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On the Gallup poll showing a tie–not reliable

By: A_Texan (Diary)  |  September 8th, 2010 at 10:31 AM  | 

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Yesterday, Gallup’s weekly generic-ballot poll showed the Republicans losing their 10-point advantage and the parties now even at 46.

For the benefit of those of you who do not obsessively read polls, Gallup is notoriously erratic in its polling numbers.  10 days before the 2000 election, I recall, they showed Bush with a 13-point advantage over Gore.

And almost exactly two years ago, one Gallup poll showed that the GOP was 5-points ahead of the Democrats in the generic ballot–when everyone else in September showed the Democrats 3-8 points ahead (a lead that increased, of course, following the Lehman Brother collapse).

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/generic_congressional_vote-901.html#polls

Gallup, itself, should not be a cause of great optimism or pessimism.

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  • IJB

    But on, say, a monthly averaging basis, I think some weight can be put back into Gallup.

    Over the past 4 weeks, Gallup has been +7, +3, +10 and +0 for the GOP. That averages to about +5 GOP over the 4 week period. While even +5 might be a little low, it’s pretty much in the ballpark of whether other polls have been recently.

    Basically, the trick to Gallup is to ignore the week-to-week variations, and look at the bigger picture (e.g. longer term averages)…