2008 was Obama by 7.6, and the actual result was 7.3.
---Ok, I double-checked, Indiana was off as well.
I also like looking on that site around election season, finding it an entertaining hobby. I also like to look at the Oscar buzz around this time, even though it's early. It would not be a bad idea for me to block the site for a week or so, though. Sometimes there's information overload.
Oops! I didn't mean for it to be condescending. I just never look at polls and I wanted to hear from someone who did. I'm sorry.
Thanks for answering, though. I didn't mean to call you out, but I know you're the one who usually has the poll info. I understand looking to see momentum, though. And I bet it just becomes second nature to check, kind of like checking facebook or twitter. I just wasn't sure how much people were analyzing the results when they look. I think I just end up with information overload if I look at polls too much because I can't remember which number I saw when.
my read shelf:
That's ok. I am really touchy on these boards...
I really should back off on checking, though, because it becomes too irritating, and I focus on minutiae. For example, I was excited because there was a tweet that said that a PPP poll was really close, then it ended up being five points (in Ohio) and I was irritated. It also said that 19% of their sample had early voted, and the vote was 76-24 for Obama, but it turns out that only a very small portion of our electorate, way smaller than 19%, had actually early voted.
It would be smart of me to not check RCP for a week. Will I? I don't know. I block the political boards from time to time. For example, I had blocked this one for a little bit but unblocked it because I wanted to post about the death of Specter.
I would not recommend for other people to check RCP in the detail that I do. Probably just after the last presidential debate would be fine... then you could get real info. Things can change at the last minute.
There are also things that I am checking that may or may not mean anything. For example, Bush won in 2004 with an average in the polls of 48.9. He had quite a few polls where he was 49, 50, 51. You don't often see those type of numbers anymore for Obama. The latest Ras and Gallup tracking polls are 49/47 Romney. I don't know if you can win the election with a number like Obama has (46,47) when Bush barely won with an average of 48.9 where many of his last polls were 49-51.
I also am looking at the early voting trends in Ohio, but it's hard to know what it means if anything.
Just a minor note here: My own scientific polling if you will (ha ha)
We traveled through Ohio this past weekend. Friday - Sunday. While there, honest to God I saw 1 (ONE) Obama support sign/bumper sticker. I saw a whole heck of a lot more signs, bumper stickers, big giant advertisement type billboards for R/R.
I was a bit shocked! If you had ONLY watched the typical news ABC, NBC, etc. you would've thought Ohio was awash in Obama support.
I found it a bit surprising.
Lack of signs/bumper stickers is totally meaningless. I'll give you my own anecdotal evidence: in my immediate family of 20 people, every single one is planning on voting Obama. Not a single one has a lawn sign or a bumper sticker. I sometimes wear my Obama '08 sticker on my coat, but that's it.
I have voted in every election (primaries included) since I was 18, and I only put out a sign one time. For a non-partisan judge race. I'm not into riling up my neighbors.
Perhaps conservatives tend to be more in your face about their beliefs? Who knows. I'm just saying don't get your hopes up based solely on your observation.