As you may have noticed, I’ve placed one of my infamous political polls in the sidebar.
My recollection from when I did this last year was that my polls may not necessarily be the best indicator of public sentiment, but they are pretty good at seeing how passionate backing for a candidate is. For example, I’ve been tracking interim totals over the time the poll’s been up to see the ebb and flow of trends.
I put the poll up late Wednesday evening. When I went to bed early Thursday morning there weren’t a lot of votes yet, but I did find out someone in the Capps campaign reads the site. The totals at that point: Capps 7, Bongino 3, Wargotz 1.
So I woke up Thursday morning and went about my day. Checking in at 4:00 that afternoon, the updated figures were: Bongino 20, Capps 16, Wargotz 1. Someone woke up the Bongino camp, I guess.
But then Thursday evening there was a concerted Eric Wargotz push, so much so that when I went to bed around midnight the revised totals were: Wargotz 63, Capps 25, Bongino 20, Vaughn 3, Broadus 1, and Hoover 1. Someone got the others on the board about 24 hours into the poll (although Broadus was added to the poll on Thursday afternoon.)
The roller-coaster ride continued this morning as the Capps forces went back to work: Capps 160, Bongino 105, Wargotz 94, Vaughn 35, Hoover 5, Broadus 4.
But then the Capps surge stopped and Bongino is trending – as of this moment it’s Bongino 166, Capps 160, Wargotz 94, Vaughn 35, Broadus 5, Hoover 5. In other words, over the last 7 hours all but one vote went to Bongino.
Obviously I don’t do a scientific poll. But as I noted above one thing this does measure to some extent is the passion and organization behind a candidate. I figure that people who are out to stack a poll such as mine exist in proportion to the actual support they have in the population, give or take a few. (I can also tell you it’s making my page load number huge today – normally I get about 1.3 to 1.5 page loads per reader; today it’s about 3.5 per.) So if there’s only 1 person in 100 who would stack a poll for Rick Hoover vs. 40 who would for Eric Wargotz, that’s probably how the poll should work too, more or less. And my readership likely trends a little more conservative than the average GOP voter.
It’s a lot of fun for me to watch, though, and it makes for an interesting post. That’s what counts.
always happy to assist in promoting your blog to people who should know about it. Thanks for giving me an excuse. 😉