Reply #45: also copied from the other thread: not so obvious

[OnTheOtherHand]

What do you mean when you say "the sample is different"? The NES is a national survey, not an exit poll, and the 2000 vote question was asked in the pre-election wave. There seems to be no difference between reported 2002 voters and non-voters in their response.*

Similar result in the 2004 NES, again in the pre-election wave, although the gap is only 4 points. (These are both unweighted results, by the way, just in case weighting is of the devil. The weighted gaps are wider.)

* Just to clarify what we are talking about, this is people in 2002 -- some of whom will go on to vote in the 2002 election, some of whom won't -- being asked who they voted for in 2000. And then, ditto, replacing "2002" with "2004." Certainly different samples than the 2004 exit poll, but I don't see why they aren't pertinent to the interpretation of TIA's 43/37 result.