Poll States Rendell Edging Swann

According to a poll conducted by Quinnipiac Polling Institute Rendell leads Swann 48-36%. As a person who is skeptical of any poll, especially one which gets touted by the news media, I had to look further into their polling record to see how accurate they have been in the past. If they have a strong record then maybe I'll put a little credence into the poll.

To be fair I also took a look at a Rasmussen Report. This report is a month old already but I will revisit it again when the new poll appears. They show that Rendell leads Swann by a 45-43% margin. That is not even close to the spread given by Quinnipiac.

I did some digging and found a report on polling done by SurveyUSA. Here are their findings.

• As far as accuracy Rasmussen was wrong in 1 of 39 polls while Quinnipiac was perfect on all five it conducted.
• 5.1% of Rasmussen's polls were outside of the margin of sampling error compared to 20% to Quinnipiac. Only the Global Strategy Group (28%) and the LA Times (40%) did worse.
• Using the Mosteller, Traugott, and Shipman methods to determine the average error on the margin of victory Rasmussen did better than Quinnipiac in all methods.

Given that evidence I would say that Rasmussen's numbers are more credible. This race is nowhere near a walk in the park for Rendell as Quinnipiac proclaims.

I also looked at other polls done by Quinnipiac and it raises questions about their polling samples.

• They said that Rendell would win big over Fisher in the 2002 governor's race. While Rendell did win, he only gathered 54% of the vote. That is hardly a big win.
• Last December they polled Americans on Alito. They said the public was mixed on Alito and that he should state his position on abortion.
• Last May they say Americans support Roe Vs Wade by 2-1 and support a filibuster on judicial nominees.

The results of these polls make me question their objectivity in their polling.
Again the moral of this story is never take numbers from polls on faith. Either do your own research or look at a number of polls to get an overall look at things.