So, we’ve gone back and forth on the validity of different pollsters, different methodologies, and polls in general. Mileage obviously does vary, as does the over-analysis of virtually every aspect of the numbers. As a self-proclaimed ‘poll junkie’, I know how it feels.
Here’s my question, appropriately enough with a poll. How many BMGers have have actually been called by a reputable pollster during this or another election cycle? Was it a live person or a robot? Who’s been push polled?
Personally, I’ve never gotten the call. This makes sense as I, like a lot of people my age, only have a cell phone. I also don’t list my number on my voter registration.
Please share widely!
I think the call came on Monday, Oct. 2 but it may have been a day or two later. The caller said she worked for a group called Western Research. Based on the information they were seeking, I was guessing that the poll was sponsored by the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, but I suppose it could have been the other team.
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There was an initial question to find out how likely I am to vote in November (scale of 1 to 9, I said 9). There was another question that asked something about the Senate, then they asked me whether I strongly approved or disapproved of Bill Frist, and then the same question about Mark Foley. I almost said, “He was a congressman, not a Senator,” but I realized they were probably just trying to determine whether I followed news out of Washington, D.C.
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Then she asked me a series of questions about the issues that matter the most to me (I said Iraq), and then what we teachers would call “open response” questions about whether I had heard of any news stories involving the U.S. Senate. I mentioned the legislation about treatment of enemy combatants.
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At this point, her script or her lack of fluency in English got in the way. She was asking whether I had heard news about Democratic Senators, and then about Republican Senators. I felt I was responding to her questions, and she either didn’t like my responses or didn’t recognize them as responses, and would ask the same question over again. I had someplace to go, so I finally told her that the interview was getting too irritating and hung up.
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If anyone knows more than I do about poll methodology, I would be curious to know whether there is any concern about people whose responses are not understood, or who get irritated with the interviewer. You could call it the Heisenberg Irritation Principle, or something.
Great resource for “poll junkies”: http://electioncentr…
On the TPM site…
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I want to know, historically, where the undecideds have been and how they’ve tracked. The last two polls I’ve seen says the undecideds (“DK”) are about 6 percent. OK. Where were they last week? Is that a bigger number? Or smaller?