Legal Commentary

How To Look At Polls - Part II

By Big Tent Democrat

By Big Tent Democrat

Previous installment here. The new Time PA poll says Clinton by 8. But let's put it through our poll analysis system. More . . .

First, this is Time's first PA poll. Thus, the Time headline, "Clinton Hangs Onto Lead In PA" is utterly misleading. Time never had any data to say Clinton was in the lead to hang onto. But let's get to our analysis.

Time writes:

Clinton leads among white Democratic women: 56% to Obama's 25% [19% Undecided]. More evenly split, by contrast, are white male Democrats, who prefer Clinton by a narrower margin of 44% to 36%[20% undecided].

I will now apply the SUSA turnout model and assume an Obama 85-15 win among African Americans. Assigning undecideds on the same proportions as the Time polling we get, surprise - Clinton 56%, Obama 44%.

What does this tell us? Again, that the key to most of these polls is expected turnout. Time clearly expects African Americans to be more than 14% of the vote in Pennsylvania. They seem to be projecting around a 19% African American vote. Are they right? I do not think so myself. But we will see.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on April 10, 2008 (boomark / email).