Cross-post from GDP: Reuters Polling is hilariously volatile (HRC Group)
So a few days ago, a lot of collective minds were blown by Bernie being up by 7 in the Reuters daily tracking...with all filters turned off including party affiliation (Which generally gets overlooked). The day of that result was February 22nd. Well, the extremely favorable polling day for Bernie has since timed-out. Let's see what has happened:
No Filters:
Feb 22: BS 42.8 HRC 35.6
Feb 26: BS 40.5 HRC 39.5
That is a 6 point swing to Hillary in 4 days! Wow! Or, February 22 was noise
How about with people who self identify as democrats?
Feb 22: BS 47.3 HRC 44.6
Feb 26: HRC 47.4 BS 43.8
Why they practically switched places! That is another 6 point swing!
Now how about registered democrats?
Feb 22: HRC 46.8 BS 46.1
Feb 26: HRC 48.8 BS 44.3
You get the idea (I would do likely democratic voter, too, but that is still only updated through Feb 23).
So the choice is a pretty easy one with Reuters modifiable daily tracking. You can either a) cherry-pick days of data and filters to tell a story (As USUncut did) b) take it at face value and accept that the race is having significant shifts in support between candidates every few days c) ignore it as anything other than an entertainment tool.
I've made no bones about my choice over the past several months, which is option C. Reuters daily tracking produces just awful metrics.
(All info taken from the interactive charts you can play with at polling.reuters.com)
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