L.A. Times Poll (Is the Poll Skewed?)

self | August 25, 2003 | DiamondDon1

[tallhappy]

LA Slimes is LA Slimes, but still, 32 to 24 is a big deficit and big lead for Cruz.

We cannot bury our heads and must realize Bustamante is the favorite and has a solid bloc which will vote for him simply because of the D.

[DiamondDon1]

The surprising part to me was that they published the awful sampling techniques...and after acknowledging such sampling techniques, they published it anyway.

DD

[DiamondDon1]

Well while he are aware that the Times wants Cruz to win, and for that reason alone we need to be on our toes, the results of even 8 percent is skewed due to the sampling techniques.

For example, the following statements are basically the same:

Your face could stop a clock!

When a look at your face, time stands still...

So you have left-leaning polesters asking the questions, questions prior to the candidate question were anti-Republican in general...so what other than they held a poll (and nobody cared...)

DD

[kellynla]

"The question at the top of the thread was rhetorical in nature...it is quite clear what was going on here..." Yea, Don I know...I was just agreeing with you...

[The Wizard]

you have to ask.....there's a Times in the name.....

[tallhappy]

Fact is that poll or no poll the near 50% that voted for Davis and voting bloc that elected dems across the board in state wide races and has put in a majority dem assembly exists and will be voting to keep anyone with an R after their name from winning.

Cruz will get anywhere from 30 - near 50% of the vote.

Skewed poll or not, this is reality.

[Strider]

Now when I took statistics, a “random” sample was just that “random”. When a poll is taken where “supplemental voters” and added to provide additional voters in one category that is a problem, the conclusions reached cannot be trusted.

It all depends on how it's done.

For instance, if I want to survey a population and compare let's say three age groups. If one of the age groups is underrepresented in the population, and I draw a random sample, I may not get enough of the oldest age group.

There just aren't that many of them and a random sampling will give me about 30 old respondents. That's not a big enough sample to compare them to the other groups.

So, I purposely interview 100 old respondents even though a random sample would not give me this result.

Now all I have to do is weight the old respondents down from 100 to 30, when extrapolating to the entire population.

That is only one of the many ways populations are over and under sampled. As long as you weight them back to their proper proportions, before extrapolating to the whole, your fine.

[DiamondDon1]

Point well taken.

But exactly how did the Times find these Latino voters? One would think they would call in Latino areas which are most likely Democrat in nature. It would be very difficult to right this ship, the water inside is above the waterline outside...

DD

[CyberAnt]

Hmmmm? Just as I suspected - "likely voters" not "registered voters". They can't ask them if they are registered, because illegal hispanics cannot be registered voters.

We're not the only ones who think this is skewed. FOX did a story on it and the reporter (?) said he couldn't figure it out either - and thought it was probably not very accurate.

[Strider]

But exactly how did the Times find these Latino voters?

The proper method is to keep dialing randomly until you get a large enough group of Latino voters to complete the survey.

Then I can compare the answers of say White and Latino voters, and retain the ability to weight them back to the entire population, when looking at the population in total.

I'm not saying that a poll can't be skewed, even on purpose. But, over and under sampling is a valid procedure.

That being said, the pollster is paid by someone. I'd never put my name on a skewed poll, but I can't vouch for all of us.

[DiamondDon1]

The proper method is to keep dialing randomly until you get a large enough group of Latino voters to complete the survey.

Then I can compare the answers of say White and Latino voters, and retain the ability to weight them back to the entire population, when looking at the population in total.

Agreed...it is doubtful that this pollster suddenly found God, and took the time to randomly call people (white, black, asian, latino) to actually find the Latino likely voters...

I agree with your analysis on the 30 year old, however every community has 30 year olds, but if it were 90 year olds you're missing, it is all but too tempting to call retirement homes, rather than do it right...

I am glad that you would not put your name to this...

DD

[AndyTheBear]

Notice that 16 percent of Democrats think you can't vote for a canidate if you vote no on the recall, and about 15 percent aren't sure.

However the pollster corrects this misconception before asking which canidate they would vote for (besides all the other push poll type questions).

As I have said before on other threads, Bustamante is going to take a hit from Democrats who don't bother to vote on question two, but the LA poll seems designed specifically not to reflect this.

[AndyTheBear]

I am far more optimistic. Davis is more unpopular now, and even during the 2002 vote the election was seen by our left leaning press to be a choice between two unpopular alternatives.

Only the most die-hard liberals will bother to vote, many will not bother to vote for a canidate. By contrast the conservatives are reved up and anxious to get to the polls.

[SC Swamp Fox]

apparently these participants didn't have anything better to do with their lives...

If a major media company called me for a poll I would probably suffer through it to give them the answers they really don't want.

They could then either:
A) Toss my answers and substitute what they think I really meant.
B) Add ten more "supplemental" samples to balance my opinions.
C) Remove my opinions from the population of likely voters, since I have voted in every election in the last 20 years and I am surely too tired to vote in another.
D) All of the above.

[DoctorZIn]

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[tallhappy]

Non fact based optimism has done the Repubs in here in CA over and over and over.

The bozos helped Bush waste time and money by saying their polls showed he had a chance to beat Gore and the race was very close.

They are incompetent boobs and get snookered again and again.

Not taking the Dems and how they will support Bustamante in lock step for the most part is a recipe for loss.

[LittleJoe]

And the media, including FOX, is running with it!

[AndyTheBear]

Non fact based optimism has done the Repubs in here in CA over and over and over.

Better then bitter pessimism. I recall the 2002 election polls had Davis winning by a lot more then he did. If the Pubbies were a little more confident and reved up Davis probably would not have won.