- Polls &
Analyses: Links to Articles
- November 14, 2002. By Steve Chapman. The
coming decline of political polls. Once upon a time, politicians
weighing policy decisions had to rely on their own sense of what
was right and what was appealing to voters. Today, officeholders
and candidates are all hooked up to IVs that continuously drip fresh
poll data directly into their veins. An entire industry has grown
up to tell them what every demographic group thinks about every
conceivable issue and how each segment of the electorate may be
won over by tweaking the candidate's message. But last week's election
outcomes left some pollsters resembling contestants trying to catch
a greased pig--with their quarry escaping and their faces splattered
with mud. ... And factors beyond [the pollsters'] control are making
it harder and harder to measure and interpret what the public thinks.
[Chicago Tribune]
- November 12, 2002. By Donald Green and Eric Schickler. Winning
a Battle, Not a War. The United States still awaits another
political realignment - a period of fundamental change in the way
the public views the parties. For better or worse, for almost 70
years neither Republicans nor Democrats have succeeded in substantially
altering public perceptions of what they stand for. Last week's
election was no different. ... Last week's Republican triumphs are
the result not of some noteworthy shift in partisan allegiances;
Republicans won because voters are concerned with issues they have
long associated with the party. In fact, Democrats retain a lead
of about five percentage points over Republicans in party identification,
a lead that is virtually identical to the party's edge 10 years
ago. [NY Times Op-Ed]
- Post date 11.04.02 | Issue date 11.11.02. by Peter Beinart. Age
Gap. Every two years pundits fret about America's dismally low
turnout rates. Yet, in a sense, the problem is that voting rates
aren't uniformly low. If Americans of all age groups were equally
disconnected from the political process, the small number of voters
would at least reasonably approximate the population as a whole--and
politicians would discuss a cross section of issues that appealed
to people at different stages of life. But that isn't the case.
In 1998, only 17 percent of Americans ages 18 to 24 went to the
polls, compared with 59 percent of Americans 65 and older. Because
the elderly vote at such massively disproportionate rates, politicians
devote massively disproportionate attention to their issues. And
when they return to Washington, those politicians massively redistribute
wealth from young to old. [New Republic]
- November 10, 2002. In
GOP Win, a Lesson in Money, Muscle, Planning. [Karl] Rove, [Rep.
Tom] DeLay and others concluded that Republicans had lost the turnout
battle in recent elections by focusing too much on paid advertising
and too little on the ground war that Democratic allies such as
the AFL-CIO do so well: getting potential voters to the polls. Beginning
in early 2001, the party registered thousands of new Republican
voters, particularly in fast-growing states. It invested heavily
in a program, dubbed the "72-hour project," that would later help
spur record turnout in key regions. The Republican National Committee
spent millions of dollars honing a system to identify voters, down
to specific households, and contact them repeatedly with phone calls,
mail and visits from party activists. [also see article for description
of the GOP issues strategy] [Washington Post]
- November 10, 2002. By David Brooks. Time
to Meet the Exurban Voter. These suburban counties are heavily
populated with the people [some analysts] argue are the core of
the coming Democratic majority: minorities, union members and highly
educated, highly affluent doctors, lawyers and members of the media
elite. The problem for Ms. [Kathleen Kennedy] Townsend was that
these were the only counties she carried. She lost the rural areas
and was crushed in the fast-growing exurban counties, beyond the
metropolitan areas, like Frederick County, north of Washington,
and Harford County, north of Baltimore. [NY Times]
- November 10, 2002. Bush's
Push, Volunteers and Big Turnout Led to Georgia Sweep. "The
story of 2002 is not that Democrats stayed home," said Ralph Reed,
the Georgia Republican chairman who has been a prophet of grass-roots
organizing since before his days at the Christian Coalition. "It
was that Republicans came to the polls in historic numbers, and
our candidates had the broadest appeal to swing voters we have seen
in recent years." [NY Times]
- November 9, 2002. Democratic
Analysts Blame Some Losses on the Failure to Win Moderate Whites.
Democrats who are examining some of their most disappointing losses
on Tuesday are learning that minority voters turned out in respectable
numbers and voted Democratic - but that the party apparently lost
thousands of moderate white voters who supported Bill Clinton and
helped elect Southern Democratic governors in 1998 and 2000. [NY
Times]
- November 6, 2002. By Howard Kurtz. Voter
News Service Meltdown Halts Flow of Exit Poll Data. The polling
service that humiliated the television networks on Election Day
two years ago suffered a meltdown yesterday, depriving news organizations
of the crucial data used to project winners and analyze voting patterns.
Voter News Service, a consortium of the major networks and the Associated
Press, pulled the plug on its exit polls after concluding that its
computer analysis could not be trusted. The result was to greatly
slow the usual drumbeat of television projections in a midterm election
filled with tight races. [Washington Post]
- November 6, 2002. By Alessandra Stanley And David D. Kirkpatrick.
Return of an Election Night Tradition: Waiting.
Since Richard M. Nixon's re-election in 1972, surveys of voters
leaving the polls have been the North Star of election night, guiding
live television predictions and declaring candidates' fates before
the polls closed. More than three decades later, a new system for
predicting election results relied on by all major news organizations
went on the blink, forcing analysts to dig out candles against the
bewildering dark. [NY Times]
- November 5, 2002. By David D. Kirkpatrick. New
Computer May Delay Reports on Voting Results. Journalists and
political analysts are preparing to report the results of exceptionally
close election races with an extra dose of uncertainty. Last-minute
glitches in a new computer system are threatening to gum up the
polling service that helps news organizations tabulate not only
projections of election results but also the demographics and motivations
behind them. Voter News Service, the consortium of news organizations
that customarily surveys voters leaving the polls, says it may not
know until tonight how effective its new system has been at tallying
the data it has collected. [NY Times]
- October 20, 2002, Young
Voters' Disengagement Skews Politics: Graying Electorate's Issues
Predominant, Fueling Trend [Washington Post]
- October 20, 2002, Among
Young Voters, Gender Gap Narrows [Washington Post]
- October 16, 2002, Poll
Analyses: Economy And Possible War With Iraq Appear To Help Democrats;
War On Terrorism And Bush Approval Help Republicans [Gallup
News Service]
- General Sources
of Polling Data
- The Final Exit Polls
(links coming after the election!)
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