“(CPOD) Oct. 28, 2004 – George W. Bush and Dick Cheney could win the state of Florida, according to a poll by the Los Angeles Times. 51 per cent of respondents would vote for the Republican incumbents, while 43 per cent would support the Democratic ticket of John Kerry and John Edwards.”
And electoral-vote.com now has my home state of Michigan a tie. Without Florida, Kerry is gonna need Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. I still say Kerry has a sporting chance, but his capmpaign still has problems.
Oh, to the OP. I wouldn’t worry too much at this point. The poll numbers have been all over the board. I’ve seen Florida go from light blue, light red and back again. At this point its too close to call (despite the polls) and it could go either way.
Perhaps I misinterpret the news, but I thought it was common knowledge that the poltical consultants working for both presidential campaigns are doing all they can to manipulate poll results and how they are reported.
Some polling agencies are inclined to one political bias or another, so one day the polls say one thing, the next day, they say another, because the polls are conducted differently, sometimes with ulterior motives. Then the media spins it around, and who knows what the real poll will be? We know news reports on polls tend to lead voter opinion at times, which is why the political consultants, like Rove, will do anything they can to make the polls look good, even if not accurate.
Regarding direct participation by Karl Goebbels Rove, it also is common knowledge that Rove is able to keep his actions out of public scrutiny, maintaining deniability for his support for all the dirty crap his operatives do all around the country. You want to dispute that Rove is behind things like
. Disenrolling/destroying regristration for democratic new voters,
. Paying a telemarketing company to jam democratic party phone lines on election day, so people cannot call for assistance in getting to the polls
. Telemarketing campaign deliberately misinforming people of when election day is and their polling place.
. Finding ways to get favorable polls emphasized or potentially fabricated in key states?
Hm…Admittedly I know bug-all from statistics, but I do note from the link that this particular poll is apparently based on telephone data from a total of 510 “likely” Florida voters, which seems like kind of a small sampling to me. I don’t recall reading anything else that would indicate the state’s electorate has suddenly swung strongly in favor of Bush just recently. As a Floridian myself, I have plenty of misgivings about how the election is going to play out (mostly concerning the mechanics of the voting process), but this poll by itself doesn’t seem like the final word by a long shot.
The site you link is just quoting the LA Times story that ran today. Interestingly, they omit the fact that the same poll shows Kerry well ahead in Ohio. I can’t imagine a bunch of Canadians would be trying to back Bush, so it’s just curious.
The LA Times polls doesn’t correct for party shares. That mean if their net happens to catch more Republican fish, it’s lopsided. Other polls look for a representation of voters proportional to the party registrations on the state, which may or may not be more accurate. Moreover, the LA Times pressures undecideds into picking a candidate. Such polls tend to be unreliable because undecideds really are undecided.
So maybe he’ll win Florida by 8 points, or maybe he won’t. The polls are like the weather in Maine. If you don’t like it, wait five minutes and it’ll change.
I know this would be a novel idea for Florida but let’s not determine a winner until we have all the votes, count all the votes and recheck our count if necessary.
If that process takes an extra hour or a few days after the polls close, so be it. Accuracy ought to be a bit more important than speed.