File:NZ Elections 2005-2008 - party bias.png
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NZ_Elections_2005-2008_-_party_bias.png (600 × 600 pixels, file size: 9 KB, MIME type: image/png)
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[edit]DescriptionNZ Elections 2005-2008 - party bias.png |
English: Biases in the party support polls. Companies whoose name is marked with an asterisk (*) show a statisically significant difference between the biases in Labour and National at the 90% level - this corresponds to a poll significantly over (or under) estimating one of these parties in relation to the other at the 95% level. Bias is defined in absolute terns as (p-s), where p is the value estimated by the individual poll, and s is the "mean" value estimated using a Loess smoother taking into account all polls in the period 2005-2008 (see eg the Wikipedia page, Opinion_polling_for_the_New_Zealand_general_election,_2008, for the figure showing the Loess smoother and the source data) |
Date | |
Source | Own work |
Author | Mark Payne, Denmark |
Figure is produced using the R statistical package, using the following code. It first reads the HTML directly from the website, then parses the data and saves the graph into your working directory. It should be able to be run directly by anyone with R.
rm(list=ls())
#Load the complete HTML file into memory
html <- readLines(url("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_New_Zealand_general_election,_2008"),encoding="UTF-8")
closeAllConnections()
#The third table is the opinion poll data
tbl <- html[(grep("<table.*",html)[3]):(grep("</table.*",html)[3])]
#Now split it into the rows, based on the <tr> tag
tbl.rows <- split(tbl,cumsum(tbl=="<tr>"))
#Now extract the data
survey.dat <- lapply(tbl.rows,function(x) {
#Start by only considering where we have <td> tags
td.tags <- x[grep("<td",x)]
#Polling data appears in columns 3-10
dat <- td.tags[3:10]
#Now strip the data and covert to numeric format
dat <- gsub("<td>|</td>","",dat)
dat <- gsub("%","",dat)
dat <- gsub("-","0",dat)
dat <- as.numeric(dat)
#Getting the date strings is a little harder. The approach we will take is to take advantage
#of the title="date" hyperlinks to generate a set of dates
date.str <- td.tags[2] #Dates are in the second column
date.str <- gsub("<sup.*</sup>","",date.str) #Throw out anything between superscript tags, as its an reference to the source
titles <- gregexpr("(?U)title=\".*\"",date.str,perl=TRUE)[[1]] #Find the location of the title tags
#Now, extract the actual date strings
date.strings <- rep(NULL,length(titles))
for(i in 1:length(titles)) {
date.strings[i] <- substr(date.str,titles[i]+7,titles[i]+attr(titles,"match.length")[i]-2)
}
yr <- rev(date.strings)[1]
dates <- rep(as.POSIXct(Sys.time()),length(date.strings)-1)
for(i in 1:(length(date.strings)-1)) {
dates[i] <- as.POSIXct(strptime(paste(date.strings[i],yr),"%B %d %Y"))
}
survey.time <- mean(dates)
#Get the name of the survey company too
survey.comp <- td.tags[1]
survey.comp <- gsub("<sup.*</sup>","",survey.comp)
survey.comp <- gsub("<td>|</td>","",survey.comp)
survey.comp <- gsub("<U+2013>","-",survey.comp,fixed=TRUE)
survey.comp <- gsub("(?U)<.*>","",survey.comp,perl=TRUE)
#And now return results
return(data.frame(Company=survey.comp,Date=survey.time,t(dat)))
})
#Combine results
surveys <- do.call(rbind,survey.dat)
colnames(surveys) <- c("Company","Date","Labour","National","NZ First","Maori Party","Greens","ACT","United Future","Progressive")
#Restrict plot(manually) to parties which have been over 5%
parties <- c("Greens","Labour","National","NZ First")
cols <- c("darkgreen","red","blue","black")
polls <- surveys[,c("Company","Date",parties)]
polls <- subset(polls,!is.na(surveys$Date))
polls$Date <- as.double(polls$Date)
ticks <- ISOdate(c(2005,rep(2006,3),rep(2007,3),rep(2008,3)),c(9,rep(c(1,5,9),3)),1)
xlims <- range(as.double(c(ticks,ISOdate(2009,3,1))))
png("NZ_opinion_polls_2005-2008 -2.png",width=778,height=487,pointsize=16)
par(mar=c(3,4,1,1))
matplot(polls$Date,polls[,parties],pch=NA,xlim=xlims,ylab="Party support (%)",xlab="",col=cols,xaxt="n",ylim=c(0,60))
abline(h=seq(0,95,by=5),col="lightgrey",lty=3)
abline(v=as.double(ticks),col="lightgrey",lty=3)
#Now add loess smoothers
smoothed <- list()
for(i in 1:length(parties)) {
smoother <- loess(polls[,parties[i]] ~ polls[,"Date"],span=0.33)
smoothed[[i]] <- predict(smoother,se=TRUE)
polygon(c(polls[,"Date"],rev(polls[,"Date"])),
c(smoothed[[i]]$fit+smoothed[[i]]$se.fit*1.96,rev(smoothed[[i]]$fit-smoothed[[i]]$se.fit*1.96)),
col=rgb(0.5,0.5,0.5,0.5),border=NA)
}
names(smoothed) <- parties
for(i in 1:length(parties)) {
lines(polls[,"Date"],smoothed[[i]]$fit,col=cols[i],lwd=2)
}
matpoints(polls$Date,polls[,parties],pch=20,col=cols)
legend("topleft",legend=parties,col=cols,pch=20,bg="white",lwd=2)
axis(1,at=as.double(ticks),labels=format(ticks,format="%b\n%Y"),cex.axis=0.8)
axis(4,at=axTicks(4),labels=rep("",length(axTicks(4))))
#Add best estimates
for(i in 1:length(smoothed)) {
lbl <- sprintf("%4.1f%% ± %2.1f",round(rev(smoothed[[i]]$fit)[1],1),round(1.96*rev(smoothed[[i]]$se.fit)[1],1))
text(rev(polls$Date)[1],rev(smoothed[[i]]$fit)[1],labels=lbl,pos=4,col=cols[i])
}
dev.off()
#As a cross validation, print the rows where there are NA's
checks <- subset(surveys,apply(surveys,1,function(x) any(is.na(x))))
print(checks)
#Now, lets look at the poll residuals by party
#First, restack everything into a single long list
resid.dat <- data.frame(Company=NULL,Date=NULL,party=NULL,data=NULL,fit=NULL)
for(part in parties) {
resid.dat <- rbind(resid.dat,data.frame(polls[,c("Company","Date")],party=part,data=polls[,part],fit=smoothed[[part]]$fit))
}
#Calculate residuals
resid.dat$bias <- (resid.dat$data-resid.dat$fit)/resid.dat$fit
#Prepare for plotting
plot.dat <- resid.dat[-which(resid.dat$Company=="2005 election result"),]
replacements <- data.frame(old=c("TV3-TNS","One News-Colmar Brunton","Herald-DigiPoll","Roy Morgan Research",
"UMR Research","Fairfax Media Poll","Fairfax Media-Nielsen"),
new=c("TNS","Colmar\nBrunton","Digi-\nPoll","Roy\nMorgan",
"UMR","Nielsen","Nielsen"))
for(i in 1:nrow(replacements)) {
plot.dat$Company <- gsub(replacements$old[i],replacements$new[i],plot.dat$Company,fixed=TRUE)
}
plot.dat$Company <- factor(plot.dat$Company)
#Plot bias vs party for each company figure
library(lattice)
plot.dat$Company <- gsub("\n"," ",plot.dat$Company)
p<-bwplot(bias*fit~party|Company,data=plot.dat,as.table=TRUE,
scales=list(alternating=c(1)),
xlab="Party",
ylab="Absolute Bias (%)",
fill=gsub("black","darkgrey",cols),
panel=function(...) {
panel.abline(h=0)
tmp <-list(...)
tmp <-split(tmp$y,factor(tmp$x))
sig.diff <-sapply(tmp,function(x){
(1-pt(abs(mean(x))/sd(x),df=length(x)-1))*2 < 0.05
})
# fill.col <- ifelse(cols[panel.number()]=="black","darkgrey",cols[panel.number()])
# fill.col <- ifelse(sig.diff,fill.col,NA)
panel.bwplot(...,pch="|")},
par.settings = list(box.rectangle=list(col="black",lty=1),
box.umbrella=list(col="black",lty=1),
plot.symbol=list(col="black")))
print(p)
png("NZ Elections 2005-2008 - party bias by company.png",width=600,height=600)
plot(p)
dev.off()
#Biases by party, with p values
biases <- tapply(plot.dat$bias,list(plot.dat$Company,plot.dat$party),FUN=mean)
p.values <- tapply(plot.dat$bias,list(plot.dat$Company,plot.dat$party),FUN=function(x){
(1-pt(abs(mean(x))/sd(x),df=length(x)-1))*2})
print(round(biases*100,1))
print(round(p.values,3))
Licensing
[edit]I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license:
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This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
- You are free:
- to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
- to remix – to adapt the work
- Under the following conditions:
- attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
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Date/Time | Thumbnail | Dimensions | User | Comment | |
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current | 13:33, 19 October 2008 | ![]() | 600 × 600 (9 KB) | Trevva (talk | contribs) | {{Information |Description= |Source= |Date= |Author= |Permission= |other_versions= }} |
13:18, 19 October 2008 | ![]() | 600 × 600 (9 KB) | Trevva (talk | contribs) | {{Information |Description= |Source= |Date= |Author= |Permission= |other_versions= }} | |
12:54, 19 October 2008 | ![]() | 600 × 600 (7 KB) | Trevva (talk | contribs) | {{Information |Description= |Source= |Date= |Author= |Permission= |other_versions= }} | |
12:22, 19 October 2008 | ![]() | 600 × 600 (7 KB) | Trevva (talk | contribs) | {{Information |Description= |Source= |Date= |Author= |Permission= |other_versions= }} | |
12:24, 13 October 2008 | ![]() | 600 × 600 (8 KB) | Trevva (talk | contribs) | {{Information |Description={{en|1=Biases in the party support polls. Bias is defined as the (p-s)/s, where p is the value estimated by the individual poll, and s is the "mean" value estimated using the Loess smoother taking into account all polls (see eg |
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