Gallup poll says Texas is one of the nation's most politically balanced states

Too good to be true (0.00 / 0)

I find it hard to reconcile this finding that Texas is not a Republican-leaning state with the circumstance that we still don't have a single Democrat in statewide office, and our state chose McCain over Obama.

Is this cell-phone-only poll hitting a lot of young people who consider themselves Democratic, but were not sufficiently inspired by Obama actually to vote for him?

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by: MarkCamann @ Thu Jan 29, 2009 at 02:41:16 AM UTC

Too simple not to be. (3.00 / 1)

Many conservatives identify as Democrats and end up pulling the lever for Republicans because they're displeased with the Democrat.

Most of the nation is Democratic by default.

There is a bit to be cautioned about reading too much into this poll, especially since we have the super precise sample dates of "2008" as our guide. It would be helpful to know when in 2008 this poll was conducted.


"There's nothing new except for the history that you don't know."
-HST

Justice Addict

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by: Colin Kalmbacher @ Thu Jan 29, 2009 at 03:06:24 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

2008 (5.00 / 2)

In 2008, Gallup interviewed more than 350,000 U.S. adults as part of Gallup Poll Daily tracking. That includes interviews with 1,000 or more residents of every U.S. state except Wyoming (885) and North Dakota (953), as well as the District of Columbia (689). There were more than 15,000 interviews conducted with residents of California, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Florida.

This large data set provides the unique ability to give reliable estimates of state-level characteristics for 2008. Each sample of state residents was weighted by demographic characteristics to ensure it is representative of the state's population.

This was all the daily polling rolled up.  Key here is these were 'adults,' not voters. Texas has 17.7 million voting age 'adults,' but only 13.6 million registered and only 8.1 million voted in November. Get the other 4.1 million registered and voting, and get the 5.5 million who stayed home to vote and then Texas will be 'politically balanced' in election results.

BTW - margin of error on a 15000 sample is 0.8%.

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by: George @ Thu Jan 29, 2009 at 03:48:06 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Ahh, cool. (0.00 / 0)

Thanks! Missed that or glossed over it.

"There's nothing new except for the history that you don't know."
-HST

Justice Addict

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by: Colin Kalmbacher @ Sat Jan 31, 2009 at 16:48:46 PM UTC