Will polling be the same after Thursday?
April 28th, 2008
Is YouGov vs Ipsos-MORI the other big battle in the London election?
In the picture above are the men who are probably the best known pollsters in the country who, in their individual ways have made major contributions to the way political opinion is tested in the UK. And both of them are on collision course over the projected outcome of the London Mayoral election.
On the left is Peter Kellner who was a political journalist specialising in polling who then went on to become one of the founders of the YouGov company - for which he is still its public face. On the right is Bob Worcester - the founder of MORI and the man who has probably had most impact of anybody in the industry in a career that in 2009 will will go into its fifth decade.
They are both, incidentally, great company and are absolutely fascinating to listen to.
But for Thursday’s election they are calling it differently. The latest from Kellner’s YouGov has an 11% Boris lead on first preferences - while on Friday Worcester’s MORI had Ken 3% in the lead. Unless there are dramatic changes in their final polls one of them is going to have egg on his cheek.
The Mori approach is based on telephone or face to face interviews and their samples are weighted to make sure they represent the demographic profile of the country, or in the latest surveys, just London. There is no attempt, as all the other pollsters do, to try to ensure that samples are politically balanced by asking interviewees how they voted last time and weighting accordingly. In recent years the firm has introduced a fierce turnout filter basing its headline numbers only on those saying they are certain to vote.
YouGov operate with its “polling panel” - tens of thousands of individuals on whom it has a mass of data so that it can weight by party identifier and what newspaper, if any, that they read. Everything is done online and those who fill in the questionnaires are paid to do it. A big question is just how representative of voters as a whole their panels are. What we do know from the data that’s made available is that their members appear to be much more likely to vote than the population as a whole.
YouGov has the reputation of being the “magnifier” of trends. In 2004 it was the first to pick up the rise of UKIP ahead of the Euro elections but then went on to over-state them.
In the Mayoral race YouGov has the benefit of doing quite well in 2004. It slightly over-stated Ken’s lead on first preferences but was within one per cent on its final split. No other pollster has carried out London Mayoral polls with the same level of accuracy.
For betting click on the panel below.
Mike Smithson
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What happens if they’re both wrong by a similar margin? Ie, Boris wins with 52%?
Cancel the election.
We can settle it by getting Peter and Bob to have an arm-wrestle. Winner takes all.
I’m finding the YouGov vs IPSOS/MORI battle even more interesting than the actual election. I think it will do YouGov enormous damage if they’re wrong. ‘m not sure MORI has much of a reputation to damage.
My money is on BoJo and I want YG to be right but if they are magnifying the outcome it will mean they have problems even if they get the winner correct. If Boris just scrapes it then I think YG will be damaged.
1. Dur - you gov will get panned by the Guardian because it favours the Conservatives…
Sam Coates tracks down McCavity
http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2008/04/more-on-our-mis.html
Boris will win - and YouGov will have overreported the margin by which he does win.
Boris will win by 53%/47% if it’s a good night, 51%/49% if it’s a bad night.
And MORI will have le ouef sur la visage..
540 in previous thread. I don’t think there are many parallels between Brown’s position now and Wilson’s in 1967 after devaluation. Wilson had won elections in both the PLP and the country - he had led Labour to its second-biggest electoral victory only 18 months before. His rivals were as suspiscious of each other as they were of him, and the party was delicately poised between left and right, an ideological divide which (it was believed) only Wilson could hold together. Brown has none of Wilson’s legitimacy, the Party has no great ideological divide, and no-one who has watched Brown’s peformance over the past year could seriously suppose that he is better fitted for prime ministerial office than a number of other senior figures in the Party (Straw, Miliband, Johnson to name but three).
If it ends up 51.5% : 48.5% in Boris’s favour, then neither will have been any more accurate than the other, but Yougov will have the bragging rights, because they’ll have picked the winner.
In fact, whichever of them comes closest, people are only going to remember the one that picked the winner.
Can we at least now accept that despite relative success in 2005, the pollsters are not that accurate. Yes, one of them may get it almost exactly right, but that will be most likely as much to do with luck as polling skill.
Mike I recall Bob Worcester answering questions on pbc not that long ago.
Perhaps you could extend an invitation to both Bob Worcester and Peter Kellner to answer questions from pbc posters shortly after the result of the London Mayor is known?
@10:
The problem with “shortly after” is that neither of them will have a proper answer to What Went Wrong?
I imagine that’ll take months to decide.
If YouGov are right and Boris takes London handsomely, the other locals are abysmal for Labour and the Sunday’s are full of doom and gloom for Gordon, I’m sure that the Downing Street Bunker will be happy to know that Tony Blair will be making a visit to the HoC next week to remind Labour MPs of just what they lost.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/politics/2008/04/tony-blair-retu.html
Also on ToL Comment Central has posted President Bush’s speech to the Correspondents to show us that even when it comes to very unpopular leaders the USA does things better than us - Bush faces all the press, Gordon drops out of Today & 5 Live.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2008/04/president-bush.html
My abiding memory of Bob Worcester was him calling the last US presidential election for Kerry. Suspect he may keep a low profile on election night.
Anyone remember Bob Worcester calling the 2004 US election for John Kerry. I went to sleep soon after that then woke up to find that Bush had taken Florida and almost certainly won. Thanks for that one, Bob.
I maintain that pollsters aren’t half as accurate as they say they are.
On the evidence of 2004, we mustn’t entirely exclude the possibility that the pollsters are all very significantly wrong, including the possibility that YouGov significantly understates Boris’s lead or that Mori significantly understates Ken’s lead (the first, I think, is a bit more likely than the second, judging by the 2004 result).
I shall be looking closely at both turn-out and at the Ken-Boris combined total when judging which pollsters have performed well, as well as at the absolute result.
I hope that Yougov demands a full and frank retraction from the lazy journalist scum at the Guardian if (when) they are vindicated.
The behaviour of some of Kenneth’s shills there has been unacceptable, and from the perspective of reputational damage to Yougov, libellous.
Meanwhile at the Guardian they have countered the YouGov numbers with this .. “Meanwhile, a separate survey on the voting intentions of London’s women put the mayor 12% ahead of his Conservative rival..After the distribution of second preference votes, the Ipsos Mori poll put Livingstone on 56% and Johnson on 44%.”
This is not a new poll but data from the Unison poll last week. What the paper fails to tell us is that Boris was winning amongst men.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/28/london08.london
12, presumably Cameron will thank the PM for turning up to PMQs…. if he does turn up, of course.
17. One of Livingstone’s camp said today: “This is a farcical poll which will do deep damage to the reputation of YouGov when the actual result is announced.”
Ouch ! The gloves are off…
re 14. I think that YouGov’s foray into the 2004 White House race also had Kerry winning. If only?
@18:
I reckon some spin doctor has ‘accidentally’ locked him in Briefing Room A till the election’s over.
Hopefully, the 2010 election.
7 - Good points. But, against that, Brown has a claim as the strategic architect of New Labour’s domestic policy - a key element in previous election victories - as well as what’s left of his economic reputation. If the leadership issue is re-opened, then both personal rivalries and ideological divisions would be unavoidable. But the key reasons against, which didn’t apply ro Wilson, is that there are no real stirking alternatives. Uniting behind Straw, in cold light, is no more reasonable than uniting behind Brown, and he has less support in the party if it really comes to the crunch. Nor will the really loyal Brownites forgive any successor: being mostly concentrated in safe seats, they wouldn’t mind a bloodbath if it got rid of their enemies.
17, hahaha. You might as well say:
“Amongst French-speaking lefthanded cat owners Ken is leading with 73% of first preferences.”
You can’t cherrypick demographics (excepting those that define voting ability obviously) to try and bolster your case.
Perhaps the Guardian would be more supportive if the company changed its name to U-Guv?
We know that YouGov’s panel are more likely to be politically aware than the people who’re surveyed by the other pollsters. That’s the simplest reason I can see for their ability to spot trends so quickly.
What if that political awareness means that, perhaps, YG panelists are more likely to swing towards the tories than the population as a whole?
It’s fifteen years since we’ve seen such a dramatic change in the political tide. YouGov’s been around for, what, seven? So their methods haven’t been tested in anything like this situation before.
The rules of thumb we have - “the pollster showing the lowest Labour score is most likely to be correct” may be completely wrong now that they’re showing substantial Tory leads.
(On the other hand, the YG polls immediately before the last two sets of local elections had [small-ish] Tory leads, and, if anything, they both underestimated the swing away from Labour).
My money (pittance though it is) is still on Boris, and I’ve a feeling that YouGov will prove to be the most accurate pollster for this election. But I *can* understand why some people with greater investment in the outcome are feeling rather nervous!
14,20 In the days leading up to the election, most pollsters actually put Bush ahead, correctly. But a whole series of half-baked exit polls appeared to give Kerry the lead (results were being released even when people were still queuing up to vote in the States in question).
George Galloway’s been a naughty boy I see:
http://www.interfunt.com/pics/beebspazz.jpg
re 20) Mike I stumbled upon a link from pb.com yesterday from ‘04 - I believe a number of US pollsters were calling for Kerry?
Query directed at the spreadbetting regulars on here:
On the previous thread I stated, as a plain staement of fact, that at 4:07 Spreadfair were quoting Boris at 19.8 Sell and 19.8 Buy. In otherwords there was zero spread: the prices were identical.
Peter from Putney then effectively called me a liar, and then called me stupid.
I am not a liar, and I am not daft. I know for a fact that I saw 19.8 - 19.8. I didn’t believe it myself, so i looked and looked again at my screen, but it was there right in front of my eyes. I am 100% definitely certain.
So, I have a very simple question: have any of you, ever, seen an identical buy and sell on Spreadfair before? How did it happen? Did someone press the wrong button at that moment, like Mike did once?
17 - My God, that’s utterly pathetic from the Guardian (the all-women sub-sample bit).
Labour seem to be doomed at the moment. This London election could be seen as a high point for Labour in the future even if they fail to win what should be a racing certainty for Labour.
Labour are listing very badly and it is lucky for Nick Clegg that Brown looks to be taking the brunt of the doom and gloom because Clegg seems to have a rosy political future behind him and not in front of him. I do believe that Nick Clegg has shown almost Neil Kinnock levels of permformance in his brief period as an (Minor party) opposition leader. This set of elections may actually be a starting point for the complete unravielling of not only Brown’s leadership but Clegg’s as well.
23. there was plenty of demographic cherry-picking on the last thread by people trying to imply that asians are electoral cheats
29. on a matched betting site of any description, identical prices should be impossible by definition. The only way this could have happened as you say it did is a temporary bug/glitch on the server.
All the major polls have claimed Boris and Ken will each get over 40%, and that the top 3 candidates will share over 95% on roughly a 60% turnout.
All three of these numbers are so wrong as to be implausible. I don’t know how they measure ‘certainty to vote’ beyond asking - maybe a weighting on demographic likelihood to vote? - but assuming that likely to vote is sprectral (ie not binary or option-limited, so that you can rank all participants on likelihood to vote), by only counting the (eg) 40% most likely to vote, it would be interesting to see how that affected the scores.
At the moment, all the figures are implausible. I would suggest political-affiliation weighting, demographic weighting, *and* ordering respondants by likelihood to vote (based on their claims, their demographic, and any other relevent factor), and then only reporting a plausible (range) of turnouts.
ie If turnout is 30% - Ken 31%, Boris 35%, Paddick 19%, Others 15%
If turnout is 35% - Ken 33%, Boris 34%, Paddick 17%, Others 16%
If turnout is 40% - Ken 35%, Boris 31%, Paddick 16%, Others 18%
Until they can make the vote shares, cumulative vote shares, and turnout estimates plausible, they are all just wrong in completely different ways.
32. As I predicted - pointing out facts would get someone branded a racist. Pathetic.
The only way anyone could be “certain to vote” is if they were actually in the polling booth already.
34 - I’m not sure I’d be so dogmatic as you about the plausibility, but you have made my point much more eloquently than I did.
I wonder if the public was polled they would see a similarity in Nick Clegg’s public impact and that of Neil Kinnock. Both leaders made a splash but for all the wrong reasons!
29 Stuart - i’ve never seen it and it would make me blink if I did. As Ed indicated, it is in theory impossible, except as some technical glitch.
33.
Thanks ed. Have you ever witnessed identical prices yourself, on any of these spreadbetting sites? Even if only for a few seconds?
32 The implication was that large-scale postal voting fraud in this country is largely confined to areas with large populations of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin, which is pretty much borne out by the Joseph Rowntree report. Many people from those communities are, as it happens, extremely unhappy at being effectively disenfranchised through fraud.
Martin Day - is the the love that dare not speak its name? Another wistful comment about Nick Clegg- but he really won’t run away with you, you know- be brave little soldier…
@42:
Come now, he clearly said he only ‘hopes’ not to cheat on his wife. Maybe that means he’s keeping his options open for the right offer.
42. No he is more likely to run away with his political solemate Neil Kinnock!
Anyway i am not g*y!
40. I haven’t seen that - but I have seen lots of technical glitches! so wouldn’t rule it out.
Nick Clegg wonders if Immigrant invasion is affecting Brtisih children’s grades:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23480919-details/Influx+of+migrants+affecting+grades+of+British+pupils%2C+warns+Lib+Dem+leader/article.do
An odd statement for a party in favour of invasion immigration.
17. Why is everyone surprised that the Guardian is biassed?
Admittedly, the Spinning For Ken is unusually risible - but the Groaniad is just doing what it always does: seeking to succour and titillate the prejudices of its readers.
The Guardian is just the Daily Mail for lefties.
31 Martin predicts total Conservative hegemony.
37 - Thanks, I didn’t mean to sound quite so tub-thumpery!
On a serious note, there is clearly a relationship between predicted turnout and predicted vote share. We know people lie when asked their certainty to vote. Why don’t we have any system for accurately estimating vote share, and then feeding that into voting intention figures? Have any of the pollsters tried this, Mike?
37 - Thanks, I didn’t mean to sound quite so tub-thumpery!
On a serious note, there is clearly a relationship between predicted turnout and predicted vote share. We know people lie when asked their certainty to vote. Why don’t we have any system for accurately estimating vote share, and then feeding that into voting intention figures? Have any of the pollsters tried this, Mike?
.
42. Mind you Paddick said on question time he was “behind” nick clegg and “was at one with him” - so you never know.
I don’t think people necessarily lie when asked about certainty to vote.
If I was asked whether I was going to work tomorrow, I would say “yes, certainly” - but the stats say that in fact my chances are more like 99%. For a date next week, it might be lower than that in reality. And going to work consistently is incentivised a helluva lot more for me than voting is, and prioritised higher as a result.
48. They will be firing machine guns in the air on thursday night at tory HQ!
Labour on the otherhand will be firing the guns at each other and more than likely in a circle! 
51 so it is jealousy, is it? Nick spends all his time with Brian, and never seems to have time for you?
29
Stuart, I have seen it during busy football matches and must be due to a slow server. Normally bid/ask at same value matches the each other and the exchange takes place.
On the LSE when bid is higher than ask, they supspend the stock and have an auction. This is how the session always starts and ends with FTSE100 stocks. It only happens during the session when there is big news such as HBOS recently going down very fast.
re 50 I have suggested a major research study involving taking polling responses and comparing them with the actual marked register that’s available after elections. So you could verify what proportion of the certains actually voted.
The general theory is that Tory certains are more valuable than Labour ones - another reason to back Boris.
New ARG Primary poll for North Carolina :
Clinton 42% .. Obama 52%
http://americanresearchgroup.com/pres08/ncdem8-704.html
New AP/Ipsos Presidential Poll :
McCain 41% .. Clinton 50%
McCain 44% .. Obama 46%
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iP6aoeuUCqIEo5DHDOCMLHyUOCpgD90AUCM80
Mike - I’m not sure what a Kerry Presidency would have done. The damage of going into Iraq was already done.
56 This would be helfpul, although there is no guarantee that the relationship would be consistent over time.
New SUSA Primary poll for Indiana :
Clinton 52% .. Obama 43%
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=fbedb864-ec9d-47ab-87f2-c41203a87585&q=45558
55. EDW
Thanks! So, I am not going da-looly after all
There was quite a bit of activity on the London Major market over at Spreadfair today (unsurprisingly), and the prices did keep changing automatically as I was watching, so my browser was working fine. However, I doubt that there was as much trading going on simultaneously as a big footie game! But I don’t know how heavy the traffic on these servers is in different markets?
29 55
Sometimes in stocks when trading is very very busy you get “backwardation” : when the price to buy is less than the price to sell… It is very rare for obvious reasons and usually only with Market Maker only stocks.
All UK SETS stocks (not just FTSE 100) stocks start and end the day with an auction. And as EDW says, if there is a risk of a disorderly market trading stops and an auction then ensues.
Happened twice to one of my stocks today: closed up 8%.:-)
62. presumably activity in the market itself is not so important here as the overall load on spreadfair servers themselves - i.e. a big footy match going on at the same time would make the server busy
57 - Its ARG… the SUSA Indiana poll is interesting, isnt that a bit of a change from their last poll of the state?
Latest Gallup Presidential and Primary trackers :
McCain 44% .. Clinton 47%
McCain 45% .. Obama 45%
Clinton 46% .. Obama 47%
http://www.gallup.com/poll/106855/Gallup-Daily-Race-Still-Close-Obama-47-Clinton-46.aspx
61. Very bad polls for Obama.
I wonder if his bubble is burst. And yet, the weird thing is, I can’t see a way back for Hillary - at least one that doesn’t split the whole Democrat party in two, and leave behind a swampfull of bitterness.
The primary system is rubbish. Entertaining, but rubbish. Its protracted nature allows far too much time for positions to entrench - and serious divisions to develop.
So, what we have is that YouGov tend to overstate trends, and everyone else overstates Labour, which points to a comfortable win for Boris, though not by an immense margin.
65 Ben. No, the figures are the same as the early April poll. Another point Obama only 76% with AA - Too low.
….
Earlier the commission forecast that the Ú.K. public deficit was set to swell from 2.7% of gross domestic product last year to 3.3% in 2008 and 2009, breaching an E.U. limit of 3%.
Under E.U. rules, the U.K. would have to commit to plan to wrestle its deficit back down to the 3% limit. Ends
70 Odd cut off. It should have said:
(AFP)–European Union Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said Monday he would formally criticize the U.K. after forecasting that its public deficit would break E.U. rules in 2008…….
Earlier the commission forecast that the Ú.K. public deficit was set to swell from 2.7% of gross domestic product last year to 3.3% in 2008 and 2009, breaching an E.U. limit of 3%.
Under E.U. rules, the U.K. would have to commit to plan to wrestle its deficit back down to the 3% limit.
63
The opposite of backwardation is ‘contango’. Trump that, hah!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contango
[67] - This year was a bit of an exception, though, normally the primaries are over pretty quickly once they’ve started.
67 - We’re in uncharted territory, though. This has been the first time we’ve had such a long hard slog to the Convention in the modern media enviroment, including the Web, which increases the pressure on the candidates and encourages voter fatigue and cynicism.
I have shaved all my hair off and am walking around on my Knees today after doubting Don last night so this will be my only contribution to this thread but
57,58 we are now without doubt seeing a Clinton Bounce. What we have never seen before is one candidate or another do substantially better in match ups against McCain. If, collosal if, Clinton could hang onto a hypothetical 9% over McCain and Obama is on plus 2% watch the super delegates jump. I suspect its a short term bounce from the media coverage and will settle back but hse ain’t out of this yet.
46. Thats neither accidental or coincidental. If he wants to make a counterinuitive speech with some solutions after an election then fine. If he’s stoking that kind of anti immigrant stuff with no solutions two days before an election then god help us.
And with that i will go back into purdah
67 - The Democratic primary system is so fair in terms of PR that it will inevitably drag out for a long time if there are two well-matched runners - neither can open enough of a lead to (a) make the supers irrelevant and (b) persuade the other to drop out, because something scandalous might turn up.
The winner-takes-all nature of the Republican primaries speeds the process up somewhat.
I think the Democrats will look for a more compressed schedule next time.
73, 73. Agreed, but nonetheless the potential has always been there - for a long, wearying, mutually destructive primary campaign. The party bigwigs shoulda seen this coming.
There is absolutely no need for it either. It’s hardly beyond the wit of American Man to devise a six week primary season: get it all over and done with quickly: short sharp and satisfying, leaving time for the winner and loser to make up before the GE.
A short primary season would also be cheaper for the candidates and the parties.
I’m surprised neither the Dems nor the Reps have changed to such a system already.
Brrown is not alone in ducking difficult situations. Yvette Cooper will duck the debate on the 10p fiasco in the Commons tonight it seems.
How can they justify this disrespect to Parliament and their constituents.
The reality is that the compensation package is a mirage, a con, which Labour MPs are keeping quiet about until after the elections on Thursday, while they all mutter the unbelievable mantra that it has all blown over, all become a non-issue with the voters.
I have heard this twice today on the radio from different Labour party workers, and we were regaled with the same stuff by Nick Palmer not so long ago.
67 - It’s not that the primary system per se that is rubbish but the Democratic primary system is the problem. The proportional system is designed to elongate the process and the SDs are a hangover from the McGovern nomination. If they had a WTA system they would have a nominee by now (Hillary).
69 - Jack the Black vote may be too low but it doesn’t make a massive difference. If he got 86% of the Black vote it would only cut the lead from 9 to 7 points.
However these polls aren’t too bad. Indiana is still a mixed bag, and even if he loses there it likely only delays the inevitable. The AP poll is interesting. The Clinton lead in the RCP match-up averages will probably be larger than Obama’s for the first time in a long time. However the differential would have to be very large for it to make any difference.
However the nomination battle seems to have lost its damaging effects in the last couple of weeks. Look at the RCP averages - both the Democrats are on the up and McCain is going down. This is bad news for McCain. If he is behind while the Democrats are throwing mud at each other and are divided how does he have a chance once they are united behind a nominee?
78 radio 4 news had someone doing door to door in Nantwich and the responses suggested that the damage from 10p had already been done. Traditional Labour voters claiming they were now not sure who to vote for etc…. as you say the entire climbdown is a total con and will come back to bite brown for a third time come the pre budget announcement in october. if he is still there of course.
The ECB was pressed on the Euro by German unions and is going to come under more pressure to change its ultra hawkish stand on Euro interest rates with this turnaround”
“(Thomson Financial) - Consumer prices in Germany fell 0.2 percent in April from March and were up 2.4 percent from a year earlier, preliminary data from the Federal Statistics Office showed.”
Peta da Punta,
Clinton is at 19.1
http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/common/c_cd.jsp?conDetailID=177134
It is raising steadily ; at the end of the week, it might reach 25-30…
Just back in and first up well done to Don. I am sure he will accept why some (many) of us had to treat his tip with great caution, but having said that he has come up with an outstanding tip-off. Truly remarkable!
There may yet not be blood on the pollsters’ carpet.
If Boris now wins by around 5% as is more than possible then the two wings of this will probably say they were out but not by all that much. YouGov will have slightly exaggerated Boris, whilst the others will have done likewise to Ken and all pollsters will blame the turnout figures.
Nevertheless I don’t think we should let them off lightly. To have a 14% discrepancy in what is essentially a two horse race is really not very good, and I hope the organisations will have the humility to take a good hard look at what has gone so wrong here. Of course if one or other is much closer to it than the other then the losing pollster may cease to have any further credibility in this country.
69 - True Obama’s going to be getting 90% of the AA vote from here the the convention against Hillary… North Carolina should be a banker for him, but Indiana is going to be tricky and looks like being hard to predict Obama really needs a win there, not so much in order to clinch the nomination (I think its pretty much his at it is) but more to settle nerves within his own campaign and within the Democratic party as a whole.
The US polls for the Democrats seem scattered again - Gallup’s tracker showing them level, Rasmussen showing Obama ahead, but those two IN and NC polls both good for Clinton - IN because it’s a clear lead and NC because it’s not the expected Obama blow-out (but i rather share Jack W’s scepticism about the poll). Possibly more siginficant is that more polls are starting to suggest that Clinton has a better chance against McCain - if that becomes a more marked tendency, it’ll make the superdelegates pause because it’s always been a key part of Obama’s pitch.
If Clinton does get it, I think she simply *has* to offer the VP slot to Obama. Would that be enough to appease most of his supporters? The fact that he’s young enough to be her successor could help. I’m not sure the other way round works.
23: quite right too. I’m a left-handed French-speaker cat-lover and I’m voting Ken.
It seems extraordinary that the Guardian should go to such lengths in an attempt to flatter Ken’s apparent prospects. I can never remember a newspaper skewing its presentation to such an extent, let alone a so-called quality newspaper.
77 - I agree completely with those sentiments (strange, but there you go). However I think it fails to recognise the American psyche and system. States are powerful and the party committees are weak. There are vested interests which want to keep the current system and the national parties are not strong enough to impose a national plan. They also don’t want to offend states that are important. See the mess the Democrats are in over FL and MI. There are lots of theoretical plans for changes to the system but putting them into practice is another matter. Also the whole system is the product of a time before the mass media. It clearly needs to change but my guess is that it will be incremental.
85 do you get a vote?
78 in fact on Sunday, Nick was trying to say it was a storm in a teacup..(or words to that effect. Well let him think that if it pleases him, the reality is very different to what people are feeling out on the real world.
New labour are like Mr Micawber, desperately hoping that something will turn up.
Is there a book on whether Gordo will say that inflation is only 2% when he is interviewed on the Today programme on Wednesday, could he really be that foolish?
Meanwhile mortgages are getting even more difficult to obtain… Nationwide is is making it much more difficult to get one…
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23480826-
The Left commentariat are in complete denial. How they will cope I cannot think!
90 referred to 86 BTW.
79. They don’t need to go to a WTA system. They could keep PR but just compress the primary season drastically - into six or eight weeks. Even ten weeks would be better than these months of mudchucking. It’s like Passchendaele out there.
Ten weeks would still give the candidates time to debate and get round the various states.
And imagine the money that could be saved - and spent on a GE instead!
Why is the primary season so long anyway? I’m gonna guess, without Googling, that it is a hangover from centuries ago, before telephones and rapid transit, when it was literally impossible to campaign across a huge country like America in anything less than months.
Like I said, that’s my intuitive guess, and probably embarrassingly wrong.
As a Broxtowe resident, do you think you should be voting in the Mayoral Elections.
Don’t the current rules favour those with 2 homes and therefore the wealthy.
93. Sorry, should say that that point is addresed to Mr Palmer.
OBAMA WILL LOSE INDIANA
They will make him pay his ‘clung to’ comments.
The J. Wright affair is also far from over — Wright himself is now speaking racialist non-sens all over the NEWS:
– African-American is a right-brain ‘oral’ culture: more creative, musical, and spontaneous
–European is left-brain analytical culture
The debate last week was very very bad for Obama.
And because he does not want to debate anymore before the 6th, Clinton is accusing him of being a coward.
86.
“I can never remember a newspaper skewing its presentation to such an extent…”
er…have you read the Standard recently?
The Guardian’s support for Ken has been lukewarm at best. The Standard makes Pravda look positively Reithian.
J. WRIGHT COMMENTS
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/rev-wright-deli.html
VIDEO : http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/bad_americans/the_difference.php
You have to listen to it to believe it!
And remember: Obama is very very close to that guy. Now: how will it fare in the eyes of the super-Del?
82 Philippe - I assume your post is directed to me, in which case the customary £1 penalty applies, towards the next PB party, for confusing me with with PtP.
As regards your post, I think steadily is a very apt choice of words - I can’t see Hillary’s price going much higher, but we shall see.
92 - No, that is right. However it has become longer because of frontloading. Iowa is much earlier than it used to be, because it wants to stay first. There were even talks of NH moving to December 2007! Also, a shorter primary season would just mean a longer general. I remain convinced that as long as it is sorted out in June and the loser accepts the result it should be fine for the Dems. That is still 5 months before the General, plenty of time to unite.
On the match-up polls Obama is now +1.5% and Clinton is +3% against McCain. The AP poll compared to early Aprilshowed Obama’s lead going from 0 to 3 and Clinton’s from 3 to 9. Unless the average gap gets up to at least 5 points it shouldn’t worry Obama too much.
Also - no national polls (not including trackers) have had Obama behind in April. Clinton is currently only behind in the Rasmussen Tracker.
[77] - Not that I have any particular affection for the status quo, but I suspect that the problem here is that the small states, Iowa and New Hampshire, are protective of having an influence on the outcome. In a six-week schedule the attention of the candidates will gravitate more to the big states.
I agree that the current situation is ridiculous. Either the later states are irrelevant, or you have a six month campaign. Both are pretty bad.
96. Not true. The Guardian’s editorial may have been lukewarm about Ken - but the op-ed columns have been quite viciously antiBoris - Jonathan Freedland in particular.
And there have been endless articles about BoJo’s “racism” and “snobbery” on comment-is-free.
What’s worse, the Guardian’s news reporting has been tilted towards Ken, which is unforgivable in a supposedly serious newspaper.
As I said upthreead, I am glad to see the Guardian confirming what so many of us suspected, the Guardian is simply the Daily Mail for lefties. But the Guardian is worse, cause it pretends to be lofty and neutral, in its own uniquely selfrighteous way.
93 - The biggest ‘beneficiaries’ are students. If people spend most of their time living in different places then it seems right that they get a say in how those different places are run.
96 Stranded - I’m referring to its interpretation of opinion polls, not to any particular newspaper’s editorial position.
102 - quite. In locals, those with two dustbins need a say on both bodies that arrange their refuse collection.
Apparently another Gallup poll out , giving it 47-46 to Obama.
Philippe it does not matter whether he wins or loses in Indiana he has practically won the overall contest and will almost certainly increase his delegate lead over Clinton next week with North Carolina voting, a much bigger state than Indiana, producing far more delegates.
Howard Dean said over the weekend that the popular vote is not what counts, its the delegate count, that’s the rules, and on that basis there will probably only be one result.
63% in the Gallup poll say they cannot trust Clinton. In the Rasmussen survey the number of Democrats wanting Clinton to drop out has risen to 34%, the number wanting Obama to drop out has falled to 22%. You pays you price and you extract what you want.
As I said earlier Clintons price should be going out, what is being put up by the media is a mirage, they want to keep things going, but there is very little sign that is happening.
Emotion and personal desire is one thing, but logic seems to strongly indicate it will be Obama in November.
Previous thread I was accused of saying I thought YouGov had a deliberate pro-Tory bias. I did not do that. I pointed out that:-
Peter Kellner may be a lefty, but this is counteracted by Stephan Shakespeare, who is certainly a righty.
Since YouGov overegged the Labour lead more than other pollsters last year, perhaps its methodology is overegging the lead of whichever party is in charge.
101. The Telegraph is also a serious newspaper and its news reporting and op-ed has been massively tilted towards its old mate Boris.
103. Ok, fair enough.
95 - Obama was correct to refuse to debate between now and the 6th. It was offered before Pennsylvania, and his campaign declined, as they didn’t want Hillary to use the planned debate as an excuse to stay in the race if she lost PA by a slim margin.
69/79/84 - I’D BE VERY WARY OF DISMISSING THE AF-AM NUMBERS IN INDIANA.
All the polls seem to agree that he will get closer to 80% of the African American vote than the 90% he managed earlier in the season. 76% is the lowest I’ve seen, but SUSA and others have noted that whilst he wins Indianapolis (Marion County), he is not making sufficient headway to take the city of Gary in the North West of the State, where there is also a decent-sized Af-Am vote. On the Illinois border, and Af-Am are about 20% of the vote, and he is still not leading there. I don’t know if somethign (disavowing Wright’s sermons going down badly with older African Americans?) has caused this, but in Indiana all pollsters have been consistent that he is more likely to get 76% than 92%.
I don’t know if this has any relevance to North Carolina, or if this is a localised issue for him, but it has been a rare point of consistency in Indiana polling.
[86] - It is really odd, particularly as it will only serve to make the shock of Ken’s defeat all the greater.
29 & 33
You might well have seen 19.8-19.8 due to a temporary freeze in the system at the exact point in time someone wishes to make a trade, the chances of it happening are minute but it is possible…hope that makes sense.
I have experienced an identical situation whilst using betfair in its infancy. Don’t worry your not going mad!
104. So someone with 20 homes should get 20 votes too? that sounds like a return to the pre-1832 style franchise! Ah, if only…
It was Bob Wocester’s smug piggy face when he declared the election for Kerry even as I was explaining to my friend in the room that the results coming in looked to me like a swing to Bush and a comfortable Bush win.
Since then I have always had a strong suspicion Bob reports what he wants and his mind has gone.
105
It does matter if you are building a BETTING position on Clinton.Winning.Indiana…
Yesterday, a week ago bet of mine was matched at 1.95 on betfair.
It matters also if you are TRADING a lot of Clinton.Nomination.Stock on intrade…http://www.intrade.com/
113 - Phillipe, I suspect your money is safe on CLinton to win Indiana.
I think the value would be in anywhere that allowed you to bet that Obama would only win North Carolina between now and the convention. She can win IN, WV, KY, OR, GU, PR and that could well give her enough momentum to steal SD and MT.
Bob Worcester -The Lefts real friend.
Why is Mori so well thought of when its supremo is so biased….
O/T “stop being a crusader”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3828082.ece
What’s wrong in the UK?
112. Bob got very cross with me when I criticized him over that - tetchy doesn’t come close to describing the reaction!
105 - I find this argument very strange. Obama fans seem to say:
1. Only delegates count and 2. The Super Delegates should not over-rule the pledged delegates.
1. is clearly right, the nomination will be decided at the convention by whoever gets the most delegates.
2. is not right. Super Delegates can vote for whoever they want to. If (and I don’t think it will matter anyway) Clinton wins the PV then I see no reason why a Super Delegate should not feel justified in voting for her.
So, while the PV doesn’t matter formally if it can sway SDs then it clearly does.
Obama fans add a little word that makes the rules sound different. The nominee is the candidate with the most delegates NOT the candidate with the most pledged delegates.
IS J. WRIGHT ON A MISSION TO DESTROY OBAMA?
Joe Klein thinks so: http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/04/the_reverend_wright.html
“Wright’s purpose now seems quite clear: to aggrandize himself–the guy is going to be a go-to mainstream media source for racial extremist spew, the next iteration of Al Sharpton–and destroy Barack Obama.”
119 Klein is a very reputable journalist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Klein
112-November 04, remember it fondly!!!
Remember there was an American pollster on the BBC show and he came out with the unthinkable/unsayable: if Kerry is winning how come all the precinct/county results win show Bush advancing by 3-5%? Of course the great and the good on the BBC did not want to believe this. Starting with Bob “It’s President Kerry” Worcester, and all those celebrating prematurely at Demmiecrat parties.
More honest reporting from the BBC would not have changed the results but would certainly have spared some the hangover after the event after going to sleep thinking it was President Kerry and awaking with President Bush.
O/T-and guess old news, but seems the Right won Rome.
111 - I’m not sure if someone with 20 homes gets 20 votes but I know they only have to pay full Council tax on 1 home. This whole council tax thing is ridiculous - it’s set up almost the exact opposite of fairness (no wonder the tories and nulab love it).
if boris wins by 4% its a score draw isn’t it?
124 - Surely YouGove would win on away goals?
118. but popular vote means nothing, given the strange mixture of primaries and cacuses that have been used in this contest.
IF OBAMA DOES NOT DISTANCE HIS CAMPAING FROM WRIGHT
… it might well be doomed:
Punters, beware!
– http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/wright-assails.html
– http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/365473.aspx
Don’t know if anyone has seen this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2008/04/28/nboris128.xml
Boris apparently has a 2% lead after 2nd pref votes according to ICM.
125 no its a penalty shoot out…
126 - You might think it means nothing. What matters is what the SDs think. FWIW by 2-1 Democrats said in a Rasmussen poll that the SDs should back the popular vote winner not the one with the most pledged delegates.
128. ICM show a lead for Boris! How will the Guardian spin this as a victory for Ken?
THIS MORNING, WRIGHT WENT CRAZY
… and Mark Steyn is suggesting that Karl Rove has something to do with it!!!!:
“Reverend Wright may be Karl Rove’s most ingenious Rovebot yet.”
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjFiYTkzMTBmZWFkYjNiNjU5OTU2N2VlZDIzZTc1YmI=
77 - I’m surprised neither the Dems nor the Reps have changed to such a system already.
The local state bosses wouldn’t stand for it. A drawn-out timetable help the states by allowing lots their day in the sun, and allows local party bigwigs to extract leverage and commitments from the central party.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7372146.stm
eye candy for Martin Day
118 Kieran.
Howard Dean said yesteday that the matter must be decided in June by one of the two candidates dropping out, and it is delegate numbers not votes that matters.
He also says Democrats cannot go to the Convention divided.
Therefore the delegate position clearly indicates that of the two Clinton would probably be the one to drop out, simply based on
their numbers.
To go otherwise Dean says would require rule changes.
When the penny drops in the media Clintons price will go out. Might then be worth an outside bet that they could get the rules changed, however that would probably hand the election to the Republicans with a sizable number of Obama supporters abstaining or protesting by voting Nader, therefore I would suggest an unlikeley scenrio.
131 - Those figures are identical to the ICM Mayoral poll for the Guardian from April 1st. Seems the Telegraph are a bit slow catching on. It would be a big coincidence if the results were exactly the same.
New University of Wisconsin Survey Center Presidential Poll for Wisconsin :
McCain 47% .. Clinton 41%
McCain 43% .. Obama 47%
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/283595
The funny thing is that every time Clinton gains a small victory the more impossible it becomes for her to win. It’s quite amusing watching her having to be all gung-ho whilst she knows that it’s all going down the plughole.
Let’s face it, if McCain can’t pull ahead after all of the Democrats troubles he doesn’t stand a chance when once he’s put in the firing line.
85 - Nick - Obama wouldn’t accept the Veep slot, I’m sure of that. It would negate his whole campaign and, quite frankly, he may prefer to win in 2012 instead given the way the economy looks.
118 - SDs can vote for who they want to, no problem. That doesn’t solve the mess they would make in taking apart their party. It’s their call, do they really want to do that?
119 - re Klein - So he is, but he’s attacking Wright, not Obama. The link is tenuous at best, Wright has no say on Obama’s policy positions does he? If he does I think you should give us your evidence.
114 - Indiana is indeed up for grabs. Ultimate statewide result will likely depend upon Obama’s preformance with White voters in northeastern Indiana, where White vote is demographically favorable to Clinton but which is part of Chicago media market and thus the strong pro-Obama Illinois sentiment.
Kentucky, West Virginia, Puerto Rico and (I think) Guam are strongly inclinded to go for Clinton.
With respect to Oregon, seriously doubt that Clinton will win the Beaver State. Not impossible, just not likely.
Ditto for South Dakota & Montana
136 and it describes the poll as the first to ask about second preferences.
136 the article seemed to be published at 6:27pm so I would assume it is a poll in tomorrows Guardian, but lets wait and see.
No score draws: as they said when Billy Jean played Bobby Riggs, “ONE OF THEM MUST LOSE”
New thread - ICM gives it to Boris by 2%
130. why quote such a biased survey? a link to it would clarify this, but i am pretty certain that half the superdelegates questioned refused to reply, so immediately the results are skewed there. basically a very tiny number of superdelegates are saying they will go with popular vote, its just not enough for clinton.
127 - Does anyone know the French for ‘one trick pony’?
You are mentioning Rove *and* Steyn now? Two of the people who are top of my list of ‘those I could safely shoot in cold blood’?
135 - I think that you are right that Clinton will be forced to drop out but disagree with your reasoning. She will, barring a big change, be behind in the PV and have no rationale for continuing (unless Obama implodes). However if she got a PV lead then she would fight on.
Dean can say what he likes. The SDs are under no obligation to declare in June and are under no obligation to support the candidate with the most pledged delegates. They may decide to support the candidate with the most pledged delegates, but it is not certain, and Dean cannot force them.
139 - There is some sort of Clinton scandal link to Guam, backing those who use sweatshop labour or something. A *very* long and detailed article on DailyKos on it.
132
Wright seems to be very successful at pressing the ‘divide’ button in almost everything he says,no wonder Obama is now calling him his ‘former’ minister;but difficult to distance himself from the minister who married him,baptized his kids and whose church he attended for 20 years.
146 - Clinton is trying to pack the Michigan delegation with her supporters, she is acting like someone who is ready to mount a guerilla campaign. This could be really quite incendiary.
Election Inspection on the latest Indiana and NC polls :
http://electioninspection.wordpress.com/
………………………..
On the AA Vote. Most polls show Obama gaining between 70-80% of AA voters and every recent contest has Obama winning 90% or so of the actual vote. There is little reason to expect that 90% figure to change.
if dean, nancy, gore, edwards were to all come out and declare for obama after voting finishes i struggle to see how the other superdelegates could justify sitting on their hands until august.
144: Why is it a biased survey?
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/57_say_candidate_with_most_votes_should_get_nomination
152. oh sorry crossed wires here, i thought you were referring to the survey of superdelegates that was done a couple of weeks ago, not a poll of the general public
Andrew Sullivan, as usual, has a sense of perspective -
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/04/quote-for-th-25.html
“This Wright-stuff is amazing to me. It’s all the MSM seems to care about. Even coverage of McCain is now about his attitude toward an unhinged black pastor from Chicago. Hey: it beats discussing war, debt, the economy, torture, and terrorism. Because it enables America to return to the classic boomer racial-cultural wars that are all the MSM truly knows how to cover. There’s nothing to be done right now but to duck and cover. And emerge when a