DK leading The Nation Online Poll

Located here.

Joseph Biden
(286) 2%

Hillary Clinton
(430) 3%

John Edwards
(1131) 9%

Christopher Dodd
(125) 1%

Mike Gravel
(2115) 17%

Dennis Kucinich
(3831) 31%

Barack Obama
(3217) 26%

Bill Richardson
(1005) 8%

Then from a url in the comments, a candidate matching survey has Kucinich way ahead.

Go DK!

-Hoot

I find that interesting that Edwards is fourth, Hillary is at 3%! The Nation is not exactly her stomping grounds, she'd do much better in a New Republic poll. Also Gravel is third, seems the progressive candidates are doing really well, which would make me think Edwards would be third and Obama fourth. But an interesting poll with a few surprises.

Gallup (and kindred) rely heavily on name-recognition - and the general tone of the media "chatter". It's very heavily biased toward people's superficial impressions, not on those who've invested the time and effort to inform themselves and analyze the stances of the various candidates. Easily 95% of the media (print and broadcast) coverage is vacuous and superficial. Clearly, many/most voters WILL make their choices based on such herd behavior, but the impact of the folks who do "viral" information-peddling will have a significant impact.

In any social or work group, there are folks who (while they may not be especially 'popular') have a great influence on others if only because they're seen as "wonkish" or well-informed. Hopefully, many DUers fall in this category.

Thanks for the analysis, I've also been thinking along these lines; but you have a more refined opinion than I. I noticed that Dennis has been doing extremely well on progressive websites (Common Dreams, Truthout, etc...), also I was listening to Thom Hartmann one day that he conducted an on air straw poll and it seemed like every vote was for either Edwards or Kucinich.

The rest didn't get above 50%.

Nice poll TH.

Gravel is disqualified due to his economic (tax) posture - yes, a "litmus test" that I can't ignore. Of the four, Edwards' stance on Universal Health Care, while far from perfect, puts him head-and-shoulders above the other three, imho. (I strongly prefer Kucinich's stance, of course.) Edwards also makes no bones about the corporatism and corruption ... and I believe he means it and is far from naive about it. Therefore, I think Kucinich still leads in my personal preference ... followed by Edwards.

Which is more than I can say about the others. I like Gravel...always have since his courageous stand behind Ellsberg in the bad old days.

Kucinich is the only one that I could vote FOR. Which would save a lot of wear and tear on my much abused nose, which I'm more than reluctant to inflict more punishment on.

And, I can spell Kucinich, if necessary.

another I took a couple days ago came back with a score of 73%. After this past week I can't take any of the others seriously. President Kucinich will be a good person to watch our backs, that I feel real comfortable with where as none of the others give me much hope on that front err back. Kucinich seems to be a person who lives by his convictions as I myself do

Gravel must have sent all his supporters there. I like Mike, and his record from the 70's can't be touched. He deserves a great deal of respect for his political legacy. But his time has passed, and a couple of his policy proposals are very problematic.

your post. And of course, I voted for Dennis in the poll. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Joseph Biden
(286) 2%


Hillary Clinton
(436) 3%


John Edwards
(1137) 9%


Christopher Dodd
(126) 1%


Mike Gravel
(2116) 17%


Dennis Kucinich
(3867) 31%


Barack Obama
(3224) 26%


Bill Richardson
(1008) 8%

This happened to Ron Paul before he got some media attention. DK has also been breaking through a little with his impeachment resolution. Let's continue to fight for this man!

he's running away with it. hell yeah

I'd expect Kucinich to top highly progressive "Nation" readers. Obama not far behind surprised me though.

and you're right of course. polls are just that. i only believe the ones that validate my beliefs. otherwise just shake my head. :)

Ah, the power of the internet to expose the corporate media LIES!
BHN

He can't win or even compete, but his record of service is worthy of respect and his voice was a valuable addition to the debates he was allowed to participate in.

rambling, disjointed, aggressive complaining about everyone and everything, repeated interjections of "fantasyland!" and no actual solutions, ideas, or policies, then yes, Mike Gravel was a valuable addition to the debates.

Joseph Biden
(311) 2%


Hillary Clinton
(476) 3%


John Edwards
(1248) 9%


than all the "name" polls?

Christopher Dodd
(134) 1%


Mike Gravel
(2125) 16%


Dennis Kucinich
(4227) 32%


Barack Obama
(3336) 25%


Bill Richardson
(1037) 8%

:applause:

After his stand up for me tuesday he is my first choice now over any exceptn' of course if big Al jumps in, then and only then would all bets be off:-). My dream team would be big Al and Kucinich

Even the Nation knows it.

"Not statistically valid"

But it's fun to click.

It is good anecdotal information about the readers. The second poll, which is blind, may be a better indicator that indeed his issues are the people's issues, but, it says nothing about actual support.

-Hoot

Are polls only valid and correct when the mainstream media conducts them?

Will many of you be as an ostrich who lives with its head in the sand.

Those of you who cannot see who is the best candidate of the Democrats and vote your conscience truly amaze me. Unfailingly, Kucinich has won every poll I have seen or heard online. The only one I saw he lost was the rapid 5 minute telephone poll by Thom Hartman, and even there he was second to John Edwards, while others could not even be seen in the distance.

It appears that wherever knowledge is required, Kucinich leads the polls! If not, then it is one of the others.

Here was the breakdown when I saw the poll results. Kucinich, like in the DU Poll recently, has led all the way!

Joseph Biden
(322) 2%

Hillary Clinton
(504) 3%

John Edwards
(1309) 9%

Christopher Dodd
(138) 1%

Mike Gravel
(2137) 16%

Dennis Kucinich
(4388) 33%

Barack Obama
(3381) 25%

Bill Richardson
(1055) 7%

There's polls and polls and polls. The polls reported by the mainstream media are usually conducted by random sample via telephone, and may be weighted according to demographics and (in the case of political polls) sometimes the personal voting history of the respondent. Based on random sampling, they can be said to have a "margin of error" obtained directly from the size of the sample set. Those tasked with making predictions based on survey results do tend to value such things. Consequently there are legitimate questions raised with respect to the sampling process (e.g. surveys relying only on landline telephones may under-represent younger voters who use more cellular phones), because getting a truly random sample from the most representative demographic possible is key to measurable accuracy.

The polls in which minor candidates receive big support tend to be self-selected, issue-based, and internet-only. They may potentially be valid measures of something, depending on how many repeat voters there are and the scope of questions asked, but not quantifiably valid in the same way that a randomly sampled poll is "valid". One thing any self-selected internet poll suffers from is a rarefied demographic: those who have internet access and an interest in the subject matter (politics, in this case). Even in the best case, many people measured as "likely voters" in exit polls would be under-represented in internet polling -- e.g., the elderly or incurious. Not being random samples, such polls cannot use "margin of error" accuracy checks, and generally aren't expected to be predictive of the general population.

There are, of course, middle grounds such as Zogby's online polling which attempts to use controlled random sampling within a self-selected population with well-known demographics to achieve predictive results. Such use is still experimental, AFAIK.

The candidate-matching survey results offered by some sites are useful in finding individuals' areas of agreement with particular candidates, but presumably one could obtain equivalent information in other ways, such as reading the capsule summaries of the various candidate platforms used in scoring submitted surveys. The overall result of such surveys should not be regarded as having much predictive value when applied to an actual election because of self-selection, lack of demographic information among respondents, and, far more often than not, the opportunities for abusive repetition.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not apologizing for the mainstream media here, hell no. IMHO, one of the worst offenses committed by the mainstream media with respect to polling is when a local TV news channel will pump its own internet poll results on the air as somehow equivalent to a measurably predictive random poll, hence newsworthy. It basically amounts to an advertisement to draw viewers to the website -- utterly worthless self-hype. Again, we shouldn't conflate such puffery with the predictive ability of a well-designed random survey. Unfortunately, it tends to be large media organizations who have both money and initial interest in chartering high-quality candidate polls to be editorially digested for public consumption, which in turn drives election coverage, thereby increasing name recognition among the leaders. The feedback effect of polling used by mass media is likely detrimental to the public good.

I am grateful for your kind lecture on polls. I just happen to be a retired scientist and I have in my time been able to get any result out of statistical samples.

As they say, there are lies, damned lies and statistics!

What I have seen is that in the DU Poll and now in this one, Kucinich has held his position and voting percentage almost throughout the poll duration. This can only be interpreted in a single way - that he does hold a very universal support of people who read and understand.

This statistical sample is more than 10 times a normal poll. It is obvious that the support that Kucinich has is not based on the corporate lobby amd mainstream media dictates.

The people who take part in these polls do have more grey matter capacity than those who are chosen in a random manner and these are the polls to believe in rather than any other polls

Instead of condemning or casting doubts on such results, the first thing is to look closer why so many educated people are supporting this candidate and then come to a conclusion rather than continue to support someone who is unable to garner support of the thinking and caring public, especially fellow Democrats!

Here was the status of this poll this morning and still Kucinich holds his steady lead of 8% over Obama with 14091 respondents (which is substantially greater than the margins of error in normal polls):

Joseph Biden
(355) 2%

Hillary Clinton
(566) 4%

John Edwards
(1439) 10%

Christopher Dodd
(150) 1%

Mike Gravel
(2191) 15%

Dennis Kucinich
(4744) 33%

Barack Obama
(3548) 25%

Bill Richardson
(1098) 7%

It's just that a lot of people really don't know the difference between self-selected internet polls and random polls, or why a survey that phone-samples 1000 people at random can have quantifiable accuracy within a 3% margin of error over a 90% confidence interval while results of a self-selected internet poll with 100000 responses has no quantifiable accuracy when applied to a general population.

I'm not disputing that DK is going to lead among self-selected samples of educated politically-aware liberals. If you took a random sample from just that group I think DK's lead in the polls you mention would be close to the random results for that group. However, you as much as said yourself that a random sample of Americans isn't going to hit the same quantity of "grey matter", and that's reflected in Kucinich's chronic sub-5% polling. You also observe that DK's support isn't coming from the mainstream media, but it's the mainstream media that's going to make or break a candidate's popular support in the mainstream, hence the name.

Not to wax pedantic again, but both DU and the readership of The Nation online magazine have populations which over-represent educated politically-aware liberals. If the American electorate, or even the Democratic primary electorate, were made up mostly of people who would vote for DK in online polls, the world would be a very different place today. As it stands, he's had some difficulty getting into the double-digits even among Democrats.

So if it comes down to "which poll do I believe?", the answer is "both, for looking at two different things." One measures candidate support among people who make up the general population, the other among people who vote in political online polls. The synthesis, as you observe, is to look closely at why the results are so very different. Why do the poll numbers for Clinton and Kucinich swap around when we switch between samples of the general population and a rarefied demographic? I think we both know the answer to that question, so here's another.

Grant that Kucinich attracts strong support among people who are enthusiastic, informed on the issues, and very likely to vote in the Democratic primary. What can Kucinich supporters do to become opinion leaders for the mainstream? When we get a realistic, positive answer for that question, we'll have a way to shift the center.

ETA: I think this question is important enough that I'm going to ask it in a separate thread.

that's nice to see

It is truly amazing that with 15804 votes cast in The Nation Poll, Dennis is still holding his lead on the others with 32%. It is also amazing that Hilary Clinton cannot get more that 4%!

Joseph Biden
(400) 2%

Hillary Clinton
(674) 4%

John Edwards
(1633) 10%

Christopher Dodd
(184) 1%

Mike Gravel
(2259) 14%

Dennis Kucinich
(5200) 32%

Barack Obama
(4299) 27%

Bill Richardson
(1155) 7%

This Nation Poll is truly amazing.

With almost 19500 votes cast, Dennis who started as leader with 31% (when it was just 12140 votes cast) has steadily increased his lead with now 34% of the votes cast.

Joseph Biden
(568) 2%

Hillary Clinton
(960) 4%

John Edwards
(2435) 12%

Christopher Dodd
(250) 1%

Mike Gravel
(2388) 11%

Dennis Kucinich
(6815) 34%

Barack Obama
(5244) 26%

Bill Richardson
(1329) 6%

As Obama is over 8% behind, this really means that this is a statistically correct poll of the Democrat intelligentsia.