The Brown Bear's Polls

Where does the Brown Bear get his polls?

The Brown Bear gets his polls from RealClear Politics (http://www.realclearpolitics.com).

What polls does the Brown Bear use?

To Calculate the National Margin, a national poll must meet the following criteria.

1. It must be independent, nonpartisan (that is not affiliated with any political party).

2. It must be recent. The midpoint of the dates the poll was taken must be no later than two weeks before the current date. (Most polls are taken over a range of three or four days.)

3. It must be the most recent poll from its polling company. No more than one poll from any polling company will be used.

4. It must not be an internet-based or online poll.

5. If it is a tracking poll then two iterations will be used. Most tracking polls use rolling three day averages. In that case the Brown Bear combines results to obtain a rolling six day average. For a tracking poll with a rolling four day average, the Brown Bear uses a rolling eight day average.

6. If a poll uses both a Bush vs. Kerry question and a Bush vs. Kerry vs. Nader question, the three or more option result will be used.

7. For a poll result on President Bush's Job performance, the Brown Bear does not use a poll which evaluates a response of "fair" negatively (e.g. Zogby).

The next post will detail the Brown Bear's process for selecting state polls.