Interesting Data from the AP about Undecideds

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081031/ap_on_el_pr/ap_yahoo_poll_changeable_voters_9

Apparently, I'm not alone on the fence. With 14% of voters still undecided or admitting that their allegiance could change, the last few days of this campaign are crucial.

Overall, the share of these voters — sometimes referred to as "persuadables" — has barely budged from levels measured in June and September AP-Yahoo News polls, conducted online by Knowledge Networks.
But the survey — which has repeatedly quizzed the same group of 2,000 adults since last November — shows considerable churning below the surface. Of those now changeable, nearly three-quarters said in June their minds were made up, and half said so just last month.

Click to expand...

Are we to take from this that the campaign, instead of turning people ON to a candidate has instead turned them OFF? An interesting dynamic, if that's the case.

Well, if you take that statistical percentage into the battleground states, it makes for an interesting electoral swing that's for sure.

anis said:

14% is a lot. How does this compare to percentages of undecideds in past elections?
ps Neat term "persuadables."

Click to expand...

Well, I just mentioned in another thread that Ross Perot took approximately 19% in the '92 presidential election--that might be one way to gauge the undecideds in comparison to that election if nothing else. As I recollect (I'll try to verify this) there were comparable numbers in 2004--most of whom swung to Bush in the last two weeks of the campaign.

Here's the killer:

Half are independents, more than double their proportion among decided voters. But, as with decided voters, more persuadables are Democrats than Republicans. Four in 10 supported Clinton's candidacy this spring.

"She got cheated, I thought," said Chris Markle, 25, who's from Schenectady, N.Y., and now leans toward McCain. "I'm kind of upset about that."

Click to expand...

Yep. In effect, it makes Hillary the Ross Perot of this election.

*shudders*

what a terrifying mental image.

Hence the comparison to Ross Perot, who took 19% of the electoral vote in 1992.

So . . . let's look at some real numbers, again from the RCP averages:

Click to expand...

blacbird, this isn't an article from the RCP. It's an independent poll from Yahoo and the Associated Press that has nothing to do with the RCP. Amazingly enough, not everything has to go through the RCP.

The numbers in this poll are just as real and as credible as any from the RCP. It's just from a different source. That's one of the great things about politics--we have lots of different avenues for source material.

blacbird said:

Okay, then, this, from the Yahoo article:



Probably the most meaningful thing in it, as it didn't anywhere cite things like the number or kinds of people interviewed, the margin of error, etc. And I'm not disparaging it, or anything else. I use RCP precisely because they collect data from dozens of polling sources, and are scrupulous about reporting real numbers. I got on you a little about your post in the other thread primarily because you didn't really do that, and when I did even a small amount of digging, I was able to find out the real reality of the thing. Which was that it didn't really say what you purported it to say.

caw

Click to expand...

I beg your pardon?

blacbird, I don't give a rat's patootey what source material you use. I really don't. Quite frankly, as I've been zapped for overuse of source citation in this forum before, I'm at a loss here for what this post is implying. So is the new rule that only blacbird's sources are credible? If so, I hope somebody lets me know so that I can adjust my posting habits accordingly.

Bullshit.

Don't make any assumptions on what I purport to say on anything. Don't make any assumptions about the 'real' reality. For every source you list, I can find and cite one that says the direct opposite. The last time I checked, this wasn't softcore P&CE according to blacbird.

I don't have a problem with that at all. I'll admit that a 1 percentage point difference between 4 points and a usual +/- 3 point margin of error isn't a statistical tie. Would you like me to edit my post so that it reads, "As of this morning, Ohio is one point away from a statistical tie?"

I'd be more than happy to do so if that will appeal to your sensibilities of softcore posting accuracy, blacbird.

Polls really are a bunch of phooey when you get right down to it. Nobody knows what will happen on the 4th. Hell, we probably won't have a clue what happened on Election Day for three or four weeks after the election.

Whatever, blacbird.

This is softcore, not hardcore. I believe I mentioned in the first post we had about this tiresome and nonending debate that I heard the poll results on the news this morning. I'd really appreciate it if you stopped pursuing me all over the forum so that you can attempt to make some obscure point about how I choose to post. I posted that in context within a conversation, not to get into a debate with you over whether the poll was accurate. Besides, I'm sure that the local news doesn't use a source that meets with your approval.

And I'm quite familiar with the procedure and research necessary to cite numbers, thank you. I can assure you that I am very well aware of what I am citing when I choose to cite anything. Occasionally, I'll even cite RCP just to piss you off.

If you want to complain about my posting habits, please do so in PM. Thanks.