Can someone please explain internal polling to me? I keep reading about internal

[grace0418]

polls that paint a different picture than the polls we're seeing and I want to know how or why that is. Are they more accurate, less accurate? Who are they polling? If they are more accurate, why aren't those polls released by the candidates? You'd think at least the winning candidate would be trumpeting them.

Here's an example of my question:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/10/john-mccains-ow.html

[Orrex]

1. Locking

No sex threads.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. Internals are polls commissioned by campaigns that are

often broken down more demographically, more targeted to specific likely voter populations, etc.

There is probably no real way to measure whether campaign conducted polling is more accurate because it's not public information. (Nobody sees all of BOTH sides' polling)

On balance I would guess that internal polling is a little more exacting, but the trade-off is that whatever we ever hear about is leaked, so there are questions of motive... we only hear what someone wants us to.

Campaign polling is subject to all the usual statistical variation. No poll is perfect.

[grace0418]

3. Thanks. It makes me wonder, though, why everyone acts like the internal polling

numbers hold some kind of greater weight and accuracy.