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New NBC poll suggests polling caucuses is hard

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  October 11th, 2011 at 01:30 PM  | 

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Iowa

I’m not too surprised when I see Herman Cain doing better than Rick Perry in recent polling, but I was surprised to see Ron Paul beating Rick Perry in NBC’s new poll of Iowa. So, I started getting ready to post… and found out there’s more than meets the eye here.

Caucuses are apparently hard to poll.

The facts: NBC News poll by Marist, 3913 adults, MoE 1.7. Likely caucus goers pare it down to 371, MoE 5.1. Mobile and Landline handling.

Mitt Romney leads the poll at 23, Herman Cain follows close at 20, Ron Paul sits in third at 11, and Rick Perry falls below the Pauldoza line to fourth at 10. The Cain moment continues.

But here’s what struck me: the prediction of Caucus turnout. In 2008, both parties set records for the Iowa caucuses. Democrats nabbed 12% of all registered Iowa voters, while Republicans drew 6.2%, bringing total two party turnout to 18% of the registered electorate in Iowa.

NBC’s poll projects new records to be set in 2012. Of the 2836 designated registered voters in their poll, 371 of them are designated likely GOP caucus goers, 13%. That’s more than the Democrats got in the crest of their wave year, 2008, with a bruising two way primary fight. That’s more than double the Republican record turnout.

Is this possible? Of course it’s possible. Is it likely? I’m skeptical, so I begin to be skeptical of whether polling geared to predict elections is capable of predicting caucuses well at all.

Crossposted from Unlikely Voter

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  • wonkish1

    I’ve always thought Marist is a crappy polling outfit and this just looks like another example of how crappy they are. While I do believe that Romney is polling alright in Iowa I definitely don’t believe he is leading Iowa.

    I took one look at this poll several hours ago and said “Yeah, right”.

    I think the PPP one out today also from Iowa is probably a little more accurate. But I agree the Iowa Caucuses have always been a tougher one to poll.

    http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/
    Cain – 30
    Romney – 22
    Paul – 10
    Perry – 9
    Gingrich – 8
    Bachmann – 8

    Now if anything I think that Cain’s numbers if anything are on the high side a little and Perry’s numbers might be a little on the low side.

    But I definitely don’t believe that Romney is leading in Iowa like the crap that Marist just put out.

  • wonkish1

    http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2011/10/cain-leads-in-iowa.html

  • lineholder

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/election.aspx

    Thanks

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Ahead of the debate.

  • wonkish1

    So I almost never find a bad apple from them.

    And this is one from yesterday is no different. Its almost a perfect middle spot of what other polls are producing so you should be pretty confident that this is poll that should be very close to what the GOP primary electorate is thinking right now.

  • wonkish1

    Of course this applies to Christie as well, but I think its pretty safe to say that Romney probably isn’t going to have a rough night.

    Cain very well could have a rough night, who knows? And if Palin endorses him and he does have a bad night then she looks kind of stupid for making an endorsement a couple hours before a debate.

    Why not wait until tomorrow or Thursday to endorse? It seems like the smarter thing to do.

    Especially since any endorsement today is just going to be overshadowed by the debates anyway even if your endorsee has a good night.

  • wonkish1

    nt

  • lineholder

    I know that I’ve probably been driving people nuts with mention of societal factors, but have you looked at the variations in intensity scores in this poll? I don’t know to what extent the anti-government, anti-politician environment we’re currently facing might be influencing the outcome of these poll results, but I do think it is a factor that can’t just be ignored any more.

  • wonkish1

    Cain definitely is the beneficiary of 1 extremely large enthusiasm gap. That tends to play quite well in Caucus states as well like Iowa.

    But again we’ll see. There is a debate tonight and you could just as well see anybody have an awesome performance and anybody fail miserably including Cain. So don’t be to attached to these numbers because everything is different in the morning.

  • lineholder

    If there’s anything our society can be, it’s fickle. It can turn on a dime without warning. So I don’t put much confidence in individual poll results unless and until it becomes a long-term trending pattern.

    I just thought it was really interesting to see that much of a gap.

  • Scope

    From everything I’ve read about Iowa, they want to meet all of the candidates, shake hands with them, and very much so like the money that their appearances bring when they visit all the counties around Iowa. I thought this was the major funding source for the Iowa GOP.

    Bachmann and Santorum have been going to Iowa since they got in the race, several months ago. Romney really isn’t doing much competing there from what I’ve read. Cain was there around the Iowa straw poll time period, but hasn’t spent much time in the state, or spent much money there. Cain has 4 campaign people in Iowa, and a similar amount in NH. Cain is not planning to go back to Iowa until his book tour is over. Perry, getting in the race later than the rest has been spending a lot of time there recently, and will be going back there and hitting more counties after tonight’s debate. He has a much larger campaign staff there than Cain, and probably Romney.

    Based on what I have written above, I must wonder why Romney (the least of the social conservatives important to Iowans) and Cain are so far ahead in Iowa. Unless Iowa has really really changed, I can’t wrap my arms around the results of these polls. Paul I understand to a degree, he’s dumped a lot of money in the state which helps the Iowa GOP.

  • waitaminute

    I would point out that the group “registered voters willing to respond to a telephone survey” is likely a strict subset of the group “registered voters,” so that 13% of the former group is going to translate to something less than 13% of the latter group. Which makes this result somewhat more likely.