Very interesting, and pretty discouraging for this Obama supporter.  

If this is true, and Clinton wins Calif. by 5% or more, he has some explaining to do.

with the polls (people are swayed by polls - got to be with the crowd) then this is bad for zogby polls in the future.

Progressive Blue

Ugh...just like the media, the pollsters can't even put their bias aside...

And let's face it, the Zogby numbers are in total opposition to SUSA and even differ strongly from Rasmussen.  I wonder how they could possibly get such different numbers, but besides sampling error, I didn't even think bias would enter the equation.

Good going there Zogby.  For your sake, I hope Clinton doesn't destroy Obama in California.  You might be out of a job.

If Zogby lays an egg on this one than it will hopefully tarnish his reputation for good. He is such an overrated pollster. He predicted wrong for John Kerry. He touts his Zogby Interactive online polls like they mean anything. The polling world would be better off without John Zogby.

Sean Hannity and Dick Morris just sited this poll on Fox. Now you know that makes it accurate for sure.

If he is skewing the results he is doing a shitty job. The Obama campaign would surely appreciate it if he lowered expectations rather than raising them.

I am familiar with him. He has been active in Middle East issues for a lot of years. John Zogby's polling, for better or worse, stands on its own. His past problems have been because he tinkered with methodology. Whether is right right today or not, he did call NV when everyone thought it could not be polled. It serves no pollster any good to try and create numbers ot of thin air and when their work is judged at every election.

This is very interesting. Thanks for posting. I think people need to take a second look at how the MSM et.al. work to shape our opinion (ie Hillary=cold, calculating, villian and Obama=perfection).

I thought Pollster suppose to be neutral, and do the best they can to reflect the true picture.  But I give more credit to Zogby and Obama's intelligent.

Perhaps Zogby maintains 2 books of polling result.  The true poll that he gives to Obama camp.  And the cooked poll that he reports to the public.  So Obama camp know the real situation.  But at the same time they can fabricate the momentum.

Other than one mention on a website mention that he " is a senior analyst with the polling firm" do you pretend to have any actual information to suggest that Jim Zogby has had anything to do with any of the methodology, interpretation or publicity of results from his brother's polling firm?  

I didn't think so. As the diarist says, "there is no proof, of course, of any bias..."

Jim Zogby works full time for the Arab-American Institute -- a well-respected advocacy organization for Arab American civil rights and policy. Any role he plays in terms of polling is nothing more than incidental.

John Zogby has had the best record in the contests so far this season  - he correctly called for Iowa, Nevada, and SC (and Florida if you care about that). He screwed up NH, just like every other pollster did.

So if you somehow believe in your tin-foil hat world that a professional pollster like John Zogby is putting his reputation on the line by somehow letting his brother mess with his numbers, you really are a little too paranoid for me. Just because you don't like a pollster's numbers doesn't mean they are in some candidate's pocket.

Clearly different pollsters are using different turnout models (% of independents, men/women, ethnic composition of voters, early voting factors, undecideds, etc_ are what account for the differences in the polls -- but it isn't because of some kind of fraternal polling manipulation....

"There is no proof, ofcourse, of any bias resulting from this apparent juxtaposition."

What a laugh!  You'd have to be unconscious NOT to see this as bias.  If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a.....

A worthwhile piece of advice from Matt Stoller over at Open Left who notes "there are lots of polls out there, but I have one piece of advice.  Don't stake your hopes on Zogby, ever."

Early last year Zogby had shown very odd polling bias against Clinton, unworthy of a supposedly unbiased pollster:

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/zogby_hill ary_and_the_judicial.php

"Some people believe that the Bill Clinton administration was corrupt," one question begins. In another question about Hillary Clinton, every answer included the word "corrupt," and the question was not asked about other candidates so that a comparison could be made.

The pollster, John Zogby, defended the questions as "balanced" -- a label Fitton [president of Judicial Watch] made no attempt to earn. As he presented the results yesterday, he announced that Bill Clinton's financial conflicts of interest "make the issues of Halliburton and Dick Cheney . . . pale in comparison."

Pollster (Mark Blumenthal) goes on:

Let's take a look at the first two questions:

304. Some people believe that the Bill Clinton administration was corrupt. Whether or not you believe the Clinton administration was corrupt, how concerned are you that there will be high levels of corruption in the White House if Hillary Clinton is elected President in 2008?

26% Very concerned
19% Somewhat concerned
20% Not very concerned
33% Not at all concerned
1% Not sure

305. When thinking about Hillary Clinton as a politician, which of the following best describes her?

17% Very corrupt
25% Somewhat corrupt
21% Not very corrupt
30% 51% Not at all corrupt
7% Not sure

You can pretty much stop after the first sentence. The suggestion that "some believe the Clinton administration was corrupt" is an obvious effort to lead the respondents to the desired answer. The drumbeat of "corrupt" and "corruption" that follows - implying that the issue is not whether Clinton is corrupt but how much - makes the bias almost comic.

How can one look at these loaded questions and not assume major bias on the part of the pollster?  

More:

MyDD's Jonathan Singer has it exactly right:

[T]he apparently unbalanced wording of the polling conducted by Zogby International belies the notion that the organization is serious about coming up with results that actually reflect the views of the American public rather than just the views of those who paid for its services. To harp on one example, beginning a question on the scruples of a politician by saying that some people believe his or her spouse was corrupt inserts such a bias to void the results of the question -- and perhaps even the questions that follow. Simply put, the questions in the poll were not, as Zogby insists, "balanced."

But this episode also raises a second issue. How effective were these leading questions in producing the desired response? Put another way, did Judicial Watch get their money's worth?

There is also this damning quote:

Nancy Mathiowetz, the president elect of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) just sent out the following release concerning the Zogby/Judicial Watch poll (interests disclosed - I serve on AAPOR's Executive Council):

It's always disappointing when pollsters who are internationally known and widely quoted engage in practices that are so clearly out of line with industry standards -- like using loaded and biased questions. There's no other way to describe the questions in the Zogby poll performed for Judicial Watch.

The good news is that it did not fly under the radar -- The Washington Post was quick to point out the flagrant disregard for accepted survey standards in the poll - A number of blogs whose authors are well versed in industry best practices and standards also wrote about the poll.

Industry standards, including the American Association for Public Opinion Research's Best Practices , make it clear --the manner in which questions are asked as well as the response categories provided, can greatly affect the results of a survey.

That's why question wording and order are some of the toughest parts of designing a good survey or poll, and thoughtful practitioners will spend a significant amount of time trying to ensure that they are balanced, simple, direct and clear.

Nancy Mathiowetz
President-elect,
American Association for Public Opinion Research

So, Zogby has had a well publicized episode of major anti-Hillary bias that filtered through in their polling methods, and was not at all present (or tested) with any other candidate.   The motives are anyone's guess, but it is certainly not standard polling practice, and perhaps the pro-Obama tilt of a major family member and important partner in the polling firm may be a clue here.   I would say the fact that Zogby is an Obama superdelegate and this earlier episode of biased anti-Hillary polling are at least troubling with the appearance of justifiable bias.

numbers MSNBC is pushing right now (and has been gleefully pushing)--Obama 49% and Clinton 36%. I don't think so baby!