NH POLL: Hillary 31 (-7), Obama 27 (+3), Edwards 21 (+6)

[jefferson_dem]

ARG poll so use caution.

***

The American Research Group has been conducting surveys of voters since 1985.

Sample Size: 600 completed telephone interviews among a random sample of likely Democratic primary voters living in New Hampshire (403 Democrats and 197 undeclared (independent) voters).

Sample Dates: December 27-29, 2007

Margin of Error: ± 4 percentage points, 95% of the time, on questions where opinion is evenly split.

http://www.americanresearchgroup.com/pres08/nhdem8-714.html

[DemocratSinceBirth]

1. I Wonder If A Pollster Would Just Make Stuff Up

~

[jefferson_dem]

2. Are you suggesting this might be such a case?

Of course, pollsters have inherent biases (some political, some not) that influence their methodologies. The question is are the results reliable. ARG does not have a stellar reputation among veteran poll watchers.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. When They Had Hillary With A Fourteen Point Lead In IA I Knew It Was A Joke

Something doesn't feel right about their polls...

They did fifty state polling prior to the 00 election and you could almost do better by throwing darts at a wall...

I don't want to impugn anybody's integrity even on the net but something doesn't feel right about ARG...

[Joe the Revelator]

4. I agree. ARG needs to be taken with an entire shaker of salt. nt

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. Do You Think A Pollster Could Just Make Up Numbers?

It was pointed out to me that they are in the business to make money and if their polls are crap they will go out of business because their polls won't be anywhere close to the actual results...But their polls just don't feel right...

Polls cost a lot of money...I can't imagine how many calls a polling organization has to make to get 600, 1000, 2000 respondents...

[Joe the Revelator]

7. I don't know about making numbers up

But they could get lazy and not want to attempt to fix their models.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. If You're Not Robocalling It Cost A Lot Of Money To Hire People To Make Thousands And Thousands Of

Calls...

I am seriously thinking of starting my own polling company...

[Joe the Revelator]

9. Want a partner?

We'd have to be able to do better then some of these outfits.

People say that Weathermen have the easiest job. I beg to differ.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. I Am A Self Employed (Small) Publisher Now-Magazines And Guides

But I did post grad work in Poli Sci.

How hard would it be to hire some college students to make the calls, and find a statistician to compile the results...

The challenge would be finding clients...But a lot of entities beside politicians use polls...

[Joe the Revelator]

12. From having put together internal polls before, the real hard part

Is getting a call list where you can identify your sample before you start calling it. The parties have software that allows campaigns to do this, but they're very (understandably) protective of it.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. These Are Logistical Problems

All we need are clients...

[Joe the Revelator]

14. To Craigslist!!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. You Can Literally Find Anything There...

~

[loveangelc]

6. i think they could

I dont know what the rules are regarding polls, but I'm sure there are campaigns that commission polls...so I think it's possible some of the ARG polls (especially the one that showed her up 15) could have been commissioned by Hillary to make it look like her campaign is doing better than it is.

[Andy823]

10. Could be

But on the other hand I have seen polls today that show in Iowa, Edwards in the lead, another has Hillary in the lead, and another has Obama in the lead. Of course this is a NH poll, and looks like Edwards is really coming "up" in the polls, and I like that, but the voters will be the deciding factor, not the polls!

[antiimperialist]

15. McCain tied with Romney. Wow

McCain has had strong showings in recent polls here.

[calteacherguy]

17. ARG was off 20 points on the eve of the NH primary in 2000.

And they are based in NH.

So yes indeed, use caution.