Week 4 - Election Post

In the presidential race, I looked at polling data on the USA Today website. On it were polls done by Gallup and Hotline. As of October sixteenth, Gallup had Obama at 51 and McCain at 44. Even taking into account the margin of error, this gives Obama a good lead going into the last few weeks before the election. The Gallup poll was taken using live telephone interviews and polled over twenty two hundred likely voters. The Hotline polls were more recent, being taken on October 19. Their poll put Obama at 49 and McCain still at 41. This poll shows them to be a little closer, but still with Obama in the lead by a few points. The Hotline poll also included a little more data. It showed the breakdown of party identification was 41% Democratic, 36% Republican, and 18% Independent.

I also looked at polls for the Senate race between Warner and Gilmore. Both the Suffolk poll and Survey USA showed Warner as having a substantial lead. The Suffolk poll gave Warner a thirty two point lead. Survey USA had Warner at sixty one and Gilmore at thirty one, giving the Democrat a thirty point lead. Survey USA polled six hundred and sixty six likely voters. From these polls it seems pretty clear who will be representing Virginia in the Senate for the next six years.

I believe that these polls are fairly accurate because they use a random sample and a large number of people. Also, I had to look at various different polls that were asking the same thing. The results were similar, so that supports that they were accurate to an extent. All polls will have a margin of error, but with a wide enough sample, it is minimal. However, even accurate polling can have great effects on a campaign. For example, a lot of funding is based on polls. If a candidate is way ahead in the polls of one state, they might withdraw some of the money going to that state because it could be better used in a state where the polls show the candidates being very close.