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The Performance of The Polls

The Performance of The Polls. John Curtice whatscotlandthinks.org @ whatscotsthink. Why Polls Matter. Can affect the extent and nature of media coverage Can affect the ability of campaigns to raise money and motivate activists Can influence the campaign’s strategy and tactics

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The Performance of The Polls

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  1. The Performance of The Polls John Curtice whatscotlandthinks.org @whatscotsthink

  2. Why Polls Matter • Can affect the extent and nature of media coverage • Can affect the ability of campaigns to raise money and motivate activists • Can influence the campaign’s strategy and tactics • Can influence whether people vote

  3. The Challenge • Regular monthly political polling in Scotland ended in 2003. Partly thanks to perceived poor performance, and partly the result of worsening newspaper finances. • Thereafter mostly episodic and concentrated at election times. • So companies having to estimate the attitudes of a population most have not been regularly monitoring. • And for a ‘vote intention’ that they have not previously attempted to estimate. • While the industry is still coming to terms with the internet

  4. The Performance - 1

  5. The Performance - 2

  6. A Time Trend? Based on 9 polls conducted Feb-May, 10 polls July-Sept, 8 polls Oct-Dec, and 7 polls in Jan-mid Feb and 10 polls mid-Feb-Mar. Don’t Knows excluded.

  7. House Differences Based on all polls since Sept. Don’t Knows excluded

  8. Panelbase’s Record

  9. IpsosMORI’s Record

  10. The Don’t Knows Source: 1st 2 cols: Average of all polls since September

  11. Methodological Differences

  12. Record • Panelbase – no previous polling close to election day • ICM – previously all election polling done by phone • Survation – new company since 2010 • TNS BMRB – still using System Three’s (not always successful) approach • YouGov – over 10 years experience. Panellists’ previous vote collected on joining/after election • Ipsos MORI – using same approach as for GB polls since 2008

  13. How Their Last Poll Performed In 2011 * Last Poll Conducted 14-17.4.11

  14. The Extent and Impact of Weighting * Based on 16-39

  15. Reported Turnout Source: Ipsos MORI (Scottish & British Polls)

  16. Polls of The Interested? Survation & YouGov figures may include a few Other party voters

  17. Tentative Conclusions • Particularly large house effects on % Yes vote • Do not simply correspond to internet vs non-internet • But do correspond to experienced vs. less so • Internet samples more heavily weighted • But weighting etc has pushed all recent polls in a pro-Yes direction • Some polls (at least) look set to be wrong – but which ones?

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