There are many ways you can do a poll of polls. I do one which just weights any polls within the last six weeks by size and recency. I don’t know what the Herald-Motu methodology is but it fails the most basic common sense test.
Their current poll of polls says “The Greens are on 12.1%, NZ First is on 11.8%, Opportunity is on 8.5%, Act is on 8.3% and Te Pāti Māori is on 2%.”
So they have Opportunity 0.2% ahead of ACT. Now let’s look at the actual poll results from the last few polls:
If this is what the formula produces, then bluntly the formula is wrong. This can’t be adjusting for house effects because all six companies have ACT ahead of Opportunity, yet the poll of polls says they are all wrong and actually Opportunity is ahead.
It can’t even be adjusting for the last election because in fact TOP got a lower election result than the polls had them.
I hate saying this, because I am a big fan of poll of polls. But the results being produced by the Herald should not be taken as an indication of the current polls. Once again, every polling company has ACT ahead of Opportunity, yet their poll of polls says Opportunity is ahead.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders
Their current poll of polls says “The Greens are on 12.1%, NZ First is on 11.8%, Opportunity is on 8.5%, Act is on 8.3% and Te Pāti Māori is on 2%.”
So they have Opportunity 0.2% ahead of ACT. Now let’s look at the actual poll results from the last few polls:
- Verian – ACT 11%, TOP 6%: ACT +5%
- Freshwater – ACT 9%, TOP 6%: ACT +3%
- Anacta – ACT 8%, TOP 7%: ACT +1%
- Curia – ACT 10.5%, TOP 4.5%: ACT +6%
- Roy Morgan – ACT 10.5%, TOP 9.5%: ACT +1%
- Reid Research – ACT 7.7%, TOP 5.3%: ACT +2.4%
If this is what the formula produces, then bluntly the formula is wrong. This can’t be adjusting for house effects because all six companies have ACT ahead of Opportunity, yet the poll of polls says they are all wrong and actually Opportunity is ahead.
It can’t even be adjusting for the last election because in fact TOP got a lower election result than the polls had them.
I hate saying this, because I am a big fan of poll of polls. But the results being produced by the Herald should not be taken as an indication of the current polls. Once again, every polling company has ACT ahead of Opportunity, yet their poll of polls says Opportunity is ahead.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders
5 comments:
Yes. TOP seem to me to be the most synthetic, AstroTurf, PR creation ever offered in an NZ election. Their policies are ridiculous yet the media of all stripes seem to push them.
Of course, Edward Bernays enthused over the opinion poll's power to influence public opinion. And I think that is the explanation behind NZ Herald's "error". It is just another cack-handed attempt to push a party that no body cares about.
Funny headline from a man who got found to not run ethical polling to the point where he took his polling company and went home with it, so that he now cannot run a certified polling company. And he is complaining about a poll. While knowing his polling company isn’t certified. Because he set up misleading polls and got found out.
Last election it looked like National/ACT had the votes to win, anathema to the lefties, so the MSM spruiked NZF, literally every day, to bring them into play to either jump in with Labour again, or at least water down the right leanings of ACT/National, and it worked.
This time round the MSM had a new darling to push (with the added bonus that this one might actually guarantee a left wing victory) so they’re flat out on TOP, with the result that poor old Winston can’t buy a headline to save his life.
And once again we’ll probably fall for it - which reminds me of a chorus from Handel’s Messiah, “All we like sheep…” (It’s a good tune, look it up)
There is but one solution, Party vote ACT or NZF and only Electorate Vote National , because we are about to decide whether we are , or will be a free people or a subserviant nation
Has Anon at 9.02am got something to add to the debate, or just trolling?
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