The Polling in Perspective

Over on his excellent Venezuelan Poll Nerd blog, YV Polis,  political scientist Iñaki Sagarzazu puts the latest C21 numbers in perspective. The real take-away from me, is in his...

Over on his excellent Venezuelan Poll Nerd blog, YV Polis,  political scientist Iñaki Sagarzazu puts the latest C21 numbers in perspective. The real take-away from me, is in his last slide:

Yes, Chávez leads Capriles in almost all recent polls, but there’s a big split between some fly-by-night, Johnny-Come-Lately or plain-old-fake pollsters, and more established polling organizations. Basically all the supersized, 25+ point Chávez leads come out of maletín-based pollsters.

In fact, I’d argue that that slide actually understates the split. Iñaki counts Varianzas as a a new pollster, but they’ve been around longer than most, it’s just that their polls used to be branded Evans/McDonough.

Take them as an established pollster, and the bankruptcy of the chavista fake pollster operation would be even more visible than it is in that chart.

I hope I get to collaborate closely with Iñaki in the next few months on this stuff. He has the quant skills and the obsessiveness it takes to really drill into the murky world of Venezuelan polling. More to come…