Gallup Poll #'s

[thatsrightimirish]

As some of you may know right now the Gallop poll has the race at

53% Democrat
38% Republican

So, how is Gallup's track record?

Let's look at 1994
The Gallup had it at

53.5% GOP
46.5 Democrat

The actual vote

52.4% GOP
45.5%Democrat

We all know what happened in 94. I know that there is a lot of bad polls out there, but don't give up! Keep nagging all your friend to vote! (And vote Democratic Obviously)

[Erika]

1. YES n/t

[LeftCoast]

2. It will all depend on how concentrated those voters are

Still, I'm quite optimistic about things.

[Vexatious Ape]

3. That's impressive.

I like dem apples.

[Proud2BAmurkin]

4. kickety

:kick:

[WillyT]

5. Kickety R, And Read This Too !!!

:kick:

Are National Polls Reliable Predictors of Midterm Elections?

The record shows that so-called "generic ballots" do a good job

by Richard Wike
Pew Global Attitudes Project
October 26, 2006



<snip>

National elections are the high season for pollsters and with Election Day now less than two weeks away, new polls on the fight for Congress are being released nearly every day. Commonly, pollsters use something called the "generic ballot" to assess the state of the congressional race. This question measures the percentage of voters in a national survey who say they intend to vote for either the Republican or Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in their district.1

Of course, there is no nationwide election for the House; instead, there are separate races in each of the House's 435 districts. Moreover, over the last decade and a half, the number of truly competitive districts has declined significantly. So it might seem that the generic ballot is too broad a measure to forecast the national outcome; nonetheless, it has repeatedly proven to be an accurate gauge of the two-party national vote in off-year elections, though not necessarily of the final distribution of congressional seats.

The Gallup Organization has tracked voter preferences in House races for more than half a century, and its final midterm election polls have consistently paralleled actual election results. Indeed, on average, the final Gallup Poll has been within 1.1% of the actual vote. Similarly, surveys by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press (as well as its predecessor, the Times Mirror Center for the People & the Press) have consistently shown that the generic ballot closely tracks election results.2 For example, in 1994 both the Pew and Gallup surveys found a Republican majority in the popular vote for the first time in more than 40 years, foreshadowing that year's GOP takeover of the House.

During the last midterm elections, in 2002, the generic ballot was again on-target. Averaging four major public polls conducted in the final days before the election produces party vote totals very close to the actual election two-party results. The average Republican share of the vote in the four polls was 51.5%, within a point of the 52% Republicans received on Election Day. Although some polls were closer to the actual results than others, the Election Day vote totals were within the margin of error of all four surveys.

<snip>

Link: http://pewresearch.org/obdeck/?ObDeckID=79

:kick::hi::kick: