WHICH POLLSTER WAS THE MOST ACCURATE? (ranks both national and state pollsters)

RealClearPolitics ^ | 11/8/04 | T. Bevan & J. McIntyre

[Cableguy]

ping

[demlosers]

For state projections I'd say Mason-Dixon.

[big'ol_freeper]

Where's Zogby? Oh, he is at the bottom of the list. Seeee ya!

[CWOJackson]

Sorry guy but you left out one of the most accurate polls this election: the 7/11 coffee cup poll.

7-Election Outcome Reflects Current Actual Election Results Dallas, TX, November 3, 2004 - Today, millions of Americans will pour their first cup of the coffee of the day and pick up a newspaper at 7-Eleven stores to read the results of the too-close-to-call presidential election. And during the month of October, these same Americans predicted the outcome of the election with their coffee purchases with 7-Election, the coffee cup poll sponsored by 7-Eleven, Inc., the world’s leading convenience retailer.

Final 2004 7-Election cup counts tracked identically with published national election results of 51 percent for Bush and 48 percent for Kerry, and within a few percentage points of actual poll results in many states. Casting their “votes” in participating 7-Eleven stores across the country during the month-long promotion in October, customers served up these results:

I’M VOTING FOR BUSH cups – 51.08 percent

I’M VOTING FOR KERRY cups – 48.92 percent

Among swing states, Sen. Kerry had the top 7-Election cup count in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado and New Hampshire, with President Bush prevailing in Florida and Nevada. Some states’ 7-Election results were less than a single percentage point apart. National, state and metropolitan results of the month-long poll were reported on the company’s website (www.7-Eleven.com) Monday and, just as in the 2000 election, proved to be about as accurate as the official voter polls sponsored by various media outlets and professional research companies. In the 2000 7-Election, President George W. Bush “out-coffee-cupped” Vice President Al Gore by just one percentage point.

“Some predict the future with tea leaves, I prefer coffee cups,” said Jim Keyes, president and CEO of 7-Eleven, Inc. “We have no margin of error because the whole idea of 7-Election was to have some fun and promote voter participation, not to provide a statistically sound sampling. However, it is ironic, that our results do fall within those historical margins of error or plus-or-minus 3 percent.”

With more than one million customers buying coffee in 7-Eleven stores nationwide each day, the company sells more hot beverages than any of its other proprietary products, brewing more than 10,000 pots of coffee an hour. Last fall, 7-Eleven introduced Café Combinations, expanding its hot beverage selection to include flavored syrups, toppings, new cappuccinos and cocoas, and steamed milk mix – enough options to create more than 1,300 different hot beverage combinations.

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Screw Zogby. When I want to know what is happening I'll ask Habib at 7/11.

[bad company]

I believe PEW was the closest in 2000 too.

[george wythe]

Great analysis.

I think that real winner was the average of all the polls, since the margin of error shrinks significantly when several polls using disparate methods are averaged.

[trashcanbred]

FOX News projected a Kerry popular vote win? What a bunch of liberals! </sarcasm>

[Tribune7]

bump

[Lou L]

Too bad, no mention of the accuracy of the exit polls.

[Blue Screen of Death]

My uncle Fred was right on. He drank a beer and checked a woolly caterpillar. Then he drank another and watched the pattern of ducks flying north. He had another beer and looked at the lichen on the north side of the well. Finished the six pack and burped. The burp sounded more like Bushhhh than Kerryyyy so he declaired George the winner and fell asleep on the porch.

[My2Cents]

So much for Gallup being the "Gold Standard." They did worse than Zogby.

[MattinNJ]

FReeper Dales was actually the best. I printed out his final projections from his website and used it as a scorecard all election night. As state by state results came in, I just kept checking them off his scorecard.

I think the only state he missed was Wisconsin, which might still be counting the absentee ballots.

[Cableguy]

Actually, Opinion Dynamics are run by bunch of former Democrats.

[Cableguy]

No, the new "gold standard" is now Pew and Battleground, plus Mason-Dixon, Rasmussen and SurveyUSA for state polls.

[Born Conservative]

bttt

[marblehead17]

ping

[BlackRazor]

Personally, I don't think a polling firm should be judged by whether they accurately "project" a winner, if the actual results are within the margin of error of the poll. For example, ARG picked Bush to win NH by 1 point. Kerry actually won by 1 point. ARG was pretty darned close and shouldn't be penalized in my view. They got it right within the margin of error. IMO, pollsters should only be evaluated based on average candidate error, not by whether they get winners right.

[My2Cents]

We all gave Rass a pretty rough time this year. I'm glad he was able to redeem himself. (But I still think publishing poll results for months on end that were never outside the margin-of-error was a waste of bandwidth.)

[My2Cents]

The big reason Pew was right-on? Luck!