The Democrats in Wisconsin are whacking our poll with the tired old anti-IVR arguments...pretty much to be expected even though we had the most accurate survey on the last race we polled there, showing Barack Obama up by double digits in the primary against Hillary Clinton when most folks thought it was much closer.
What I think is amusing though is the spokesman for the Wisconsin Democratic Party touting Research 2000's poll of the race last week, which showed more voters in the state holding an unfavorable opinion of Jim Doyle than a favorable one...when you have to tout a poll with those kind of numbers it's usually a pretty good sign that the incumbent is in a bad position.
In the 2006 WI Gubernatorial, we saw two steady streams of poll numbers.
ReplyDeleteStandard phone methodology showed Doyle with a fairly steady lead over opponent Green. IVR-based polls consistently showed a much tighter race - some even gave Green the lead.
The ultimate result was consistent the the numbers derived via standard methodology.
Most professionals agree that Wisconsin is a notoriously hard state to poll in, as-is. Any method that is less effective at finding actual likely voters (ie those without live interviewers) will produce results that are all the more skewed.
You'll get a result, to be sure - just not as accurate of a result.