Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Pick-A-Poll.
Why would two different polls, conducted by the same polling firm, completed on the same day, give opposite results?
The USA TODAY/Gallup Poll is separate from Gallup's daily "tracking" poll on the presidential race, which this afternoon shows Obama ahead by 8 points among registered voters -- 48%-40%.Check out the trendline in Arizona. Reality bites, but you won't hear about Arizona on the news. Pollster's charts have Obama beating McCain, with and without third party candidates. McCain is trending down in the yellow states. Statistical noise indeed. More state polls would be nice. ¶ 12:25 PM
Frank says that while the tracking poll indicates Obama may have gotten some gains from his overseas trip last week, any benefits may be short-lived. That tracking poll of 2,674 registered voters was also done Friday-Sunday and the margins of error on the results are +/- 2 percentage points.
As for the difference between the tracking and USA TODAY/Gallup polls, Frank says not to read too much into it. "Statistical noise" may be largely to blame.
