Reply #25: Memo to DSB - "close"

[Frodo]

The polls in question balance their Republican/Democrat turnout expectations differently. But there can only be ONE such balance. Re-calculate either poll to have comparable R/D balance and you have very similar numbers. That's what I meant by "internals".

That "six point gap" is also possibly the bracketing of a 3% MOE with other polls falling in between.


The WashPost poll had a 46/46 tie a little less than a month ago and moved to a 48/46 lead for Bush right before the election. Was this evidence of the Edwards pick having a negative bounce? No, they changed the number of Republicans and Democrats in the poll to relatively overweight Republicans. There was very little movement of how many republicans liked Bush or how many Democrats like Kerry or the relative balance of independents.

NOW they have gone back to roughly the weighting they had a month ago. The results? Over the last month, the combined "bounce" for picking a VP plus the convention totaled 2 points.

This is not the stuff of celebration.

Nor is it cause for great fear. I have said polls matter little at this point for the last couple months. Consistently whether Bush is moving several points ahead or Kerry is.

Wait for the debates. The foils are barely crossed at this point.