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October 20, 2016

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cornelius

Nice try, Tomi, but that picture is obviously fake. You can't take a true picture of a fake person, even when that person is a true fake (a.k.a. fugazi).

Tomi T Ahonen

LOL...

Tomi Ahonen :-)

Halibut_ter

Hey Tomi, you use RCP polls then why to they have 2 TIEs and one 2% for Herr Drumpf?

Halibut_ter

I am confused.

Tomi T Ahonen

Hi Halibut

No need to be confused. First, the tie poll/s. If you mean LA Times/USC tracker, thats not a poll, its a PANEL. They have the same group who agreed to participate in the research over the election period, and are asked repeatedly about their views to see if there is a change. Its not a scientific poll in the market research polling methodology at all (I am surprised that RCP includes it) but last cycle someone, maybe RAND corporation, used that methodology to get one of the most accurate final results (and 2012 was a tricky election where most polls were off by an average of 4% from the final result - a huge swing).

The accuracy of that methodology is FAR more dependent on near-perfection in the survey panel original composition. Imagine if you happen to oversample Fox viewers. Then all your survey results - every single one of them - features the SAME vast distortion of Fox viewers ie heavily Republican voters at the Tea Party fringe. What they have this year - this LA Times/USC panel, is a clear, systematic and HUGE error compared to essentially all other surveys. Its a rotten panel. They didn't do a good job in assembling their group of people and its a biased sample. Any normal 'proper' real poll, using standard scientific methodology, would EVERY TIME sample a RANDOM population. Even if into one poll you happen to capture that over-sample of Fox viewers, the NEXT poll probably under-samples them and over time, even if a few polls turn out to be 'outliers' the average of your polling will end up being pretty accurate. So first point. Ignore LA Times/USC. Its a joke. It has utterly ridiculous findings like after the first debate, their result went UP for Trump when all other pollsters found that Hillary won and Trump score went down. But I told you, we don't look at 2-way polls anymore, once the race became a 4-way race in the summer. So you can ignore the LA Times/USC bogus survey.

Now, the other two. Rasmussen is consistently, every year, a pro-Republican pollster whose results are consistently favoring any Republican, including this year Trump. Since the Conventions there have been about 80 polls in the 4-way race. 15 have had a Trump lead. 8 of those were Rasmussen. Of the 29 polls since October 1, 22 have had a Hillary lead, 1 a tie, 6 a Trump lead. Four of those six were Rasmussen.

The only other 2 polls in the past month that had a Trump lead, were IBD/TIPP. And IBD/TIPP seems to have a very peculiar pattern. Rasmussen runs consistently polling over good times and bad. But IBD/TIPP disappears for long stretches of time, but when suddenly Hillary surges, there is an IBD/TIPP poll that has THE most opposite result. That is the pollster whose findings and behavior I find most .. questionable. So in early August when suddenly Hillary surges to 9% on NBC and 14% on Marist, suddenly there is an IBD/TIPP poll that says - no its a 4% race. Or in late June when Reuters said 10% and ABC said 12%, suddenly there is IBD/TIPP saying, no no no, its a 2% race. At least Rasmussen comes out regularly and holds a 'low end' scale but IBD/TIPP truly seems to behave like propaganda, to come out ONLY when the other side has a good polling day or two, and suddenly there is IBD/TIPP to say, no its not that good. Questionable.

BUT currently. If you want to believe these two pollsters, IBD/Tipp and Rasmussen count the race at a -2% race for Trump. Ignore them, the other 5 latest pollsters all say its between a +4% and +9% race for Hillary with an average of +6%. The RCP average reports the race as 5.3%. Its VERY likely the two that think instead of something near +5.3% the race is instead -2%, those two are wacko math nutcases and seriously wrong.

But one more test. The in-state polling. If the race is around a +6% race for Hillary, then according to our 50-state barometer, the states like Arizona and Georgia should be now competitive and near even. That is EXACTLY what is being reported out of fresh polls out of AZ & GA. BUT if the race is -2% for Trump, then the states current at zero in in-state polling should be Pennsylvania, Minnesota and New Mexico. Hahahaha. Nothing near competitive in those states, they are at about +6% for Hillary currently. No, the Rasmussen and IBD/TIPP polls are very likely outliers with a bad Repblican bias undercounting Hillary and overcounting Trump within their methodology.

That said. Its possible there is a big collapse happening in Hillary's support and/or a huge jump in Trump's support. This would need to be national. I would argue there is nothing since the last debate that helped Trump, but rather, probably Trump is further falling.

So to be safe, if in doubt use the averages. Averages will cancel out the occasional outlier poll. The average (4-way race) says 5.3% today for Hillary, down a little bit fro the about 6.5% it was just earlier this week.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

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