Centrisity

Back in Time

Pandagon takes us back to 2000, and a look at how the polls were shaking out two weeks before the election:

No matter who you think they're favoring, the polls are proving wildly unreliable, and it occurred to me that, no matter who wins in November, the polling companies are going to have a lot to answer for if they want to be taken seriously in the future. But I spoke too soon. In checking my thesis, I went back to 2000 andl ooked at the polling released during the exact same period. Here are the 2000 results for October 18th and 19th:

Polling Firm	Date	Bush	Gore	Bush-Gore
ABC	10/19	48%	43%	+5%
Gallup	10/19	50%	40%	+10%
Opinion Dynamics	10/19	45%	42%	+3%
Reuters/MSNBC	10/19	44%	44%	0%
Voter.com	10/19	44%	39%	+5%
ABC	10/18	48%	44%	+4%
Gallup	10/18	49%	39%	+10%
NBC	10/18	45%	43%	+2%
Reuters/MSNBC	10/18	44%	43%	+1%
Voter.com	10/18	44%	40%	+4%

Note that not a single one of these polls gave any advantage to the actual winner of the popular vote. So while the media crows about this or that metric, remember that they were all wrong at this point in 2000. While the polls did tighten in the ending days of the race, only 3 of the 20 polls taken in the final two days gave Gore any sort of lead. And we're much closer than he was, with much more money and a ground organization he could only dream of. We're in good shape, folks. Just keep working your asses off, keep volunteering with ACT, keep telling your friends, keep offering your services to the Kerry campaign. We're going to win this thing, and Frank Newport's walk of shame is going to make it all the sweeter. Now, if only it would convince the media to stop relying on data that's proven unreliable and only serves to needlessly distort coverage, life'd be so sweet. Fat chance I know, but I can dream.

Go read the rest. They have some updates.

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