The Candidates
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- Rudy Giuliani 28% (34%)
- Fred Thompson 19% (17%)
- John McCain 13% (18%)
- Mitt Romney 12% (14%)
- Mike Huckabee 10% (6%)
- Ron Paul 5% (1%)
- Tom Tancredo 2% (0%)
- Duncan Hunter 1% (1%)
- No Opinion 8% (9%)
Survey of 398 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents was conducted Nov. 11-14. The margin of error is ±5 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted November 2-4 are in parentheses.
November 17th, 2007 at 3:23 am
OK as I mentioned earlier tonight, I don’t know much about polling firms or the methods by which they conduct their polls. I was bad at math in high school and never took a statistics class ever. I’m not proud of that fact, but having said it, I can’t see how a poll like the one mentioned above can be taken seriously when it’s a NATIONWIDE survey of less than 400 people. That’s less than 8 people per state! It’s not even just Republicans, but includes independents as well. What can we possibly get out of this? And why does a company as big as Gallup only survey 398 people?
November 17th, 2007 at 4:11 am
I should add that I’m not knocking polls per se. I see value in some of them, although they are far from conclusive. I’m just questioning why a firm like Gallup would waste it’s time polling 398 people in a nation of over 100 million voters and then present it with a straight face as some sort of important piece of analysis of the ‘08 campaign.
November 17th, 2007 at 6:38 am
I agree with that completely. Another example of the fact of uselessness of polls is:
Ron Paul only 5% nationally, it’s ridiculous.
Look at this poll of democratic candidates on Dec. 17, 2003
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/17/opinion/polls/main589167.shtml
John Kerry and Edwards below Al Sharpton.
The polls are jokes. Sorry that people buy them. They more propaganda tool than anything else.
November 17th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Please remember that campaigns themselves spend millions of dollars on polls and base their strategies on them in large measure. Also plenty of companies bring products to market based on polling and focus groups. In wouoldn’t be so dismissive.
November 17th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Alaska jake,
I am sure you can find an explanation of Gallup’s methodology at their site, but the short answer is that one need only sample a statistically relevant group, which can be quite small. The smaller the group the larger the margin of error, which in this poll is 5%, which is just a little high. A larger sampling would have earned a moe of 3%. The reason they did not sanction a larger poll is because it would have been more expensive, but not told us much more.
Plus, Gallup especially looks more for trends and this poll reveals a rather significant decline in Giuliani’s support. His lead over Thompson was cut in half. Gallup will look at the next poll to determine whether this is a trend or a blip, but I surmise that Rudy took a hit from Kerik’s indictment and Thompson’s endorsement by the Rigt to Life group.
November 17th, 2007 at 10:32 am
How could Fred have “surged” up 2 points?
November 17th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
What’s odd is this poll shows movement at odds with all the other polls, for Rudy, Fred, and Mitt. It’s consistent with other polls for Jmac and Huck.
November 19th, 2007 at 3:48 am
Is Ron Paul hurting Rudy?
I could come up with arguments for both sides of that . . . but wonder if anyone’s thought much about which candidate will be hurt the most by a Ron Paul surge.