Tuesday brings us together for another evening of politics under the influence. Please join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Stop by earlier for dinner.

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
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www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 249 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

(And there are links to some 40 more videos from the past week in politics at Hominid Views.)

Rasmussen released a new poll today in the race between Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and real estate opportunist Dino Rossi. The poll of 750 likely voters, taken on 28 Sept 2010, has Rossi (R) up by 1% (48% to 47%). If we consider this the only poll of relevance, a Monte Carlo analysis can suggest the probability of each candidate winning in a hypothetical election held today. From a million simulated elections of 750 people voting for each candidate probabilistically at the observed frequencies, we find that Murray wins 416,583 times and Rossi wins 573,402 times. That is, the best evidence from this poll suggests that, in an election held today, Murray would win with a 42.1% probability and Rossi would win with a 57.9% probability. Here is the distribution of outcomes from those million simulated elections:

Kind-of scary stuff, huh?

An interesting thing about the Rasmussen poll is that the actual polling work is done by a company called Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. As it happens, this is the same firm that did a FOX News poll just three days earlier. That poll of 1,000 likely voters taken on 25th of September had Murray leading Rossi 48% to 47%. There may some be differences in the likely voter model preferred by Rasmussen and Fox, but such an explanation isn’t really necessary to explain the differences. There is nothing at all inconsistent between the polls. Given the sample sizes, the polls do not really differ. Rather, they suggest that the race is close. We can pool the two polls to get a better idea of the race according to the methods used by Pulse Opinion Research. A Monte Carlo analysis using a sample size of 1,750 “voters” and pooled candidate preference percentages gives Murray 513,406 wins to Rossi’s 479,748 wins. In other words, the two polls taken by Pulse some three days apart suggests that, in an election held over the past week or so, Murray would win with a 51.7% probability.

But why restrict ourselves to a single pollster? In the past two weeks, there were four polls taken. The earlier two polls were by Survey USA giving Murray a 50% to 48% lead over Rossi in a sample of 609 likely voters taken from 19-21 Sept, and an earlier Rasmussen poll (750 likely voters) taken on 14th Sept, showing Murray leading Rossi 51% to 46%. When we pool these four polls, we get a respectable sample size of 3,109 individuals of which 2,987 went for either Murray or Rossi. Of these, 1,520 ( 48.9%) were for Murray and 1,467 ( 47.2%) were for Rossi. After a million simulated elections, Murray won 743,815 times and Rossi won 251,927 times. In other words, the combined evidence from four polls taken by two polling firms over the past two weeks suggests that Murray has a 74.7% probability of beating Rossi.

Does this reflect a decline in Murray’s support? I think it does a little. As this graph shows, the four most recent polls all fall within each other’s margin of error:

But the next two earlier polls, by CNN/Time/Opinion Research and Elway showed a significantly better lead for Murray than this most recent poll does, suggesting that there has been a real decline for Murray from a month ago. Alternatively, it could be just bad luck of the draw in Rasmussen’s most recent poll, since other than the most recent poll, all of the previous five polls fall within each others margins of error. So which is it? Hey…I report, you decide.

A new FOX News poll released on Tuesday shows Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) leading real estate speculator and perennial candidate Dino Rossi (who prefers the GOP Party) by 48% to 47%.

You read it right…Murray leads Rossi in a FOX News poll. The poll surveyed 1,000 likely voters in Washington state on 25th of September.

This is the fifth consecutive poll that has Murray ahead of Rossi, and she has now led in seven of the last nine polls taken over the past two months. Elsewhere I take a closer look at the polls and its implications.

Another Tuesday, another evening of insightful political conversation, confabulation, consultation, and colloquy…under the influence. Please join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Stop by early for dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 247 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

Another poll has been released in the race between real-estate salesman and two-time gubernatorial race loser Dino Rossi (R) and Sen. Patty Murray (D). The Survey USA poll has Murray leading Rossi 50% to 48%. The survey included 609 likely voters.

As has been noted for their previous polls, something is “off” with Survey USA for this race. N in Seattle (among others) noted their “Metro Seattle” crosstabs were abnormal in the previous poll. Goldy thinks they’re still not quite realistic.

As usual, I’m interested in what the poll has to say about who would win in an election held now. Following a million simulated elections of 609 individuals voting at the proportions observed, Murray wins 635,301 elections and Rossi wins 353,991 times. In other words, this poll provides evidence that Murray would have a 64.2% probability of beating Rossi right now. Here is the distribution of outcomes:

With this new poll today, we have had a total of four polls taken in September:

	Start	End	Samp		%	%	%
Poll	date	date	size	MOE	Dem	Rep	Diff
SurveyUSA	19-Sep	21-Sep	609	4.1	50.0	48.0	D+2.0
Rasmussen	14-Sep	14-Sep	750	4.0	51.0	46.0	D+5.0
CNN/Time/OR	10-Sep	14-Sep	906	3.0	53.0	44.0	D+9.0
Elway	09-Sep	12-Sep	500	4.5	50.0	41.0	D+9.0

Murray has led in all four of these polls. In fact, she has earned at least 50% in each of the last four polls.

If we pool the respondents from all four September polls, we get a sample of 2,765 voters of which 2,658 went for either Murray or Rossi. Murray leads in the pooled sample 51.2% to 44.9%. Another Monte Carlo analysis gives Murray 991,344 wins to Rossi’s 8,375 wins. The evidence of these four polls indicate that Murray would have a 99.2% chance of beating Rossi in an election held this month.

Finally, here is the complete polling history for this race:

At this point, we can no longer debate whether or not Murray is vulnerable—there just isn’t much evidence for that. Perhaps the debate should turn to whether or not she will defeat Rossi by a single-digit or double-digit margin. Discuss.

It’s Tuesday, which means it’s time for an evening of some politics under the influence. Please join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Stop by early for dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 247 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

As I briefly mentioned earlier today, we got a new Rasmussen Poll in the race between Sen. Patty Murray (D) and Dino Rossi (R). The poll shows Murray leading Rossi 51% to 46%. The poll surveyed 750 likely voters on the 14th of September.

With this new poll, we have now had seven polls taken (and released to the public) over the past month:

	Start	End			%	%	%
Poll	date	date	Size	MOE	D	R	Diff
Rasmussen	14-Sep	14-Sep	750	4.0	51	46	D+5.0
CNN Time OR	10-Sep	14-Sep	906	3.0	53	44	D+9.0
Elway	09-Sep	12-Sep	500	4.5	50	41	D+9.0
Rasmussen	31-Aug	31-Aug	750	4.0	46	48	R+2.0
DSCC	28-Aug	31-Aug	968	—	50	45	D+5.0
SurveyUSA	18-Aug	19-Aug	618	4.0	45	52	R+7.0
Rasmussen	18-Aug	18-Aug	750	4.0	48	44	D+4.0

In what follows, I’ll ignore the DSCC poll. Not that I have any reason to doubt the poll. Rather, the poll was specifically released because the results favored Murray, thus clearly violating a statistical assumption used for the analysis.

Murray leads in four of the remaining six polls. As usual, I’ll begin with a Monte Carlo simulation analysis of the most recent poll (FAQ). Taking just the new Rasmussen polls there were 728 respondents who went for Murray or Rossi. Following a million simulated elections, Murray tallies 835,577 wins to Rossi’s 158,253 wins.

The evidence offered by this most recent poll suggests that Murray would have an 84.1% chance of beating Rossi if an election had occurred two days ago. Here is the distribution of outcomes from the simulated elections:

With three polls released over three days, we might as well combine all of ’em. Of the total of 2,156 individuals sampled, 2,061 go for Rossi or Murray. Murray gets 51.6% and Rossi gets 44.0% of the “votes.” The simulation analysis gives Murray 994,327 wins to Rossi’s 5,404 wins.

Thus, these three polls offer evidence that Murray would have a 99.5% chance of beating Rossi in an election held over that past week.

Rossi does a little better if we combine the last month of polls (all but the DSCC poll in the table). Now we end up with a sample of 4,274 respondents, of which 4056 are for Murray or Rossi. The raw percentages are 49.0% Murray and 45.9% Rossi. The Monte Carlo analysis gives Murray 933,103 wins to Rossi’s 65,250 wins.

If the past month of polling is representative of Washington state voters, the evidence suggests that Murray would win an election held now with a 93.5% probability.

Going back a month or two things did not look nearly so rosy for Murray. This is clear from a graph of the polling in this race:

See that dip that occurs over the summer? When the early September Rasmussen poll came out showing Rossi leading Murray 48% to 46%, I offered a theory:

There is another reason I am not (yet) too concerned. August 31 is still in the “dog days of summer” around here. In my many years of following polling in Washington state, I’ve learned that Washingtonians become very negative in the summer, only to perk right back up in the fall. I can’t really explain it…I’ve just observed it in approval numbers. Murray probably gets the worst of if from the summer malaise. That is, Murray doesn’t really have to worry about close results like these for another month….

I’m such a pessimist…it only took a couple of weeks.

(Cross posted at Hominid Views.)

Three days and three new polls in the race between Sen. Patty Murray (D) and Dino Rossi (R). Today’s poll is by Rasmussen and shows Murray leading Rossi 51% to 46%.

These new results are completely consistent with polls released over the past two days. Two days ago, an Elway poll showed Murray leading Rossi 50% to 41%. And yesterday we saw the release of a CNN, Time, and Opinion Research poll that had Murray leading Rossi by a remarkable 53% to 44%.

I’ll post more analysis of this new poll and some joint poll analyses later today.

Another day another poll in the race between incumbent Senator Patty Murray (D) and real estate speculator and perennial candidate Dino Rossi (R). Just yesterday, an Elway poll showed Murray leading Rossi 50% to 41%. I understand some folks are skeptical about the veracity of Elway’s polls, so this new poll will be interesting….

Today’s poll, by CNN, Time, and Opinion Research, queried 906 likely voters in Washington state. In the poll, Murray leads Rossi by a stunning 53% to 44%. (Among registered voters, rather than likely voters, Murray leads Rossi by 50% to 44%). That’s even more favorable for Murray than the Elway poll!

As usual, I’ll do a Monte Carlo analysis to get a better feel for the odds of each candidate winning as suggested by the new poll results. After a million simulated elections using the likely voter numbers and percentages, Murray won 973,114 times, and Rossi, 25,471 times.

In other words, if the election was held right now, the evidence from this poll suggests Murray would have a 97.4% probability of beating Rossi. Because the winning percentage is over 95%, statisticians would deem this “statistically significant.” That is, Murray’s lead isn’t very likely to be an artifact of a small sample. Here is the distribution of outcomes from the simulation:

That’s a lot of blue there….

Since yesterday’s Elway poll was taken just a few days earlier, we can reasonably combine the evidence from these two polls. There were a combined total of 1,406 “votes” of which 1,334 went to either Murray or Rossi. Murray took 51.9% of the “votes” to Rossi’s 43.0%. A series of simulated elections from the joint polls gives Murray 992,496 wins to Rossi’s 7,124 wins. In other words, these two polls suggest that Murray would have a 99.3% chance of beating Rossi if the election had been held now. Here’s the distribution:

That’s even more blue!

Clearly…the one thing Rossi is badly in need of in this race is more SurveyUSA polling!

Update: Here is what the polling looks like this year for the race….

Clearly, the summer slump has ended.

It’s primary night tonight…well, it is in DE, MA, MD, NH, NY, RI & WI (oh yeah…in DC, too). So please join us tonight for an evening of electoral politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Stop by even earlier and enjoy some dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 246 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

(And there are links to 40 more media clips from the past week in politics at Hominid Views.)

Please join us tonight for an evening of Bible burning politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Stop by even earlier and enjoy some dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 245 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

Mission Accomplished!

So stuff some socks down your flight suit and join us on the deck of the U.S.S. Drinking Liberally for an evening of political machismo under the influence. We’ll “bring it on” at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Some of us will be there even earlier for dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 242 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

(And there are over fifty more links to media from the past week in politics posted at Hominid Views.)