by frog
On election night in 1993, Jim Bolger said: “bugger the pollsters”. Why? Well, how about we allow the man himself explain. He told Mediawatch in 2004:
I stepped back to the polls and expressed “bugger the pollsters” because in that ‘93 election the polls had all moved consistently in favour of the National Party and all the last polls had us eight to ten points ahead, including the one that was released on the night of the election, taken on the day before on the Friday, it wasn’t allowed to be released, which showed us eight or ten points ahead. In the event of course, on the night we got about half a percent ahead of Labour – if that.
I raise this just as a cautionary tale for anyone who thinks they have a clear idea of what will happen on Saturday night. The polls were around eight points out in 1993: Labour did four points better and National four points worse on election night than the polls has predicted. Nothing is a foregone conclusion.
Published in Campaign by frog on Thu, September 15th, 2005
Tags: environment
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Yet, despite what all the polls say (to be believed or not) your rolling poll of polls has almost never had National in front of Labour in the party vote stakes…
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look you donts say we didn’t warn yous fwwog, PM Elect Bwash has had to dissipate fury from fascists ACT, and we allowed to do violets if we catch yous fwwogs,
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Hey just got back from Helen speaking on campus at Auckland – was definately the opposite of Cantebury
. Nandor showed up on a scooter too, seemed to be having a ball meeting and greeting. Havn’t seen any National MP’s around this election. There was one National guy in a very sharp suit trying to give out pamphlets the other day but he looked like a bit of a prat by himself in the rain being ignored.
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Well, I suspect that even one more poll with National ahead will put them ahead on the rolling averages… To recap, though, the most recent polls (i.e. in the past eight days) have had the following results: Lab +9, Lab +0.5, Nat +7, Lab +3.6, Nat +2, Nat +6. So, a pretty big variation.
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Didn’t the ex Christian Heritage Leader do just that…Bugger the pollsters?:
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It’s also really deceptive that margins of error don’t say they’re only accurate to a 95%. Then again, statistics are like that.
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