It’s early yet, but still…
June 24th, 2008 at 07:08pm Pat Cunningham
When Newsweek came out the other day with a poll showing Barack Obama 15 percentage points ahead of John McCain, I said nothing about it here — for several reasons.
One, the poll seemed to be an outlier (at odds with other concurrent surveys and thus perhaps in error), and, two, polls in June don’t necessarily offer any good indication of who will win in November.
That latter point still pertains, of course, but I’m less inclined to disbelieve the Newsweek poll now that a SURVEY commissioned by Bloomberg News and the Los Angeles Times shows Obama up by 12 percentage points (15 points, if you add Ralph Nader and Libertarian Bob Barr to the mix).
The most fascinating numbers in the Bloomberg/Times poll are those showing a huge gulf in enthusiasm among supporters of the respective candidates. Check ‘em out.
Entry Filed under: polls, John McCain, Barack Obama
3 Comments Add your own
1. Menlo Bob | June 25th, 2008 at 1:09 am
As a savvy political reporter I’m sure the first thing you check is the sample size. This poll refuses to tell us the sample size, therefore we can’t know the margin of error. Next thing to check is the political orientation of the voters. This poll acknowledges that 39% were Democrat, 27% independent and 22% Republican. In other words 17% can be attributed to the differences between democrats and republicans. Because the margin was only 15% it would indicate that McCain was gaining 2% among independents. Because we don’t know where the poll was taken, we don’t know if we’re dealing with Barbara Boxer Democrats or Jim Webb Democrats. Not that any of this matters.
2. Menlo Bob | June 25th, 2008 at 1:20 am
5 months ago the LA Times/Bloomberg poll had Hillary leading Obama by 8.4%. Polls this early are for suckers.
3. Craig Knauss | June 25th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Polls this early are solely for the purpose of giving pollsters jobs. They rank right up there with polical analysts interviewing other political analysts.
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