Just a quick update about another before-and-after debate poll conducted online last night by Knowledge Networks, this one on behalf of Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg and guru James Carville for Democracy Corps. Both are serving as informal Kerry campaign advisors. They post a report and complete results that look mostly comparable to the public poll findings: No real change in the vote or in perceptions of Bush, but significant improvements in ratings of Kerry.
Mark Blumenthal is the principal at MysteryPollster, LLC. With decades of experience in polling using traditional and innovative online methods, he is uniquely positioned to advise survey researchers, progressive organizations and candidates and the public at-large on how to adapt to polling’s ongoing reinvention. He was previously head of election polling at SurveyMonkey, senior polling editor for The Huffington Post, co-founder of Pollster.com and a long-time campaign consultant who conducted and analyzed political polls and focus groups for Democratic party candidates.
2 thoughts on “Democracy Corps on Debates”
MysteryPollster:
I have a few questions about this Democracy Corps poll:
1- Isn’t it a bit of a “push poll” since the horse race question isn’t asked until after people answer a battery of questions on who won, attributes, etc?
2- Don’t you find it odd that Bush’s job approval numbers went up, and the “right track/wrong track” numbers improved after the debate – even some of Bush’s personal attributes went up… when Kerry’s was said to have won the debate by these same respondents?
First post and by way of introductions i’m a Scottish politico currently working for the Labour Party.
Are there any numbers or whether the differences between the candiates, both in terms of substance and personality / character grew or contracted amongst voters?
The reason I ask, and i’m not polling expert, is that even if Kerry’s favourable numbers go up on the back of thursday night but the percieved differences between the candidates do not does this represent an outcome where Kerry might “win” but Bush “doesn’t lose”?
Neil
MysteryPollster:
I have a few questions about this Democracy Corps poll:
1- Isn’t it a bit of a “push poll” since the horse race question isn’t asked until after people answer a battery of questions on who won, attributes, etc?
2- Don’t you find it odd that Bush’s job approval numbers went up, and the “right track/wrong track” numbers improved after the debate – even some of Bush’s personal attributes went up… when Kerry’s was said to have won the debate by these same respondents?
First post and by way of introductions i’m a Scottish politico currently working for the Labour Party.
Are there any numbers or whether the differences between the candiates, both in terms of substance and personality / character grew or contracted amongst voters?
The reason I ask, and i’m not polling expert, is that even if Kerry’s favourable numbers go up on the back of thursday night but the percieved differences between the candidates do not does this represent an outcome where Kerry might “win” but Bush “doesn’t lose”?
Neil