The Q-Poll, Transparency, and 2010 v. 1994

by: Gabe

Wed Sep 29, 2010 at 11:26:27 AM EDT

Well, if you applied the partisan breakdown of the 1994 exit polls to this race, you get Blumenthal 51.5, McMahon 44.0. In other words, this Q poll is projecting a turnout scenario which is markedly worse for the Democrats than even 1994.

Inspired, I did the same for today's Gubernatorial Q-Poll and found that, while the difference isn't as pronounced as in the Senate Poll, the Democrat again fairs better with the partisan break down from 1994 (via exit poll data available here - roughly 34D-27R-38U (119/1500 respondents declined to list their partisan identification - these are removed to get the percentages)), than with the partisan breakdown used by the Q.

In today's poll, Malloy leads Foley 45-42 with 12 percent undecided.  Using the 1994 partisan breakdown, Malloy would lead 46.9 to 42.6 with 10.5 percent undecided.

Their are two takeaways here:

1. Quinnipiac is using a partisan ID breakdown that is somewhere between a little and way worse for Democrats than the 1994 partisan ID breakdown was.

2. Quinnipiac doesn't release their partisan ID breakdown, so its incredibly hard to evaluate the decisions they made in determining who is a likely voter - and impossible to decide how much faith to put in their results.

The first point is certainly arguable.  The partisan breakdown of voters in 2010 could be worse for Democrats than 1994's were. I don't think so - I think 1994 was probably the low-water mark for Democrats - but a case can be made.

The second point isn't - Quinnipiac should be releasing the partisan ID breakdown that makes up their likely voter screen - other pollsters do (and some even release all of their crosstabs, not just the toplines), and the transparency allows observers to decide for themselves how much weight to give the poll.

Since, aside from Rasmussen and all their baggage, Q-Poll is basically the only pollster polling these two races (at least so far, this might change as the races tighten), we (political junkies) need them to be more transparent, or we can't get the information we need to obsess over these races. And the press need the transparency to accurately portray these races for the non-political junkies among us.