Ozean Political Blog
A political blog about digital media, data, research and consulting.This Polling Stuff is KILLING us!
Daily, we get a new approval rating on Donald Trump and NONE of them agree. It seems my Republican friends believe his approval is skyrocketing and my Democrat friends believe it is in the toilet. Both can't be right....or can they? The Battle of the Polling Methods...
Public Opinion Doesn’t Exist
Ever have that book that stays with you and gnaws at you well after you finish reading it? One of my recent reads has been How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg. It is a highly recommended read, but Chapter 17 is causing me...
Reading list – Q4 2017
I was asked yesterday "Whatcha reading?" Here is the 2017 Q4 Reading list: Principles by Ray Dalio- GREAT business/life book. I wish I would have read it before I ever started any businesses. The Drunkard's Walk by Leonard Mlodinow - A look at how randomness,...
What is an Ozean?
A long time ago, we were going to change the world. We decided we had enough of that stuffy corporate world with its salary, benefits, and ample cash flow. We thought we had a good business plan, we thought we had completed the research - and we jumped. We started...
Florida 2016 Primary Republican Turnout
Admittedly, I have been slacking in writing. This is due to workload and frankly falling off the writing wagon. I will try and do better, but in the meantime, I was asked to look at Republican Turnout in Florida. I only explored those voters currently registered in...
2014 Florida Governors Race Results by DMA
Thinking about 2018 with a potential matchup of Rick Scott v Senator Bill Nelson, I was messing around with scripts to combine data sets and came up with vote totals for the 2014 campaign for Florida Governor featuring Rick Scott v Charlie Crist by Florida DMA...
How divided is Florida?
I went to bed last night thinking about about DecisionDeskHQ's attempt to make a nationwide precinct map. It is a challenging and cool project. Thinking about this as I slumbered, I awoke wondering just 'how divided are we in Florida at the precinct level'? Thanks...
TV DMAs by County
I was looking for a data-set this morning for a GIS project, and I thought the data would be relatively easy to find. It wasn't. I did find what I wanted in one case, but someone was charging $199 for the data. So, I spent a couple of hours researching, compiling and...
Why don’t third parties win US presidential elections?
As always, some of the best questions come from readers of the blog. “Why don’t third parties win US presidential elections?” came to us via email. It is also timely with the recent discussion from Kristol and polling information from Data Targeting. Polling Third...
How to read a Political Poll!
The sheer number of polls this political cycle is amazing. The sheer number of bad polls this political cycle is stunning. Regardless, the manner the press reports on polling is just God-awful. Biggest Polling Complaint My largest complaint is that the amount of...
Time for Change Model (Implications for local politics)
This week Politico featured an article The End of the 2016 Election Is Closer Than You Think The Politico article is a fantastic read, but doesn't go into the particulars that I would like to explore. Yes, the Politico article in someways scooped a theme I have...
The Effort Required to Have an Opinion
I've been thinking about the amount of effort required to have an opinion. What drove this strain of thought: I was having a conversation with a subject matter expert and I voiced my opinion. He replied, "That is certainly an opinion, but to have an accurate opinion,...