Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:51 pm Posts: 14534 Location: Mesa,AZ
cutuphalfdead wrote:
Aren't exit polls historically unreliable?
They use them to project election winners before the tallies are in, so...
I think there's some level of statistical significance that exit polls provide. Like any sample, it has a margin of error, but when you see a wide margin in a sizable cross section of the population, I'd say it's significant.
_________________
John Adams wrote:
In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
No, they're pretty good. After all they are polls of people who just voted. No hypotheticals, doesn't include people who won't actually vote, or people who do but change their mind between the survey and when they go to the polls, they include people who may not be into politics enough to take the time to answer a phone survey but vote nonetheless (and as SD said, this is usually the most important group in an election), etc. The only concern would be making sure they are getting a representative sample, but when you watch election night results you are basically watching the returns of exit polls, and they are almost always right.
_________________ "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." -- John Steinbeck
Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2004 12:47 pm Posts: 9282 Location: Atlanta Gender: Male
4/5 wrote:
cutuphalfdead wrote:
Aren't exit polls historically unreliable?
No, they're pretty good. After all they are polls of people who just voted. No hypotheticals, doesn't include people who won't actually vote, or people who do but change their mind between the survey and when they go to the polls, they include people who may not be into politics enough to take the time to answer a phone survey but vote nonetheless (and as SD said, this is usually the most important group in an election), etc. The only concern would be making sure they are getting a representative sample, but when you watch election night results you are basically watching the returns of exit polls, and they are almost always right.
No, they're pretty good. After all they are polls of people who just voted. No hypotheticals, doesn't include people who won't actually vote, or people who do but change their mind between the survey and when they go to the polls, they include people who may not be into politics enough to take the time to answer a phone survey but vote nonetheless (and as SD said, this is usually the most important group in an election), etc. The only concern would be making sure they are getting a representative sample, but when you watch election night results you are basically watching the returns of exit polls, and they are almost always right.
Gore wins Florida.
Exactly.
_________________ "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." -- John Steinbeck
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 8:52 pm Posts: 2647 Location: Where gila monsters meet you at the airport
4/5 wrote:
Electromatic wrote:
4/5 wrote:
cutuphalfdead wrote:
Aren't exit polls historically unreliable?
No, they're pretty good. After all they are polls of people who just voted. No hypotheticals, doesn't include people who won't actually vote, or people who do but change their mind between the survey and when they go to the polls, they include people who may not be into politics enough to take the time to answer a phone survey but vote nonetheless (and as SD said, this is usually the most important group in an election), etc. The only concern would be making sure they are getting a representative sample, but when you watch election night results you are basically watching the returns of exit polls, and they are almost always right.
Gore wins Florida.
Exactly.
My issue with that kind of data is that it's all self-reported. Sure, the person who just voted described themselves as a moderate, but that doesn't really tell us whether there was much chance that they would have actually voted for the other guy.
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 8:52 pm Posts: 2647 Location: Where gila monsters meet you at the airport
David Weigel at Slate had an interesting pojt about numbers that supports the idea that this may be an election with low enthusiasm/interest/turnout.
Quote:
It's not just that Romney actually did worse in Nevada this year than he did in 2012. Nevada was the first of five primary or caucus states where Romney got markedly fewer votes than he did four years ago. According to CNN's updated count of the state (the network was way ahead of the local party), Romney won 16,486 votes in Nevada's caucus day preference poll, 50.1 percent of the total. In 2008 -- in a race with more candidates -- Romney won 22,646 votes, 51 percent of the total.
That means that in 2008, about 44,400 Nevadans voted in the Republican caucuses. At a time when Republicans were (supposedly) a struggling brand.
But for years later in a caucus to pick a Republican to challenge a really unpopular Democratic president only around 32,900 Nevadans voted.
That said, I think Obama is going to have trouble motivating his 2008 bloc as well so it's still likely to be a close election.
My issue with that kind of data is that it's all self-reported. Sure, the person who just voted described themselves as a moderate, but that doesn't really tell us whether there was much chance that they would have actually voted for the other guy.
While this is true, all you really need to do is see which candidate won the independent vote and you will almost always have the winner right there.
_________________ "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." -- John Steinbeck
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:53 pm Posts: 20537 Location: The City Of Trees
Rick Santorum wrote:
It's not about contraception. It's about economic liberty; it's about freedom of speech; it's about freedom of religion. It's about government control of your lives and it's got to stop.
Joined: Thu Dec 16, 2004 1:54 am Posts: 7189 Location: CA
Green Habit wrote:
Rick Santorum wrote:
It's not about contraception. It's about economic liberty; it's about freedom of speech; it's about freedom of religion. It's about government control of your lives and it's got to stop.
Does not compute.
Its funny when he tries to claim the 'true conservative' mantle. Sure, he's conservative when it comes to the gays and abortion and everyone having as many babies as possible. Everything else... not so much. Oh, and war. He totally would bomb Iran on the first day. Not quite as fast as Gingrich though, amirite?
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
My wife was sitting at the table this morning, and she said, "When your alarm went off, I heard Rick Santorum saying something that was so stupid and offensive, that I thought I was dreaming, ... now I'm reading it in the newspaper."
Rick Santorum wrote:
You know, back in my days, they’d use Bayer aspirin for contraceptives, the gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.
EDIT: Mah ... nevermind. It was one of his supporters.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
My wife was sitting at the table this morning, and she said, "When your alarm went off, I heard Rick Santorum saying something that was so stupid and offensive, that I thought I was dreaming, ... now I'm reading it in the newspaper."
Rick Santorum wrote:
You know, back in my days, they’d use Bayer aspirin for contraceptives, the gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.
EDIT: Mah ... nevermind. It was one of his supporters.
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2006 3:28 am Posts: 28541 Location: PORTLAND, ME
thedailywh.at wrote:
Having gone after pretty much every other “social malady” in the book, Rick Santorum is finally setting his sights on the big daddy of them all: Pornography.
In a statement that reads like something Anthony Comstock would have deemed “going too far,” the GOP presidential candidate claims pornography ”causes profound brain changes in both children and adults” and blasts the Justice Department for favoring “pornographers over children” by not enforcing obscenity laws.
Santorum continues: “[C]urrent federal ‘obscenity’ laws prohibit distribution of hardcore [obscene] pornography on the Internet, on cable/satellite TV, on hotel/motel TV, in retail shops and through the mail or by common carrier.”
The former Pennsylvania Senator concludes by vowing that, as President, he will change the status quo as it concerns pornography.
It seems somewhat laughable, but can President Santorum really get rid of Internet porn if he set his mind to it? Yes, says UCLA Law Professor and noted blogger Eugene Volokh.
“If the government wanted to aggressively move against Internet pornography, it could do so,” Volokh told The Daily Caller. “Here’s the deal: In most parts of the country, a lot of pornography on the Internet would plausibly be seen as obscene.”
The law may be on his side, but, if he were to pursue his anti-porn crusade, Santorum would likely find rather quickly that the only thing still able to blur the lines of political affiliation is porn.
“When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different,” said Harvard Business School’s Benjamin Edelman, who, in 2009, published a nationwide study [people.hbs.edu/bedelman/papers/redlightstates.pdf] on porn viewing habits that should give Santorum pause.
Eight out of the top 10 porn-loving states voted for John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. By comparison, six of the bottom 10 cast their vote for Obama.
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