Kilmer17s non confrontational election prediction-

[Predicto]

Predicto, do you think they adjust the sampling?

different terms give the same result

both weighed and unweighed have value, but you have to look beyond the surface

Yes, they adjust the sampling. If they reach only 20 percent senior citizens, but the district demographics and history show that 33 percent of the voters will be senior citizens, then they adjust the results to reflect this.

But if they get 40 percent self identified Democrats and 43 percent GOP, they don't adjust based on that. If they did, then what would they be measuring? If more voters are identifying as GOP than last time, that is because the GOP is more popular than last time. That's why people hold elections in the first place.

The idea that polls adjust to add more Democrats or Republicans is a myth.

---------- Post added October-31st-2012 at 09:14 PM ----------

Did you not see what I posted from the poll itself?? That is exactly what Quinnipac did. See posts above.

No it isn't. It is what you think they did.

They adjusted based on demographics, and (in that example) the results changed in favor of the Democrats. In other cases it goes the other way.

Imagine a district that is 50 percent women, but for some reason your phone calls on this poll happened to reach 80 percent men and only 20 percent women. That result would be adjusted - and a side effect would be an increase in the predicted Democratic vote percentage. But it could go the other way the next poll, when you managed to call 80 percent women and only 20 percent men.

Does that make sense?

[Duckus]

Did you not see what I posted from the poll itself?? That is exactly what Quinnipac did. Look at the Florida example again. They show the raw numbers and more Republicans than Democrats were interviewed (352 Rs, 350 Dems) but the poll ended with a 37 to 30 Democratic advantage . This is because they assess that is what the final turnout will be. It is an assumption and pretty sure most polls do this,. Quinnipac could be making the right assumption but is is still an assumption, Rassmussen for example has a different assumption and gives a plus 2 advantage to the Dems (he was interviewed and he mentioned this tonight). The question is who is correct. Gallup weighs their national projection giving the Republicans a plus 1 advantage. Bottomline party affiliation is in facted weighed to fit the model.

Florida

LIKELY VOTERS........

Weighted UnWeighted

Percent Frequency

PARTY IDENTIFICATION

Republican 30% 352

Democrat 37 350

Independent 29 333

Other/DK/NA 4 38

You are confusing demographics with party ID. This is probably the biggest and most common misunderstanding of polling.

"If a pollster weights by party ID, they are substituting their own judgment as to what the electorate is going to look like. It's not scientific," said Doug Schwartz, the director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, which doesn't weight its surveys by party identification.

http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/are-polls-skewed-too-heavily-against-republicans/262834/

[Veretax]

if you guys want some opinion on why the polls, many of them are oversampling, over biasing, and over adjusting in favor of D's check out Dick Morris's latest blog

http://www.dickmorris.com/why-the-ny-times-poll-is-wrong/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports

Now, all of this is really speculation, based on the opinions of the people doing 'adjustments' and such We all know how split the country has felt in the last 20 years.

[LadySkinsFan]

For an astrological look at the election, I give you these two articles. Interesting reads, and only to be taken seriously if you want to.

First is about the election, Mercury turns retrograde on election day.

http://planetwaves.net/astrologynews/mercury-retrograde-election-day.html

The second is about Obama's and Romney's charts. Warning: in the opening, the author incorrectly names Romney a couple of times, which I think is disrespectful, and the author also gives a disclaimer in the 3rd paragraph.

http://planetwaves.net/astrologynews/1770564627.html

[JimboDaMan]

if you guys want some opinion on why the polls, many of them are oversampling, over biasing, and over adjusting in favor of D's check out Dick Morris's latest blog

http://www.dickmorris.com/why-the-ny-times-poll-is-wrong/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports

Now, all of this is really speculation, based on the opinions of the people doing 'adjustments' and such We all know how split the country has felt in the last 20 years.

I don't understand. Are you (and Dick) saying the pollsters are lying, that they claim to not adjust for party affiliation when in fact they are? I get why Dick would claim this, because he's pushing a certain agenda, and because he's, well, a Dick. But seriously, does it make sense that the pollsters who's livelihood depends on accuracy would actually lie, and would deliberately publish results they know will eventually be shown to be inaccurate?

In the end it may turn out that Dick's prediction is closer to the mark then most pollsters. If so, the pollsters will clearly have some adjustments to make to their methodology. But the reason will not be because Dick adjusted for expected party affiliation and they did not (or as he seems to be claiming, did adjust but did so incorrectly).

[DjTj]

Did you not see what I posted from the poll itself?? That is exactly what Quinnipac did. Look at the Florida example again. They show the raw numbers and more Republicans than Democrats were interviewed (352 Rs, 350 Dems) but the poll ended with a 37 to 30 Democratic advantage . This is because they assess that is what the final turnout will be. It is an assumption and pretty sure most polls do this,. Quinnipac could be making the right assumption but is is still an assumption, Rassmussen for example has a different assumption and gives a plus 2 advantage to the Dems (he was interviewed and he mentioned this tonight). The question is who is correct. Gallup weighs their national projection giving the Republicans a plus 1 advantage. Bottomline party affiliation is in facted weighed to fit the model.

Florida

LIKELY VOTERS........

Weighted UnWeighted

Percent Frequency

PARTY IDENTIFICATION

Republican 30% 352

Democrat 37 350

Independent 29 333

Other/DK/NA 4 38

If you look at the Quinnipiac results for other states that you posted (Virginia and Ohio), you don't see the same skew. They actually had many more Democrats than Republicans in their sample for VA and OH, and their weighted percentages for party affiliation basically match their actual sample.

There is something going wrong in Florida, and it looks like what is causing the problem is a severe undersampling of black and hispanic voters. They are weighting the population to be 14% black and 12% Hispanic, but their survey is only reaching about half that number of minorities. Since the blacks in their sample support Obama at 96% and the Hispanics support Obama at 57%, they end up boosting their Democratic Party numbers significantly when they put a higher weight on the minority respondents.

So the skewed party affiliation numbers come from weighting minority voters, not from weighting by party itself.

I do think it reflects a problem in the Quinnipiac Florida poll if they are consistently having this much trouble reaching minority voters, and that should increase the margin of error.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-centers/polling-institute/presidential-swing-states-%28fl-oh-and-pa%29/release-detail?ReleaseID=1812

[Predicto]

if you guys want some opinion on why the polls, many of them are oversampling, over biasing, and over adjusting in favor of D's check out Dick Morris's latest blog

http://www.dickmorris.com/why-the-ny-times-poll-is-wrong/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports

Now, all of this is really speculation, based on the opinions of the people doing 'adjustments' and such We all know how split the country has felt in the last 20 years.

For an astrological look at the election, I give you these two articles. Interesting reads, and only to be taken seriously if you want to.

First is about the election, Mercury turns retrograde on election day.

http://planetwaves.net/astrologynews/mercury-retrograde-election-day.html

The second is about Obama's and Romney's charts. Warning: in the opening, the author incorrectly names Romney a couple of times, which I think is disrespectful, and the author also gives a disclaimer in the 3rd paragraph.

http://planetwaves.net/astrologynews/1770564627.html

I give these two blogs about equal weight.

[Duckus]

Another common misunderstanding regarding party ID in polling, that is causing a lot of accusations of liberal bias, is the myth of "Independents." You hear it a lot of folks saying - how can Obama be winning any poll but be losing Independents to Romney in such large numbers?

The reason is that lots of Republicans refuse to ID themselves as Republicans but starting several years ago started called themselves "Independents." It is why polls this year show a strong Democratic advantage in party ID while showing a big lead for Romney with Independents.

You can see it even here on ES. How many conservative posters call themselves Independents these days?

As I am posting this I see that HuffPost: Pollster has a post exactly on this topic. Ignore me, read this which is a lot better than what I wrote - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nick-gourevitch/romney-lead-with-independents_b_2058290.html?utm_hp_ref=elections-2012

[ArmchairRedskin]

I dunno if it interests any of you, but I find it interesting that the line has moved even more in favor of Obama.

Few days ago Romney was at +180, today the line for him is at +240. The all important state of Ohio has Romney at +225.

If you really are a Romney believer, there is money to be made there.

[Thiebear]

Another common misunderstanding regarding party ID in polling, that is causing a lot of accusations of liberal bias, is the myth of "Independents." You hear it a lot of folks saying - how can Obama be winning any poll but be losing Independents to Romney in such large numbers?

Based on polls in 2008 and in 2012 it does appear that Democrat party identification and Republican party affiliation has decreased with Repubs decreasing by 7% more "eye-balling" it.

So i'll definitely see the light and give you that one there, which ruins my prediction of course.

[GhostofSparta]

Well according to Cracked.com, Obama already has 4 of 6 election indicators locked up. With the Redskins to play this weekend and the 1 other indicator not happening until election day, I think the Romney campaign should just go ahead and pack it in.

http://www.cracked.com/article_20139_6-bizarre-factors-that-predict-every-presidential-election.html

Despite what the pundits, talking heads and NPR tell you, the presidential election is still a crapshoot. You think you know what's going to happen, then BAM! The president of the United States takes a Xanax/Thanksgiving turkey ****tail before a debate. Wouldn't it be great if you could shut out that political noise and predict the outcome of every presidential election based on completely ridiculous and arbitrary factors?

Guess what? You totally can. Just go by ...

#6. The Redskins Rule

The Washington Redskins enjoy one of the most remarkable reputations in political history due to a little correlation called the "Redskins rule." It's as simple as it is spooky: If the Redskins win their last home game before election day, then the party in power gets to hold on to the White House. If the Redskins lose, no matter how close the game, the opposition party takes over.

You could write it off as blind chance if, say, it worked for three or four elections ... but the rule has incredibly held true for every damn election since 1940, except one (and we'll get to it in a minute). So this is slowly entering gypsy curse territory.

Because why the hell would this possibly work? Maybe you could say that the incumbent is re-elected when things are going well for the country, and when things are going well, the crowd will be more jazzed to root for football, and the positive crowd makes the team play better. But why would it only apply to that one game? Keep in mind that it has nothing to do with how good the team is overall -- the 1976 Redskins only lost two games at home all year, but by God, one of those two losses was right before election day, and therefore the Republican incumbent lost and Democrats took back the presidency. What the hell?

As for the one exception, it was in 2004, when the Green Bay Packers beat the Redskins but George W. Bush held on to the presidency. The fact that this was the one exception actually makes it weirder, because as some of you vividly remember, Bush was president but had actually lost the popular vote in 2000 (winning only due to the Supreme Court craziness over Florida's recount). As the guy credited with discovering the theory, Steve Hirdt, points out, if you make the rule refer not to the party in power, but to the party that won the popular vote in the previous election, it suddenly has a perfect 18-for-18 record predating World War II.

[deejaydana]

I dunno if it interests any of you, but I find it interesting that the line has moved even more in favor of Obama.

Few days ago Romney was at +180, today the line for him is at +240. The all important state of Ohio has Romney at +225.

If you really are a Romney believer, there is money to be made there.

Being a believer of either side is irrelevant (strictly from a gambling perspective). I think there's money to be made from gambling the outcome of this election.

[Veretax]

I don't understand. Are you (and Dick) saying the pollsters are lying, that they claim to not adjust for party affiliation when in fact they are? I get why Dick would claim this, because he's pushing a certain agenda, and because he's, well, a Dick. But seriously, does it make sense that the pollsters who's livelihood depends on accuracy would actually lie, and would deliberately publish results they know will eventually be shown to be inaccurate?

In the end it may turn out that Dick's prediction is closer to the mark then most pollsters. If so, the pollsters will clearly have some adjustments to make to their methodology. But the reason will not be because Dick adjusted for expected party affiliation and they did not (or as he seems to be claiming, did adjust but did so incorrectly).

No all I'm saying is that I've read a bit about polling recently, and seeing that some pollsters are tweaking their polls this way or that is enough for me to question any of their accuracy. That doesn't mean I think Dick is 100% correct in what will be the outcome here, but I have studied enough statistics to begin to question some of the assumptions a few of the polls are using for their 'adjustments'

[SkinsFTW]

All this media coverage of the election really makes me laugh my ass off. They are constantly, for months, acting like its this back and forth battle when in reality 95% have no intention of voting for one guy or the other and then there are the people who say they like one guy but wont vote anyway but of course they don't admit that. It's not a football game but they act like they are doing a play by play as if it is.

Is there really this mysterious and large portion of the population that all year is playing Eenie Meenie Miney Mo with Obama/Romney? I really don't think so but if people are that dumb to let their vote be changed by anything like gas going up or down by 20-30 cents in a month, or the way the president acts or is spoken of by a governor then WOW, we truly are a nation of imbeciles.

[DallasCowboyFan156]

Nate Silver now gives Obama an 80.8% chance of victory in his Nov. 6 forecast. He has Obama winning 303 electoral votes but I think it will be somewhat lower than that. I still see Obama winning with a somewhat comfortable margin, maybe mid to high 280s.

[twa]

You are confusing demographics with party ID. This is probably the biggest and most common misunderstanding of polling.

"If a pollster weights by party ID, they are substituting their own judgment as to what the electorate is going to look like. It's not scientific," said Doug Schwartz, the director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, which doesn't weight its surveys by party identification.

http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/are-polls-skewed-too-heavily-against-republicans/262834/

Weighing is as scientific as polling methodology itself.

[Predicto]

Weighing is as scientific as polling methodology itself.

Yes it is... but weighting by party ID is more controversial than weighting for demographics, which is why most of them don't do it.

[btfoom]

I think the biggest thing that will come out of the election (beside, you know, the next President of the US) is for us to see which polling groups/methods worked better than the others.

For example, look at Quinnipiac only and one would assume Obama will win, and win fairly easily.

On the other hand, look at Gallup only and one would assume Romney will win, and again, fairly easily.

In the end, I think there will be several states where the outcomes are extremely close and the winner of those few states will win while the other side complains about any myriad of issues, from legit polling place snafu's all the way to outright claims of rigging the entire election.

[The Sisko]

For an astrological look at the election, I give you these two articles. Interesting reads, and only to be taken seriously if you want to.

First is about the election, Mercury turns retrograde on election day.

http://planetwaves.net/astrologynews/mercury-retrograde-election-day.html

The second is about Obama's and Romney's charts. Warning: in the opening, the author incorrectly names Romney a couple of times, which I think is disrespectful, and the author also gives a disclaimer in the 3rd paragraph.

http://planetwaves.net/astrologynews/1770564627.html

I'm Nancy Reagan and I approved this message. :evilg:

I'm sure there will be some shenanigans but if things go for Obama the way Silver over at 538 predicts, it probably won't matter much so there won't be much need for contesting the results. However if Silver is off a bit and RMoney takes a few more of the swing states than expected, it may be a few days before this gets resolved. And if by some chance RMoney manages to pull off the upset I fully expect the Dems to contest the results based at least in part on the voter suppression tactics being used by the other side.

[Larry]

I give these two blogs about equal weight.

Now, Predicto,

The astrology site probably isn't altering the locations of planets, to try to justify a different result.

[LadySkinsFan]

Nate Silver has Obama at 85% today, with 306 EC votes.

[greenspandan]

obama will end up with more like 330, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the hurricane. don't let the GOP feed you that lame excuse. mitt's stall occured long before sandy.

[TheGoodBits]

obama will end up with more like 330, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the hurricane. don't let the GOP feed you that lame excuse. mitt's stall occured long before sandy.

With the exception of a two period following the first debate, Mitt stalled out in June.

[88Comrade2000]

For those wanting Obama to win you will love CNBC's Jim Kramer's prediction. He has Obama winning 440 to 98.

I will make my final predictions after Midnight tomorrow. I still think Obama will win, he has surged the last week. I think the election won't be settled until 11/17 when Ohio's provisional votes are counted. If Romney pulls the upset he will break history and win without Ohio and win with a couple of regular Dem states.

[Spaceman Spiff]

I don't see how Obama doesn't win.