Archive for September 22nd, 2012

The YouGuv Polling Report, plus a Senate Forecast [9.22.12]

We have a TON of polls today, like yesterday, because of a polling outfit called YouGuv. Who are they? Here is Daily Kos Election’s description:

The firm is a British firm, that moved into the American market in 2007 when they bought out Polimetrix, a California-based firm that had done a lot of internet-based polling in 2006 in an arrangement with Stanford University. Their polling is based on internet samples, a method which some find problematic (some aggregators of polling, indeed, refuse to utilize their data). It is a methodology that I also confess to qualms about, because when you have a sample that is essentially volunteering to participate, and a smaller universe from which to draw from, the potential pitfalls are pretty self-evident.

However, the true measure is performance. […] YouGov … has earned at least a cycle’s worth of benefit of the doubt. Their 2010 track record was more than reasonable. Indeed, of the 18 pollsters that offered up a substantive number of polls, YouGov came in fourth place in terms of their accuracy (defined as the percentage of races where they came within three percent of the final margin).

Another new polling outfit that has performed a polling dump today is Purple Strategies. Some of their results are eye raising. They have Obama winning North Carolina but losing Florida, and yet within three of Romney in Arizona. I will bet you everything I own that there is no way that is possible. If Obama wins North Carolina, he is winning Florida too. And if he is making Arizona a swing state, then he is up ten in Florida and 5 in North Carolina. Then again, Purple Strategies has been more pro-Romney this cycle, and if Obama is making Arizona competitive, then maybe this race has just broken wide open…

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