<p>A new Zogby pool has Clinton losing to any of the top tier Republicans. Read an analysis of the poll before you jump for joy or drop into depression.</p>
<p>A new Zogby Interactive poll, conducted using volunteers over the internet, has produced some odd results for trial heats involving Senator Clinton against all four top Republican opponents. What makes this especially odd is that the results are not equally unusual for Obama.
This poll was reported by Reuters’ John Whitesides, who also reports on the Reuters sponsored polling Zogby does by conventional telephone methods. The similarities in the reports make it hard to tell, but apparently these results are not part of the Reuters-Zogby polling partnership, but are independent work by Zogby Interactive. Likewise Zogby’s website posts the results without mention of who sponsored the work, so presumably Reuters did not.
The Zogby poll was conducted 11/21-26/07 with 9150 respondents who had agreed to take part in Zogby’s online polling. This is not a normal random sample of the population. More on the technical issues below.
The hugely surprising result is that the Zogby poll finds Sen. Hillary Clinton losing to all four top Republicans in head-to-head trial heats. What makes that surprising is that Clinton LEADS all four of those Republicans in the trend estimates based on all other polling by between 3.8 and 11.6 points. Zogby also has Clinton losing to Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee by 5 points. There are too few Clinton-Huckabee trial heat polls from other organizations for me to compute a trend estimate for that comparison. </p>
<p>A poll is a poll. This one is no more or less “accurate” than any others cited on any political threads in this forum. This one may not be sponsored by Reuters. Gee, I wonder why Reuters would challenge it ? </p>
<p>I’m a Zogby responder and I don’t think this particular methodology can be taken seriously. Although I love the results!!! Brilliant point sjmom about the closeness of the elections.</p>
<p>She might lose Iowa as many are predicting, but I am afraid we are going to wake up one Wednesday in Nov, 2008 and find that Hillary is our new president…sigh. I just don’t believe that poll.</p>
<p>If these are internet “volunteers”, then they are more likely to be male and Republican. This reminds me of the telephone polls that showed Dewey defeating Truman. The problem was that people with telephones at the time were much more likely to be Republican.</p>
<p>“A poll is a poll. This one is no more or less “accurate” than any others cited on any political threads in this forum.”</p>
<p>A poll is NOT a poll.</p>
<p>A poll with reliable results uses random sampling. Otherwise, what you have what is known in the trade as garbage.</p>
<p>Danas: Good point, but wrong election. The poll that used telephone directories (and auto registrations) was the 1936 Literary Digest poll. In 1948, the pollsters missed the Dewey-Truman race because they stopped polling too early, since they assumed that once people had a preference, they wouldn’t change it. But support for a minor party candidate (Henry Wallace) collapsed and Truman picked up his votes and other voters also moved to Truman in the last week of the campaign (showing that any poll 11 months before the election is not terribly predictive).</p>
<p>I wonder what would make you come to that conclusion? I don’t consider the 'net to be either particularly male, or conservative.</p>
<p>I was doing my skeptical BA-in-social-sciences glance at the methodology and started wondering if polling can actually work any more. Using random telephone numbers as a proxy for random sampling would seem to have more and more problems as people use cells as their primary phone service, and ruthlessly screen calls with Caller ID. I think the polling companies are on thin ice – if their goal is to actually conduct a statistically relevant random sample. It’s a brave new world…</p>
<p>Don’t shoot me, but I still believe she will be the nom for dems. She has Bill’s followers + chance of first woman prez. Unfortunately other great candidates can’t compete b/c she had an automatic name recognition. That being said, I think she has made one huge mistake that will rally repubs. —here will be the ad…Gen. Petraeus. Now with the numbers being up how will she defend her doubts. Bill Richardson would have a stronger fight against the repubs. (worked in Clinton camp, gov. dealing with illegals and u.n.)</p>
<p>As far as polling, we need to re-think how to do it correctly, many people under 30 no longer have a land line, (only cell) thus the data may be skewed.</p>
<p>I can’t reference this, but I think I’ve seen it noted several places in print that men use the internet (as a group) more often than women do.<br>
I think higher levels of education also correlate with internet use, and Republicans (as a group) have higher levels of education than Democrats. Of course plenty of Democrats are highly educated, likely more PhDs than Republicans. But blue collar, minority and high school dropouts are more likely to be Democrats- minority and high school dropouts heavily so.
I can see plenty of young heavy internet users voting Obama, and to the extent they are male, preferring him to Hillary.</p>
<p>Didn’t the geniuses at Zogby still predict a victory by Flippity-Flop Kerry mere hours before the urns were closed? </p>
<p>As far as the “surprise,” anyone with an AOL account has become used to see how poorly Hillary fares against Republicans, and this despite AOL’s massive and utterly repetitive attempts to support Hillary through the use of leading questions. While HRH Clinton has armies of supporters, she seems unable to shake away the image of “most hated” candidate. </p>
<p>Too bad for her that not everyone drinks the firewater!</p>
<p>Don’t you think that Bill is only running to position himself as the VP candidate. Picking Bill would be a really smart choice for Hillary, as it may land “lost” voters in her camp. A ticket with the first woman as Prez and a Southerner minority candidate for VP does have some appeal, even for people who despise HRH.</p>
<p>No candidate runs for vp. Plus he worked for them( he would already be vetted) it would better for him not to run so there is less political fodder they would have to defend. Secondly he is not considered a southerner. They need someone from the SE not the SW. Yes they were originally from Ark., but they turned their back by setting up shop in NY. She needs a S.E. V.P. I bet that she will look for a vp from TX or FL, this way she has CA, NY, TX or FL and hope for OHIO.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t trust any of those polls, they are most likely statistically untrue. I’m pretty sure the demographic of people voting in these online pools is quite different from real life voters. Many GOP supporters may be tossing in their vote too. There are many contributing factors. For what it’s worth I hope it comes down to hilary vs rudy.</p>
<p>Considering that it is a somewhat unusual population, I would not think much of the poll. I actually think Hillary will win in 2008; that is, if ron paul doesn’t get the nominee. Anyway, the country has a war that the majority doesn’t support and a republican president for the last 8 years. You do the math. A democrat will win.</p>
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