Jim Hobart, vice president of Public Opinion Strategies, issued this statement today following criticism (http://mccarvillereport.com/archives/27185) of his firm’s polling methodology.
“We read the Sooner Poll’s comments and concerns about our recent Oklahoma statewide poll on your site.
“In order to respond to these comments, please find below:
“Links to the interview schedule and crosstabs from the poll, both of which have been available on our site since March 9th.
“A link to a memo responding to the Sooner Poll’s comments and concerns, as well as some reasons for why the two polls may have been different.”
http://pos.org/documents/ok_response_memo.pdf
http://pos.org/documents/15114_oklahoma_crosstabs.pdf
http://pos.org/documents/15114_oklahoma_interview_schedule.pdf
Why would you poll those demographics that do not have school age children? 65+? Were the 45-64 year olds heavier 45-54 or 55-64? That’s a chunk of people who have no school age children and could care less.
The point is to reflect the actual sentiments of likely voters.
The POS explanation seems to include a little slight of hand. Note how their chart on the difference in age groups refers to “voting age population,” rather than “voting population” or “likely voters.” They know that the younger group of voters, while they may represent 48% of those who could vote, generally vote at a much lower frequency than the older voters. I cannot find good data to check it against, but would not be surprised to learn that the Sooner Poll numbers are very close to the likely voter numbers, which, again, are the right numbers to use for this sort of a poll.
Deb, those old farts probably have a slew of grandkids, probably pay more in school tax, might even care more than you about they future of those kids.