Daily Kos has had a general election tracking poll for the presidential race for several months. It includes not only Obama and McCain, but Barr, Nader, other, and undecided.
The poll has shown both Barr and Nader at 2% each, for many weeks. However, the poll had been showing that Barr gets 3% of the male voters, but only 1% of the female voters. On October 20, that shifted. Barr is still at 2%, but now he gets 2% of male voters and 2% of female voters. See more demographic details from the poll here. The poll samples 1,100 people.
Given the margin of errors involved, this poll doesn’t really show anything regarding Barr OR Nader:
“The margin for error is 3% for the overall tracking.
The margin for error is 5.1% for individual day tracking.”
One reason (among many) why minor party candidates are left out of polls is that they so frequently show up with response totals that either barely register or are well within the margin of error. To draw any kind of firm conclusion about someone’s support because over a three-day period it went, for example, from 1% to 2% in a poll with a three-day margin of error of 3% is essentially meaningless.
It’s that sexy mustache!
Oh Great. All we need in this very tight election is some wasted votes.
We should expect at least 96% of the votes will be wasted on either John McStupiderThanEvenBush or Barack OBwannaBeAnotherFDRfascistsocialist.
It’s the mustache, or conservative female voters who don’t like the idea of being told what to do with their bodies by the Republicans.
But really David may be right, the numbers are so low that it may be meaningless. Although many other polls have shown Nader and others polling higher than this.
I agree that being consistently within the margin of error is questionable, but it is interesting that Barr (and Nader) have remained consistently at 2% week after week rather than fluctuating between 0% and 5%.
It would be interesting to see a comparative study of the polling of third party/independent presidential candidates, and their actual vote percentage, over the last 12 years, say. See if polling numbers for third party and independent candidates usually relate to actual vote totals, and at what ratio, or whatever.
And the Obama people claim their is the un-polled cellphone-only allegedly generally young, “progressive-minded” potential voters; who the Obama people, of course, insist is a few extra percent all for Obama. But, perhaps they also include a higher than average percentage of voters looking out side the mainstream choices for “change”?
Polls are also meaningless if they included the minor candidates in states where it is impossible to vote for them (e.g., Oklahoma).
Speaking of which, I just got an automated poll phone call that asked me to press 1 for Obama and 2 for McCain (no other choices). I pressed 3 and it told me to press 1 for Obama and 2 for McCain. I then pressed 0 hoping for a live operator to complain to, but again it told me to press 1 for Obama and 2 for McCain. At that point, I hung up.
I am the Libertarian candidate for the US Senate in North Carolina. I don’t buy the argument that polls don’t report third-party numbers because they are consistently within the margin of error. My poll numbers have been consistently ABOVE the margins of error (about 6% in most polls), yet journalists have reported on those polls and EDITED MY NUMBERS OUT. That indicates a deliberate effort to withhold information.