Someone with a good amount of experience crunching poll numbers sent me an email challenging my skepticism of the sample of the latest poll. To review, I had written that the Pennsylvanians for Effective Government poll seemed flawed:
since 60+ percent of registered Dems are black and the poll had a sample that was 50-50 black/white. I suspect Fattah would have been closer to the 31-33 that he got before if they had sampled differently.
The email I received (and I'll keep the sender anonymous since he didn't express that I could identify him) said:
hey Dan - just read a comment from you on your blog - it is true that most estimates have the democratic party to be about 60% minority - but not black - here's how to get to that number - the city is 42% white and 44% black - a couple political consultants and myself recently crunched these numbers and came up with these numbers for the democratic party 48% black, 39% white, 9% latino, 4% asian....
but .... performance is key, not demographics. in terms of performance most pollsters and numbers crunchers - including those working on the various mayoral campaigns i've talked to - think on election day the votes will be closer to 46% to 48% white - as Philly white voters consistently turn out better than black voters (only exception was for Goode v Rizzo). of course, those speculation adjustments are where polling numbers fall apart occasionally.
all that to say, I didnt find PEG's sample to be that much off - which surprised me cuz their pollster's crap and they've got suspiscious agendas, but their numbers look like several campaigns numbers i've seen
Hope that helps for all you political junkies (like me) who are out there.
Comments (3)
Hello. And Bye.
Posted by XRumerTest | May 3, 2009 4:34 PM
Hello. And Bye.
Posted by XRumerTest | May 3, 2009 11:53 PM
Hello. And Bye.
Posted by XRumerTest | September 18, 2009 11:59 AM