Survey of 46 pollsters: Zogby least reliable on Iowa

[antiimperialist]

A survey was conducted by the polling webiste pollster.com, among 46 Iowa pollsters, some of them media pollsters, some of them party campaign pollsters.
They filled a questionnaire in which their identities and answers would remain anonymous, and when asked to say which pollster they considered most reliable when it came to Iowa. The Des Moines Register poll came out on top. Zogby was last:



Much more info at:
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/poll_of_pollsters_rating_the_i.php

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. What are the chances that a pollster skews its numbers on purpose?

I'd say pretty good. :-)

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. Yet Zogby Did A Nice Job In IA

If, on the other hand, we focus on the Kerry-Edwards margin, the final Zogby poll comes slightly closer to the actual result. In any case, the differences between the pollsters are small enough on all of these criteria that random chance was certainly a factor in determining which did best. And notice that everyone was way off on the final margin between Edwards and Dean, whether we compare to the entrance poll head count (Edwards +6), or the post-realignment actual results (+14).


http://www.pollster.com/blogs/how_accurate_were_the_iowa_pol.php


I think his online polls are junk and I think he tweaks his models to get the results he wants or expects but when he's not playing games he can do a good job... I applaud him for recognizing the Gore surge and strong close in 00...He sucked eggs, imho, in 04 because he wanted a Kerry win like we all did and tweaked his model to show just that outcome...

[papau]

3. Given the Ohio revelations about 04, perhaps it was not Zogby that "tweaked" - a stolen election

is hard to predict.

[napi21]

4. Even the pollsters admit because of the way the Iowa caucuses

work it's almost impossible to do an accurate poll. That's why we hear a lot about who the second choices are. I however haven't heard any decent guesses on who would capture most of the scrond choice votes. I actually enjoy it when these "so called" experts can't figure out what's going to happen!

[frazzled]

5. I remember when Zogby predicted ...

just days before the election ... that Rick Lazio would beat Hillary Clinton in the New York senate race by double digits.

Apparently, Zogby's face was not quite red enough.