I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Gov. Bill Richardson’s office is disputing the results of a recent poll that gave the governor very low approval ratings.
Richardson’s Deputy Chief of Staff Gilbert Gallegos told KOAT in a statement, “It’s difficult to take this poll seriously when we’ve never heard of the pollster and he relies on unscientific polling methods with untrustworthy results.”
Public Policy Polling is the Democratic firm that conducted the recent survey using “Interactive Voice Response” or IVR technology in which people are asked recorded questions and answer by pressing buttons on their phones instead of talking to a human questioner. Other pollsters that use such a process include SurveyUSA and Rasmussen Reports.
This echoes claims by the state Republican Party and Republican gubernatorial candidate, Susana Martinez. Martinez had her “strategy team” issue a memo to the press disputing the pollster’s process. Martinez is one of five Republicans running against Democratic Lt. Gov. Diane Denish.
The Republican Party countered with its own poll that shows a generic Republican beats a generic Democrat 44 percent to 40 percent. That poll differs from the PPP poll in that it is of likely voters as opposed to registered voters and did not name specific candidates.
Gallegos also cited “a recent scientific poll” that put the governor’s approval rating at 44 percent. Gallegos said the poll was not commissioned by Richardson but did not offer any further evidence as to what poll he was referring to.
His full statement is available in this KOAT story.
Yesterday, the Independent wrote in a story about the gubernatorial poll quoting Mark Blumenthal of Pollster.com, who took on the issue of automated pollsters, or “interactive voice response” (IVR) pollsters in 2006:
Skepticism about IVR polling based on theoretical concerns is certainly widespread in the survey research establishment, but one can look long and hard for hard evidence of the lack of reliability of IVR, or even Internet polling, without success. Precious little exists, and the few reviews available (such as the work of my friend, Prof. Joel Bloom, or the 2004 Slate review by David Kenner and William Saletan) indicate that the numbers produced by the IVR pollsters comport as well or better than with actual election results than those from their traditional competitors.
This year, Blumenthal again revisited the debate and noted a report that showed use of ‘interactive voice response (IVR) techniques made no difference to the accuracy of estimates’ in primary polls.”
The PPP poll of 990 registered voters in New Mexico was conducted between February 18 and 20 and has a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.
A poll of the congressional races from PPP is expected today.
