A question for fellow election poll geeks:

[Lasher]

When Real Clear Politics lists polls at their site they assign a (D) or an (R) to some of them. I'm pretty sure this indicates a given poll was funded or otherwise controlled by either the Democratic or Republican party, and therefore bias should be suspected.

Scroll through their list and you will see what I mean:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/latestpolls/

Note that the Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group has a (D) and Strategic Vision has an (R).

Now here's my question: What is the meaning of the asterisk that they give to Zogby Interactive? RCP dosen't seem to like their polls for some reason because they don't include them in their samples when they calculate a RCP Average:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2006/senate/nj/new_jersey_senate_race-10.html

Click on See All New Jersey Senate Race Polling Data or scroll down at the above site and you will see the Zogby Interactive* poll listed but skipped over in their selection of polls to be included at the top of that page.

Why is that?

[Zynx]

1. Zogby interactive polls are quite unreliable.

They are very volatile and often show races much closer than they are one way or the other.