So in early 2011 I was pretty excited to notice that the Daily Kos/SEIU/PPP poll had changed their racial demographic question to include Asian as a category. This meant that eventually, after aggregating the data over a year or so, we would be able to see the opinions of a fast-growing and diverse segment of the population that nonetheless is too small to generate decent data in any individual poll. And in January of this year I set about aggregating that data for the 965 Asian respondents in 2011.
But then I noticed something odd.
Only 35% of Asians in the Daily Kos poll said they lived in the West. But the census shows that 55% of Asian registered voters live in the West. Meanwhile, the Daily Kos poll showed 17% of Asians saying they lived in the Midwest, compared to 8% in the census.
Uh oh.
Now, yesterday we saw that about 5-9% of respondents enter the wrong geographic location for various reasons, depending on region, so instead of categorizing location based on what respondents said, I based it on area code using the same regional definitions for the census and polling data... and found 37% living in the West and 15% living in the Midwest.
Perhaps it was just too few respondents? But now, in September 2012, with many more respondents, the numbers are... 37% living in the West, 16% in the Midwest (by area code; all further geographic numbers in this post are based on area code).
Meanwhile, among Hispanic registered voters, the poll shows 30% living in the West and the Census says 41%. The poll shows 17% living in the Midwest and the census says 8%. (American Indian numbers are also messed up but that will be a whole separate post. Eventually.)
What is going on?