Internals: Take Globe Poll With A Grain Of Salt

A Boston Globe Poll showing McCain within 3 points of Romney in New Hampshire is the talk of the blogosphere today. I took the time to go through the internals in a 61 page pdf available through here. Some highlights below.

Senator John McCain of Arizona, whose bid for the Republican presidential nomination was all but dead this summer, has made a dramatic recovery in the Granite State 2 1/2 weeks before the 2008 vote, pulling within 3 percentage points of front-runner Mitt Romney, a new Boston Globe poll indicates.

The poll already has an MOE of 5, only 28% surveyed are sure of their vote and 43% claim to have "no idea."

Romney is seen as the strongest leader over McCain 30 - 25 while McCain is seen as more trustworthy 30 - 23. But, and this is important, when it comes to beating the Democrat nominee in the Fall, Romney wins hands down 34 - 10 over McCain. That's a big number.

In terms of being able to bring needed change, Romney leads McCain 32 - 18.

Huckabee  is named as "least likely to vote for" by 42%, far above anyone else.

A couple GOP versus Dem notes: Sixty-five percent of Republicans say health care is not the government's responsibility, contrast that with 80% of Dems who feel it is the government's responsibility.

A majority of Dems and Reps see illegal immigration as an important issue, do not want drivers licenses issued to them. And while the majority of Republicans surveyed want the border closed, 47% of Dems do too.

Combining Dems and the GOP, the traditional Democrat line on illegal immigration is a loser; however, no one cites deportation as a solution, yet only 30% of Dems see a path to citizenship as the most important goal for reform.

Purely on the Dem side, only 17% see Hillary as trustworthy, Obama leads on that item at 29%. Obama leads on the ability to bring change with 34%, but in terms of leadership, experience and electability, Hillary wins hands down. Interesting though - Obama wins on having the best judgment.

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[JustADude]

Any one who cares to look back any election will tell you that all the different polling entities could poll the exact same area of the country and come up with wildly different results early in the election cycle because they apply their 'special sauce' stuff that sets them apart from the other firms. If every body followed a common standard they would come up with nearly identical results and be unable to justify the need for all those different polling organizations.

As the end of the race nears they set aside their 'unique' methodology and magically all the polls start matching up and almost overlaying each other. This is so they can see we got the final result correct. Then they try to get you to forget about how all over the park they were at the beginning of the races.