Hi. I've had some trouble with the Lewpols file. It seems to have disappeared from by webpage, and I had a computer crash in June that took with it the original Lewpols file. However, my RA has a file, which is available nearby, which is quite close to the final Lewpols file. According to my memory, it differs from the actual (missing) file in two ways: 1) It is less neatly organized (though still not too hard to figure out, I think); and 2) the RA (Mark Hunt) and I did some last minute cleaning of the (missing) excel file, clearing up some ambiguities but not making any big changes. One type of ambiguity we tried to clear up was whether rolling cross section polls were separate polls or not; another was whether "CBS polls" were the same as "CBS/NYT polls" of the same date that were found in different web sources; another ambiguity dealt with the exact times of some polls. We spent a huge amount of time on details of polls that came out at the time of the state of the union address -- which doesn't mean there is anything necessarily wrong with what you are getting; it just means that what you're getting hadn't yet fully satisfied me as being correct. Although I remember the general kinds of ambiguities we were trying to straighten out, I don't remember the specifics at this point, six months later. If you stumble on these same ambiguities, you should find enough source information to go back to the sources and clear them up for yourself. I'm emphasizing here all the ways in which this Lewpols file may be slightly different than what I published, but it is possible that it is almost or exactly the same. Mark Hunt recalls that he didn't do any more web work after the date of this file, which, if he is right, would indicate that this file may be completely correct.

If you find any notable problems, please ask so that 1) I'll know, and 2) to see if I can perhaps straighten them out. If you do spend time cleaning up the data yourself, I would appreciate getting notice of any changes you make or, especially, problems you find.

I apologize for not having the definitely final Lewpols file available, after saying that I would. I am trying to be better about staying backed up as a result of that big crash.

John Zaller