One of those little things - Better polling, properly used, means better results.
From a lengthy NYTimes piece on the Obama campaign's frugality with its record setting fundraising,
Assuming they're paying about the same rate for their polls, this is 3x advantage so much more than tighter tracking. It allows a lower geographic level of polling, knowing counties and neighborhoods to target and work, but it also allows far more message testing.
Frankly, superior knowledge and implementation is how they won the primary, too. They would lose states, but win the delegate count based on their polling and geographical implementation.
Plouffe and the numbers guys really don't get enough credit. Their ability to efficiently match money with geographic math has put their candidate where he is.
Later: Confident clips from the Plouffe conference call this AM.
Obama campaign officials also appear to have devoted significantly more than Mr. McCain’s organization to polling, about $3.8 million since July, compared with just over $1.1 million for the McCain campaign.
Assuming they're paying about the same rate for their polls, this is 3x advantage so much more than tighter tracking. It allows a lower geographic level of polling, knowing counties and neighborhoods to target and work, but it also allows far more message testing.
Frankly, superior knowledge and implementation is how they won the primary, too. They would lose states, but win the delegate count based on their polling and geographical implementation.
Plouffe and the numbers guys really don't get enough credit. Their ability to efficiently match money with geographic math has put their candidate where he is.
Later: Confident clips from the Plouffe conference call this AM.
posted by mikevotes at
8:09 AM
2 Comments:
Based on the internal Republican polling that I have seen in Minnesota, the GOP has an entirely different view of the purpose of polling. For them, polling is a way to bolster their pre-conceived notions and to pitch to donors/volunteers.
Small sample sizes, over-sampling of rural areas, leading questions, mysterious weightings of minorities - all of these things are ways the internal polling distorts the true picture.
In Iraq, the decision was made to invade, and the facts were arranged to support that decision afterwards. In this election, the GOP decided they were going to win and manipulated the data to "prove" it. Republicans and facts don't go well together.
As far as the Obama campaign's polling, you also have to consider the down-ticket advantage to the DSCC and DCCC of this large-scale polling. Many races did not seem competitive for the Democrats at first blush, but polling showed vulnerabilities in the incumbent that the Republicans were likely unaware of. This made smarter use of the Democrat's money and forced the Republicans to spend far more than they had intended to defend presumably "safe" seats.
By
Todd Dugdale , at 8:39 AM
The Iraq model.
Yeah, that's sort of been what I've been noticing over the last month.
As for downticket, I don't know how much they're cross polling and sharing. You would think they would be, but they are such a closed and tightly held operation.
But I'm sure they're sticking local races in all their polling, if for notthing else than to get a sense of independent/republican reach.
Also, probably a prime example of the polling advantage would be Virginia where they were spending money and opening offices against every single bit of CW. (And they were right.)
By
mikevotes, at 8:42 AM
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