Are all these polls "likely voters"?

[Nancy Waterman]

And what happens if a lot minority "unlikely" voters come out at the last minute because they realize what the GOP takeover really means? Does it radically change the outcome when these people (yet again) were not counted as significant?

[Ozymanithrax]

1. Every polling group has a method of determining who is likely to vote...

Simply polling registered voters isn't accurate, because a lot of registered voters may stay home. So in their polls, they have questions aimed and deciding how likely people are to vote.

If you have a lot of people who answer these polls that they are not excited about voting, but vote anyway, it will skew the result.

I still thinks Republicans will take the House but Democrats will hold he Senate with 52 - 54 seats.

But with a lot of races now within the margin of error, a great GOTV effort can change the outcome.

[littlewolf]

2. true

I have never been polled ... but a friend has ... and one of the questions is do you know where your polling station is ...
and questions like that ...

[Ozymanithrax]

3. I've been polled three times now for this eleciton.

Some or all of the following questions were used.
(1) Did you vote the last election?
(2) How Likely are you to vote? (multiple chocie)
(3) Do you know where your polling station is?
(4) Do you consider yourself a strong Democrat or a weak Democrat?

I have seen at least three of those questions in every poll.

[Igel]

4. Every poll makes assumptions.

Every poll has to.

If you take a poll at face value without looking at the assumptions that go into the model and how they use their model to adjust the data they get from interviewing people, you're making a mistake. You have no idea what the number means, no basis for evaluating the information you're given.

A lot of people like to obsesses over margins of error. These are calculated errors and assume that the model is correct but that the sampling may be non-random. Errors in assumptions don't show up in the margins of error. They're not quantifiable. They're ultimately "unknown unknowns"--either as to quality or quantity.