So how much of a lean did our polls have? Based on the current numbers we overestimated Obama by a whooping one eighth of a point across our 16 final week polls. And I expect Obama's margins to increase in Oregon and Colorado as more returns come in from Multnomah and Boulder Counties respectively, so our bias may go down to zero or even a one eighth of a point McCain bias if the Democratic lead increases by a couple points in each of those states in the final analysis.
Here's the data:
| State | Final PPP Poll | Current Results | PPP Bias |
| | Obama +4 | Obama +12 | R+8 |
| | Obama +8 | Obama +11 | R+3 |
| | Obama +13 | Obama +16 | R+3 |
| | Obama +2 | Obama +4 | R+2 |
| | Obama +15 | Obama +16 | R+1 |
| | Obama +1 | Obama +1 | None |
| | Obama +1 | Obama +1 | None |
| | Obama +2 | Obama +2 | None |
| | Tie | Tie | None |
| | McCain +13 | McCain +13 | None |
| | Obama +6 | Obama +5 | D+1 |
| | Obama +17 | Obama +15 | D+2 |
| | McCain +2 | McCain +5 | D+3 |
| | Obama +10 | Obama +7 | D+3 |
| | Obama +1 | McCain +3 | D+4 |
| | Obama +16 | Obama +10 | D+6 |
| Average | Obama +5.0625 | Obama +4.9375 | D+.125 |
11 comments:
Congratulations...
You guys were the best pollster in the 2008 on state polling... Unbelievable. You polled so many state and only got one wrong which was within the margin of error... And most of the states nailed the exact margin...
Excellent job. I wonder if people will pay attention to the fact that your polling showed no "house effect" whereas Rasmussen's state polling show a 3 point Republican lean.
NBC news just confirmed Obama is the winner in NC. Congrats PPP for being the best pollster this election cycle. You guys beat Rasmussen handily and I still like SurveyUSA though they could have predicted NC too if they didn't peg AA turnout at 20%...PPP got the turnout right, it was 22%.
Tom,
Why doesn't reacleearpolitics.com include your polls in its average???
I believe Obama won FLA by 3 not 2, so that would be a +1 Rep bias in your final FLA poll.
Tom, why do you think that so many pollsters (including you) had NV a lot closer than it really was?
Rasmussen looks to have nailed the popular vote. But I didn't want to say "yay" because Ras could be right for the wrong reasons...
So I was comparing the exit polls with your internals for NC - it didn't look that good (e.g. exits showed a more typical advantage among women for Obama while you said almost-equal). Then I remembered the warnings on exit polls...
I wish there were better ways of looking at pollster performance than just the toplines. Perhaps a comparison of all state polls against the final tallies? You can be "right for the wrong reasons" on some of them, but not for all of them, surely.
So in that sense, is there a better way of looking at your topline data? Say, a regression of actual vs PPP-finals, rather than the average? Simple Excel regression on this table says slope 0.96, r2 0.84 - so the final margins were within 4%, and very well correlated.
Or something else?
Still - it looks like you did a great job. Congratulations!
To rs: I think rasmussen may be celebrating too soon with its pop vote call. Looks like all the remaining votes outstanding (literally 2% of nationwide vote is still outstanding) come from Dem heavy precints (Boulder and Adams county in CO, Portland and Eugene in OR, etc.,). So I suspect that Obama's final pop vote total will be somewhere between 52.6 to 52.7% and McCain's to be either 46.0 or 46.1%, which means using rounding 53% Obama to 46% McCain. Looks like CNN nailed it this time not Rasmussen.
Thanks Tom on the night of the election I kept saying to anyone who would listen that you were very much on the money. Great job!
Congratulations Tom,
You guys have been the best pollster overall since just before the Indiana/NC primaries.
Yes CNN nailed the popular vote margin, not Rasmussen, they were close but, like usual Ras had their R lean, especially in their state polls...
Great job, Tom. Your polls were always fun to look forward to and you guys always had nice big samples!
Looking foward to your 2010 and 2012 polling!
=)
-Josh
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