About That Zogby Number That Was Freaking People Out

Posted by Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog at 7:12 AM on November 2, 2008.

Here's an election memory, and correct me if I'm wrong: In 1988, on the Saturday before Election Day, my not-yet-wife and I stopped for a drink in the Village -- I think it was at the Lion's Head. Someone had left a copy of the New York Post on the bar, and inside was a story about a new poll showing that Michael Dukakis was gaining ground, and was in a statistical tie with George Bush.

Yes, I'm such a nerd that I still remember that.

I remember the pollster, too.

Zogby.

And here we are twenty years later, and yesterday one day's worth of Zogby raw data showed McCain winning. Remember, he combines four days' worth of numbers to get his publicly announced number. And that number still shows Obama winning.

In '88 Dukakis went out after that Zogby poll was released and said, "He's slipping and sliding! We're rocking and rolling!" (No, really, he did. It was a pretty bizarre moment.) But, um, a few days later he got blown out by Bush.

Here's the thing: I think most pollsters are honest. They lose credibility -- and, thus, corporate clients -- if they announce wildly inaccurate results, so they have good reason not to deliberately skew their numbers. (Yeah, I know: I was skeptical about recent Fox poll results. But I take Nate Silver's point that it's perfectly valid to survey a genuinely random sample rather than weight by party affiliation, though the poll reader should know the possible effect of this. I stand by my suspicion that Karl Rove knew those numbers in advance and tailored his Wall Street Journal column to fit them.)

But I imagine pollsters sometimes want to hedge their bets. That's why I'd say Gallup started crunching its daily numbers three ways -- in the hope that one of them will be accurate on Election Day, even if the other two aren't.

I think Zogby still can't honestly say he thinks John McCain is winning -- but I think he thinks a hint that McCain might be closing the gap is a good bet-hedge, just like that late poll in '88.

Either that or it's just that voters inevitably express doubt near the end in a race with no incumbent and a front-runner who was looked upon suspiciously earlier in the race.

Whatever's going on, it doesn't mean McCain will win. It may mean he'll do as well as Dukakis did. And remember that all the polls -- including Zogby's -- still say Obama will win (and some are looking better every day).

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Tagged as: election, obama, zogby

Steve M. blogs at No More Mister Nice Blog.