Legal Commentary

LATimes Polls: Bucking the CW

By Big Tent Democrat

By Big Tent Democrat

The LATimes/Bloomberg polls of PA, IN and NC are out. The results are strikingly at odds with most existing polling:

The [PA]survey found the New York senator leading Barack Obama by just 5 percentage points in Pennsylvania, which votes next Tuesday. Such a margin would not give her much of a boost in the battle for the party's nomination.

What is more, the poll found Clinton trails Obama by 5 points in Indiana, another Rust Belt state that should play to her strengths among blue-collar voters. In North Carolina, an Obama stronghold, he is running 13 points ahead.

(Emphasis supplied.) This poll is bucking the CW in all 3 of those states. Waiting to see some internals from this poll to give you some meaningful analysis. Strategic Vision has Clinton with a 9 point PA lead, up from a 5 points lead a week ago.

Got the Internals. LATimes appears to have made a strange choice in its methodology - it has included independents in a closed primary. In addition, it appears to have failed to poll for Republicans in Indiana, which I believe is a completely open primary. More . .

Apparently, the LATimes polled independents who claimed to be registered Dems in PA. And the choice by the Times is quite meaningful because Obama wins Indies in their poll by 53-40. I have no idea what percentage of the vote will be Indy according to the Times, but I do know that PA is a closed primary and thus no actual Independents will be voting in the PA primary.

This error could explain the Times' finding that Clinton only wins white voters by 52-36. Again, the Times chose not to provide turnout models. In addition, the Times strangely chose not to subpoll the A-A vote.

The Times' internals for Indiana and NC are similarly hinky. For example, the Times has Indian awhite voters splitting evenly but Obama with only a 5 point lead. this seems impossible to me. Both the split in white voters and Obama only leading by 5 in such a case. In addition, the high undecided number in Indiana is hard to accept as well.

The internals of the Times poll tell me that it is not a poll to be relied upon imo. I believe it is unreliable in all three states (understating Obama's likely 20 point lead in North Carolina.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on April 15, 2008 (boomark / email).