New Hampshire: Graveyard of Pollsters

Zogby also calls people during the day as well as in the evening. About 30 percent of his interviews are collected before 5:30 p.m. Daytime interviews are great if you want to talk to lots of retirees and housewives. But his critics charge that they're not so good if you want to interview working men and women. Zogby counters that daytime interviewing actually produces a more representative sample because he can talk to people who work at night.

Zogby also adjusts his sample based on historic trends and his judgment of "what is happening on the ground" in a particular race, and it is this imposition of his own judgment that disturbs many pollsters.

He will, for example, reduce the proportion of 18- to 24-year-olds in his sample of self-described likely voters if he suspects on the basis of past voting history and the "lay of the land" that a sample contains too many younger people. He also, on occasion, adjusts the religious composition of his sample if he suspects he has over or under-represented one faith.

Most pollsters cringe at such extra-curricular adjustments. "I know I do some things different that others," he said. "I know the so-called 'Poll-ice' would deny it, but there's art as well as science involved in this."

Some of his techniques that were once widely criticized have now been more generally adopted. Zogby adjusts his sample so it matches the proportion of Republicans, Democrats and independents, based on past elections.

Critics say people can change their party identification, so past estimates of partisanship may be outdated. In fact, party identification nationally has changed little over the past two decades, prompting some organizations, including The Washington Post and ABC News, to weight to party identification on some political polls.

Zogby knows he's not popular with many of his professional peers. But he doesn't seem to care. "I'm a humble guy from Utica just plying my trade," he laughed. "I'm just not a member of the club."

Sunny Side Right

Surging Democratic candidate John Edwards says he wants to get the votes of America's optimists.

A recent Post-ABC News poll holds some mixed news for the North Carolina senator: he's got a real opening, but it's with Republicans.

The survey asked Americans whether they were optimistic or pessimistic about the country in general, the national and local economy, their own finances, the situation in Iraq, homeland defense and the nation's moral tone.

Overwhelmingly the most positive respondents: strong Republicans. And the most negative? Yep, strong Democrats. Eight in ten committed Republicans said they were optimistic about all or nearly all these things, compared to only two in ten strong Democrats. (Maybe that's why Dean leads among Democrats in the national polls rather than Sunny Boy Edwards?)

Other sourpusses: atheists and agnostics looked none too sunny. Only three in ten scored high on the optimism scale, compared to close to half of those who claimed a religious affiliation.

The K-Factor in Iowa

On the morning after Iowa, Joe Lenski of Lenski Media Research, called major clients of the Iowa Democratic entrance poll to ask the age-old question, "How was it for you?"

Quite good, actually. And thanks for asking. The National Election Pool entrance poll had performed close to flawlessly for the sponsoring networks and Associated Press, as well as for their media clients. Quite a change from 2002, when the news media exit polls didn't perform at all, due to a technical meltdown that ultimately led to the demise of NEP's predecessor, Voter News Service.