NY-01: New SUSA Poll Shows a Dogfight, But Almost No Young Voters in Sample

[ccharles000]

SurveyUSA for Firedoglake (1/16-18, likely voters):

Tim Bishop (D-inc): 47
Randy Altschuler (R): 45
Undecided: 8
(MoE: ±4.1%)

First of all, there is a pretty glaring peculiarity from this poll: it contains almost no young voters in its sample. Voters between the ages of 18-34 make up exactly 1% of its sample. Look: I wouldn't be surprised if the youth vote is severely depressed in November, but that seems a little extreme. (Similarly, SUSA's AR-02 poll had a 5% sample of young voters, and 3% in OH-01.)

I have no interest in discussing the healthcare portions of this poll (and neither should you), but the top lines are still worth having a look at. Critics of a poll like this might point to an Altschuler internal poll from mid-November that had Bishop ahead by 46-26. However, I think you can defensibly argue that the environment has gotten weaker for Democrats in the interim. Remember, this is not a deep blue district -- Obama only won Bishop's CD by 52-48. Moreover, this is one of the few races that have actually been engaged: Altschuler went on the air in late December with blistering ads hitting Bishop on his TARP votes. Still, the lack of young voters here seems like a pretty glaring weakness of SUSA's likely voter screen. I would suspect that a more realistic model would give a few extra points to Bishop, but that still wouldn't be enough to say that he's out of the woods.

http://www.swingstateproject.com/diary/6249/ny01-new-susa-poll-shows-a-dogfight-but-almost-no-young-voters-in-sample

[OHdem10]

1. Could their sample be "Likely Voters".

[Irish_shark]

2. You predicted Coakley would beat Brown by 4%

http://www.democraticunderground.org/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=131022&mesg_id=131728

Doesn't that cast doubt on your ability to criticize other pollsters?

[ccharles000]

3. Um I'm not a pollster I just made a guess.

[Teaser]

4. failpost

let's see your track record, Einstein.

[quantass]

5. Looks like SurveyUSA wants to make waves in the MSM today...

by intentionally undersampling the younger votes....its a smart strategy for this company to do for the sake of more exposure....as for integrity...not so much.