07/08/2002 Archived Entry: "Polling numbers battle is about turnout"

Last weeks article in Roll Call, Method Men Numbers Game, is one of their best in a while, even though Chris Cillizza does screw up and say Pryor was the Gov of Oklahoma. He does a good job of exposing Ed Goeas, president of The Tarrance Group, and front-man for the Battleground polling outfit. He used to have a decent reputation, but has become corrupt in the past few cycles. Battleground was a joke in 2000, even Celinda Lake disavowed their numbers. On CNN, her election eve prediction forecasted a totally different (and much more accurate) result. This article gives some ideas as to how he is pushing down the Democratic numbers, while as a percentage, inflating the Republican numbers. This was behind Zogby getting Florida right in 2000, while nearly all the others, including Goeas, were wrong.

"When you see steady disagreement among pollsters there is probably something more fundamental at work about the assumptions being made in the sample," said Secrest. Goeas outlined two ways of predicting the black vote percentage: examining census results or referring to exit polls from past elections.

Blacks make up nearly 16 percent of the Arkansas population, according to the 2000 Census, but Goeas noted that exit polling revealed that they typically comprise 10 percent of the electorate in a presidential year and 8 percent in a midterm election.

Secrest noted that "we tend to err on the conservative side, especially in the South," when predicting black turnout. Even so, Goeas believes that "If you really get into these surveys, you will find the biggest difference is between race percentage."

And you'll see this discrepancy in polling done by the partisan groups over and over, nearly everywhere in the nation now. Texas is a good example of really wide open guesswork this cycle. Frey has a really good demographic data from the 2000 Census numbers, especially to find out where latino and black growth is occurring.

Replies: 1 Comment

I wish the Mason-Dixon chaps poll the Arkansas race. Too much fraud over there, no doubt led by the master of all frauds, Ed Goeas.

Posted by G.C. Raj @ 07/08/2002 11:29 AM PST