As we look at the abusive travesty that is the Minnesota Poll – in this case, the ludicrously skewed, 3:2 pro-DFL partisan breakdown in this weekend’s polling on the two Constitutional Amendments – let’s take a trip back through history. … Continue reading
You’ve heard the old saying – “the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. The joke writes itself. Nearly every election season, Minnesota’s media runs the results of the Star-Tribune … Continue reading
Contrary to the impression some wrote about on various blogs, I never worked for the Emmer campaign. Oh, I did a fair amount of writing about Emmer’s bid for governor – I thought he had what it took to be … Continue reading
Writing in defense of the Humphrey Institute Poll – which indicated our tie governor’s race was headed for a 12 point blowout – Professor Larry Jacobs says: Careful review of polls in the field conducting interviews during the same period … Continue reading
Professor Larry Jacobs – by far the most-quoted non-elected person in Minnesota – defends the Humphrey Institute Poll: Differences between polls may not be substantively significant as illustrated by the case of MinnPost’s poll with St. Cloud State, which showed … Continue reading
I’ve been raising kids for a long time. Before that, I grew up around a bunch of them. Indeed, I was one myself, once. And I know now as I knew then the same thing that every single person who … Continue reading
In reading Professor Larry Jacobs’ defense of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute poll – which always underpolls Republicans in its immediate pre-election survey, by an average of six points, with the tendency even more exaggerated in close races – Jacobs … Continue reading
I was reading Larry Jacobs’ defense of the Humphrey Institute’s shoddy work this past election. His first point in defense is that polls are “a snapshot in time”: Polls do not offer a “prediction” about which candidate “will” win. Polls … Continue reading
The Twin Cities’ media and academic establishment is starting to try to unpack the disaster of their polling efforts this past election cycle. Minnesota Public Radio has done us the service of printing both the Humphrey Institute’s Larry Jacobs’ defense of … Continue reading
We’ve been discussing the MPR/Humphrey Institute and Minnesota polls for the past two weeks. Indeed, it’s been one of the ongoing “go to” subjects of this blog for almost eight years now. Why? Because while the polls themselves are risible, … Continue reading
It’s almost become a cliche, among conservative observers of Minnesota elections. You’re supporting a Republican. You know the race is close. You can feel the race is close. And the final Humprhey and Minnesota polls come out, and the DFLer … Continue reading
The Hubert H. Humphrey Institute is a combination public-policy study program and think tank at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Named for the patriarch of the Democratic Farmer-Labor party – a forties-era amalgamation of traditional Democrats and neo-wobbly Farmer-Labor … Continue reading
Rob Daves took over the Minnesota Poll in 1987. I have never met Rob Daves. Either, to the best of my knowledge, has anyone else. I don’t know that his alt-media bete noir, Scott Johnson, has even met him, despite … Continue reading
My interest in the Minnesota Poll as an individual institution started right about the time I started this blog, six or eight years ago. Now bear in mind that I, Mitch Berg, have made skepticism of the media at least … Continue reading
The weekend before the election, I was talking with a friend – a woman who has become a newly-minted conservative in the past two years. She’d sat out the 2008 election, and had voted for Kerry in ’04, but finally … Continue reading
My stories on the Great Poll Scam. King Banaian’s Legislative Page.