Back by popular demand, originally published August 6, 2004
While the polls bounce around, I’ve discovered a few sites with permanent links to consistently informative data. These pages have distinguished themselves:
Simply a graphic depiction of these here United States, with polling data broken down by states and their electoral votes. See this chart as an example:
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graphic courtesy of electoral vote.com
The Electoral Vote Predictor right now shows Kerry at 280, and Bush at 258. These numbers fluctuate quite frequently as Florida and Ohio vacillates between “Barely Kerry” and “Barely Bush.”
The good prof has a terrific, meticulous scatter chart of ALL the polling data; Its never the single data point, and always the trend that matters most.
Here’s a recent example:
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graphic courtesy of pollkatz
See also the Professor’s analysis of which pollsters have the greatest “Fudge Factors”
3) Polling Report: bills itself as “an independent, nonpartisan resource on trends in American public opinion.” I think thats a good description. There’s a wealth of data here that is simply very accessable and quite usable.
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graphic courtesy of Polling Report
Be sure to check out their National Barometer Trend Lines also.
How could I forget RCP? Their list of all the polls out there provides a numerical snapshot (compared with Pollkatz’s graphical view) of the race. Terrific resource.
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Graphic courtesy of Real Clear Politics
There are only two mainstream media sites included here: The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.
5) The Washington Post has a permanent link that tracks a variety of issues, as well as providing detailed data of their methodology.
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Graphic courtesy of The Washington Post
See also this link for their recent graph.
6) The WSJ gets included, despite having a not quite permanent link. They offer terrific perspectives and charts on the Battleground Swing States:
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Graphic courtesy of WSJ
There’s some more commentary on the post convention Journal report here.
Sources:
electoral vote.com
http://electoral-vote.com/
Professor Pollkatz
http://www.pollkatz.homestead.com/
Polling Report
http://www.pollingreport.com/
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/elections/2004/charting.html
WSJ: Battlegrounds States Poll – August 2, 2004
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-battleground04-1006print.html
