from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/31/AR2006103100230.html , a news story in today’s Washington Post.
My question–why would a poll done over the weekend favor one or the other party? I guess I could search for the answer, but I’m off to work.
Well, on Sundays, all the Pubbies are at church while the Dems are hanging out at home waiting to be polled … that doesn’t explain Friday and Saturday, though.
Sounds like what we call “wishful thinking.”
This seems to be conventional wisdom among conservatives, who are convinced the media deliberately seek to publish skewed polling data to advance the librul agenda. But I have no idea what demographic basis it has, or even if anyone has done the work to determine whether or not it’s actually true. (It might be, I’ve just never seen anyone do the numbers.)
Huh, I’d guess if anything it would be skewed more for the GOP considering most white collar workers would be more likely to be home during those days.
That bias may apply out here in rural Montana, because many of the ranchers, farmers, and miners would be working Saturday (they’re predominantly Republican), but I can’t see how it would apply in urban areas at all. If anything, it seems the bias would go the other way.
Why? I could say the blue collar’s likely to be home and liquored up, just waiting for a pollster to call, while the white collar’s out enjoying his illegal Beluga caviar and looking for the perfect Italian Pinot Nero.
Aside from that, why does white-collar equal GOP? Isn’t it the gun totin’, beer swiggin’, blue collar crowd that votes for non-liberal causes?
I’m not taking a position here and just repeating stereotypes, but you see the essence of why I’m asking, right?
Everybody knows Republicans are the party of the wealthy because they work harder than Democrats, and if working nights and weekends means they miss the pollster’s call, it is a small price to pay.
SInce it seems that you have received the usual ration of commentary rather than an answer, I’ll give it a shot.
There has often been a belief in polling that certain days of the week are better for others. Why? Pollsters have two things, their own ignorant bias and their desire to protect a reputation. So if a pollster is wildly wrong on the weekend prior to an election they can say to themselves " your suburban Republicans have money for leisure time (dinner, movies) while your hard working democrats are stuck at home washing dishes for their six children" So we only got democrats and the poll was off. Who the fuck knows what people say in their own minds?
A study done by Rasmussen (sorry don’t have a cite) did polling every day of the week and found minimal variation from day to day. Now was this because there was no observed variation in the raw data or was this because they did see a variation and normalized it using their own methodology? I don’t know.
As far as the GOP spin, when you are losing, you attack the poll and say that they only results that matter are on election day. When you are ahead, you will tout every poll you can find.
The GOP is losing and they are hanging on to some of the standard stuff. Right now its all the party has to hang onto.
There may be something to this…as anecdotal evidence, there was a poll conducted in my area over the weekend, and the results were totally unexpected, to the point of almost being laughable. This poll showed a Dem challenger within 4 points of a Rep incumbent that simply can’t be right–the incumbent is a solid lock on getting re-elected. The same poll produced bizarro results in a local judge’s race as well–it showed a leader who is not running for the job listed in the poll, and the other top poller is known to be the least electable candidate of the pack running.
I don’t know the answer for sure, but every poll in a Senate race that Strategic Vision – they’re a reliably Republican pollster – has done in the last five weeks has been over a weekend.
http://www.strategicvision.biz/political/results.htm
That does not prove that weekend polls bias towards Democrats, but it is certainly curious that a polling firm that always favors Republicans seems to always poll over weekends.