Unlikely Voter

Busy day today, but I couldn’t let go without comment this new poll by Missouri State University for KY3 of the Missouri Senate race.

Even if its findings weren’t entirely out of step with the rest of the polling world, the details of the poll carry a number of warnings that it’s not very accurate.

So 538 moved to the New York Times this morning and in the process made Marco Rubio the favorite finally.

But seriously, my issue with Nate Silver today comes from the old site and specifically, his primary night commentary.

Two major pollsters have announced changes to their methods as we get nearer to election day. Both of these should bring shifts in the polls which may strike us as sudden or dramatic, so be aware.

I was busy today on my Senate projection, but over at Hot Air’s Greenroom Patrick Ishmael updated his House projection yesterday.

SurveyUSA polled the California statewide races for San Francisco’s KPIX, a television station for one of the most safe cities in the state for Democrats. This is Nancy Pelosi’s own district here. Any bias introduced into this poll won’t be from the right.

So it’s notable when this poll shows Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman ahead of Barbara Boxer and Jerry Brown.

So we had two major polls going into the Colorado primaries: SurveyUSA and Public Policy Polling were on the line.

How’d they do against the actual results of Ken Buck over Jane Norton 52-48, Dan Maes over Scott McInnis 51-49, and Michael Bennet over Andrew Romanoff 54-46?

When I heard yesterday that Missouri passed an initiative attacking the PPACA in state, and declaring that Missouri’s citizens are exempt from portions of it, I thought it would be interesting to compare that Proposition C’s results with polling on the issue in state. So let’s check.

[Updated at the bottom at 3PM Pacific Time.]

The Gallup Generic Ballot is a trusted, widely reported resource. I’ve analyzed it extensively, and defended it to others. But yesterday, when I covered the poll’s latest release, Gallup lied. I was lied to, you were lied to, everyone who’s trusted the Gallup name got lied to.

The Cook Political Report has a good record, but some people have complained of a bias due to Cook’s personal political leanings. Well, if that’s too much for you, here’s another set of ratings from Key House Races.

The site was founded by Free Republic readers, so now those who mistrust Cook for whatever reason can now look to them. Soon I’ll run a simulation based on their ratings.

For months the Cook Political Report has been releasing charts of competitive House races at a rate of about one per week. We’re 16 days into July, though, and the last one to come out was on June 24.

Why is that? Did everyone go on vacation, or is Cook having to re-run every race without Research 2000 polls? I’m not a subscriber, but judging by this Senate update which I’m told is disavowing R2k makes me think.

Ipsos polled the California Senate race for Reuters and much as I’ve said in the past, Barbara Boxer still comes out looking weak, even though she remains slimly ahead of Carly Fiorina.

There are ledes, and there are ledes. This one at Daily Kos literally dropped my jaw:

I have just published a report by three statistics wizards showing, quite convincingly, that the weekly Research 2000 State of the Nation poll we ran the past year and a half was likely bunk.

The report appears to deliver, too.

I only found two polls to look at for the Utah Senate primary between Mike Lee and Tim Bridgewater, but they were pretty far apart from each other.

Let’s see who was closer.