Comments: Onwards to Perfection
The following from Newsweek...why such a difference?
After weeks of increasingly violent news from Iraq, presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts now leads the president in a two-way trial heat by seven points (50 percent to 43 percent), according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll
Posted by Outlandrr at April 11, 2004 07:17 PM
These numbers look much better. Though probably all still +/- 1-2 pts off the real dailies.
Beware though: For the 2000 election, Rasmussen was way off, showing a 9 point Bush lead in their final tracking poll. Clearly big problems with their sample or weighting. Hopefully, they have made some improvements in the last few years.
Here are the final tracking poll numbers from 2000:
Rasmussen -- Bush +9.1
Voter.com -- Bush +5
Gallup -- Bush +2
Zogby -- Gore +2
W Post -- Bush +3
ABC -- Bush +3
Reality -- Gore +0.5
Part of the inaccuracy may have been due to failing to capture the late-breaking "Bush arrested for drunk driving" story. But Rasmussen was the worst of the bunch.
Posted by Tom McDonald at April 12, 2004 12:19 PM
Tom McDonald wrote elsewhere: "In general, it's impossible to determine the daily numbers from a rolling-average poll without at least one known daily number to start from."
In fact, for a series of 3-day rolling averages (as in the case of the Rasmussen polls), you would, in principle, need 2 additional constraints, e.g., 2 daily numbers or 2 weekly averages. Otherwise you would be trying to solve for n unknowns given only n-2 linear equations. [In general, for a series of p-day rolling averages, you would need p-1 additional constraints.]
Since Rasmussen now appears to be releasing weekly averages as well, you're in business. All you need are the numbers for a two-week period (12 3-day rolling averages and 2 weekly averages) giving you 14 linear equations in 14 unknowns. The rest is textbook algebra.
Posted by Lara Inis at April 21, 2004 03:14 AM
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