Field Poll is scary accurate

Last week's Field Poll results showing Bustamante with a small (and statistically insignificant) lead over Schwarzenegger raised a lot of eyebrows. Every other poll has shown big leads for Arnold, so a second place result to the relatively unknown Bustamante couldn't be accurate, could it?

I'm not about to answer that question, but this is quite interesting. The Field Poll has a track record like no other polling outfit -- it's always right. It has predicted every single race accurately since 1984, and 43 of 47 races since 1948. And the average deviation from the final pre-election poll to the actual percentage of the winning candidate has been an average 2.3 percent since 1948, or 1.6 percent since 1984.

These results are truly startling. Check out their chart of every race they have polled.

All this to say that perhaps there truly is something to the Field Poll that makes it far more credible than the rest of the polling rabble working the California recall. These guys really have their finger on California, and they will be the poll to watch for the rest of the race.

Posted August 17, 2003 03:54 PM | Comments (59)