Kerry and Bush are tied at 44 percent of nation-wide RV’s, with 11 percent unsure, according to an Investor’s Business Daily/Christian Science Monitor/TIPP Poll conducted 9/22-27.

Bush leads Kerry 45-42 and 48-40 in two polls of nation-wide RV’s conducted 9/17-21 and 9/22-26 respectively by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

I’m sure many have heard about today’s full-page ad, “Gallup-ing to the Right“, in The New York Times (page 5!) by MoveOn.org questioning Gallup’s methodology and numbers. But if you haven’t actually seen the ad, by all means click on the link and take a look. I think it’s a striking and effective ad.
The numbers in the ad, which are quite eye-opening, are rock-solid. The ad says Gallup’s average LV lead for Bush this month has been 10 points, while the average of all other LV polls has been 4 (they’re clearly referring to 3-way LV results–which are by far the most numerous LV results–based on other data in the ad). That’s correct. Even taking into account data released since 9/26 (the end-date for the ad’s analysis), Gallup this month has averaged a 10 point lead for Bush among LVs in 3-way trial heats, while the other 27 3-way LV trial heats taken this month have averaged a 4 point Bush lead.
Similarly, the ad says polls released since 9/12 (that is, two weeks before the end-date of the ad’s analysis), excluding Gallup, have averaged a 3 point lead for Bush in 3-way LV trial heats. Correct again, even adding in polls released since 9/26. In the 17 3-way trial heats released since 9/12 by polling organizations whose names are not “Gallup”, Bush is averaging just a 3 point lead.

Well, our correspondent, Alan Abramowitz, has been getting into the spirt of the “How Can Gallup….” game, so I thought I’d share some of the fun he’s been having with DR readers:

It’s hard to know where to begin when it comes to all of the preposterous results in [the new Gallup poll]. First of all, they’ve got about a 10 point Republican advantage in party ID among registered voters. I am guessing that this is one of the largest Republican party ID leads in the history of the Gallup Poll. So according to Gallup, what’s happened since the Republican convention is something on the order of the New Deal realignment in reverse. If you reweight their data based on the partisan composition of the 2000 exit poll, you get something like Bush 48, Kerry 47.
Going along with the ridiculous party ID results, they’ve got Bush now leading by 15 points in the Midwest and by 21 points in the West. For Bush to be leading by 21 points in the West he’d have to actually be leading in California by about 10 points and cleaning up in Washington and Oregon as well. This is totally out of line with recent independent state polls showing Kerry leading in California by 15, leading in Washington, and running about even or slightly ahead in Oregon. According to this poll, Bush is doing better in the West as a whole than he is in Montana, where the most recent independent poll has him ahead by only 18. The Midwest result is totally out of line with the most recent independent polls in Illinois (Kerry +15) and Ohio (Bush +3).
Gallup’s own state polls are totally out of line with this result. How can Bush be 2 points ahead among RVs in states like Florida and Nevada but 13 ahead among RVs in the entire country?

How indeed? Anyway, be sure to play “How Can Gallup….” at home. Don’t let Alan and I have all the fun!

Say everybody, I’ve got a great new game to play! It’s the “How Can Gallup…..” game.
How do you play? It’s easy! Just take the latest Gallup outlier and compare it to other publicly available data that seem to contradict it. And let the fun begin!
Today’s Gallup outlier is their RV result in their latest poll. As many have no doubt heard, that result puts Bush up a whopping 13 points over Kerry in a head-to-head matchup. Maybe that 13 points sounds familiar. Well, last Gallup poll, it was their LV result that had Bush ahead by 13 and that was far away from everyone else’s results. Guess they like to spread those outliers around.
Here are some examples I’ve come up with, but the great thing about this game is that all of you can play at home and make up your own examples, so be sure to do so.
How can Gallup……have Bush up by 13 nationwide, when he’s only up by 2 points among Florida RVs?–and according to their own poll!
How can Gallup…..have Bush up by 13 nationwide, when he’s only up by 2 points among Nevada RVs?–again, according to their own poll.
How can Gallup….have Bush up by 13 nationwide, when he’s only up by 3 points in Ohio, according to Fox News?
How can Gallup….have Bush up by 13 nationwide, when he trailing by 5 points in Pennsylvania and 2 points in Michigan, according to Fox News?
How can Gallup…..have Bush up by 13 nationwide, when he’s only leading in Montana by 18 points? (in 2000, Bush won Montana by 25 points)
How can Gallup…..have Bush up by 13 nationwide, when he’s behind Kerry by 15 points in California and 20 points in New York?
How can Gallup…..have Bush tied in the solid blue states (that is, the non-battleground blue states, so WI, MN, IO etc aren’t included), when he is trailing Kerry by 15 points in California and 20 points in New York?
How can Gallup…..have Bush up by 13, when he’s only leading among independents by 2 (and that was exactly Bush’s margin among independents in 2000 when, as you recall, he did not win the popular vote by 13 points)?
Not only that, Bush’s current margin among Republicans in the Gallup poll is not too far from his 2000 margin (93-6 now vs. 91-8 then) and Kerry’s margin among Democrats is identical in magnitude to Gore’s (85-10 now vs. 86-11 then).
Actually, this one is kind of easy. The only way you can produce a 13 point Bush lead with these internals is if you have quite a few more Republicans than Democrats in the sample–my guess is 7-8 points more. If you re-weight their sample to the 2000 exit poll party ID distribution (and I kind of have to do this, just to drive certain pollsters and their acolytes into a frenzy), you wind up with a modest Bush lead of 2 points.
See? This game is fun! Tell a friend about the “How Can Gallup…..” game and add a little zing to your election season.

Bush leads Kerry 51-44 percent among nation-wide RV’s, with 2 percent for Nader, 2 percent other/neither and 2 percent no opinion, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted 9/23-6.

Bush leads Kerry 48-44 among nation-wide RV’s in a new Time magazine Poll conducted 9/21-23. (Bush was up by 12 among RVs in Time’s poll 2 weeks earlier).

George Bush leads John Kerry 45-43 percent among nation-wide LV’s, with 12 percent other in a head to head poll conducted September 21-22 by Opinion Dynamics for Fox News. (margin of error +/- 3).

George Bush leads John Kerry among nation-wide RV’s 49-41 percent in a head-to-head CBS News Poll conducted Sept. 20-22.

Bush Leads Kerry 47-45 percent of nation-wide RV’s, with 3 percent for Nader and 5 percent undecided in a Marist Poll conducted 9/20-22. (margin of error +/- 3.5 percent)