Newsweek Poll - Only 29% of the polling sample are Republicans. (MEDIA BIAS ALERT)

PR Newswire ^ | September 10, 2005

[new yorker 77]

Final Topline Results (9/10/05)

N = 1,009 national adults, 18 and over

Margin of error: plus or minus 4

Interviewing dates: September 8-9, 2005

SAMPLE SIZE/MARGIN OF ERROR FOR REGISTERED VOTERS/

SUBGROUPS:

901 Registered voters (plus or minus 4)

SAMPLE SIZE/MARGIN OF ERROR FOR KEY SUBGROUPS:

300 Republicans (plus or minus 7)

334 Democrats (plus or minus 6)

331 Independents (plus or minus 6)

------------------------------------

793 Whites (plus or minus 4)

195 Non-whites (plus or minus 8)

[DrDeb]

Should read "its" rather than "it's" -- I obviously can't watch a football game and type at the same time!

[NOTE: The plural themselves is now accepted usage.]

[Quick1]

FYI: Not only are today's pollsters using UNREPRESENTATIVE samples, they are also producing results based on ridiculously low response rates (ranging from 5% - 25%) -- at it's most relevant, Gallup was getting response rates above 60%!

Yeah, that's before the era of telemarketers. Now, people hang up the phone, or don't even answer. Besides, what does a low response rate matter? As long as you get a good sample size in the end, the number of people you had to call doesn't matter (well, except to the people paying for the poll).

[Alter Kaker]

The Newsweek people will tell you that party IDs go up and down all the time, and since they're not constant, it makes no sense to screen for them. The Dems were screeming all last summer because a Gallup poll that showed Bush ahead also sampled comparitively more Repubs than Rats. Why was this? Because with Kerry at the helm of the party, many fewer Americans wanted to identify themselves as Rats.

[Alter Kaker]

The accuracy of any poll drops dramatically if the sample is less than 10% of the population for which you are applying the results.

Show me the math.

[inquest]

BTW: With 4 RED STATES essentially 'off line' (AL, LA, MS, and TX) where do you think these pollsters are getting their 'replacement' respondents?!

The entire states are off-line? What percentage of the population do you think you're talking about here?

[Owen]

Folks,

This went on last year. Come on, we all remember the obsession with polls during the campaign and how we trumpeted those that showed Bush slippage as having an over sampling of Dems. Well, the DU people did the opposite, and the opposite did occur on occasion.

Polling methods have become dated and the polling companies are trying to address it. They are not doing a good job. Rasmussen has pointed out that most money that pollsters make does not come from politics. It is from market research. They have a financial interest in accurate surveys. They aren't doing this on purpose.

Rasmussen is ahead of them. He is sampling with an insistence that his result conform to a pre-specified partisan mix. There is debate about this because it does indeed render his sample non random.

The poll showing Bush slippage is because of who was sampled. The polls showing anything always show that because of who was sampled. Odds are if the poll in question was meaningful Rasmussen would have detected it.

Odds are, however, that high gas prices do have an effect on that few % in the middle that don't care about politics at all and just see their own pocketbook. Conversely, given that most people in the US don't have illegal immigration on their top 5 list of concerns, it is unlikely Bush's immigration stand is relevant.

[airborne]

FAKE POLLS DO NOT TRANSLATE INTO REAL VOTERS!!!!!!!

John Kerry found that out!!

[inquest]

Simple math tells me that the Republicans were UNDER SAMPLED by about 9% while the Democrats were UNDERSAMPLED by about 4%.

Math, simple or otherwise, can't even be performed until you're comparing apples and apples. 37% represents the proportion of people who actually voted in 2004 who were enrolled as Republicans. The 29.7% represents the proportion of registered voters who are enrolled as Republicans. They're two completely separate measurements.

[ohioWfan]

Anyone who trusts a Newsweek poll is decidedly naive, or a leftist.

Not much of a choice for you, is there?

[inquest]

If that's all this thread is about, then why didn't the original poster just say that at the beginning, and instead of treating us to all this dime-store statistical "analysis"?

[DrDeb]

I don't have the time or patience to explain why response rates matter . . . I have football games to watch and a beautiful, sunny day to enjoy!

Just one question: Were these pollsters able to do a comparative analysis between the MANY who refused to answer their polling questions and the FEW who did, what do you think they'd discover?!

[combat_boots]

MSM pollsters have been noted to have paid polling candidates in the wings, waiting to be called, especially on weekends, e.g., roommates, friends and spouses of employees. Thus, coupled with oversampling of Democrats on weekends, the polls are always a setup. It's the broken wing trrick.

[txrangerette]

These polls have no purpose of measuring public opinion. They have a single purpose, which is to destroy the Presidency of George Bush. I skipped past MSNBC on the way to another channel, and as they showed the President live at Andrews on his way to LA, they ballyhooed this poll. They said one of the questions was answered by only 38% saying they have trust that that George Bush can make good decisions for America at home or abroad, while 54 or 56% (forgot which) answered that they no longer trust the President to make any wise decisions on any issues, whether domestic or foreign. I believe this poll is the most garbage poll I have seen in a long time.

[SALChamps03]

Ask anyone who has ever done any research. You pick the expert you want to ask.

[Alter Kaker]

Ask anyone who has ever done any research. You pick the expert you want to ask.

I have. I have never heard anything about a 10% requirement. Please support your claim.

[ZULU]

"Today, Rasmussen has President Bush at a 50% approval among 'likely voters' and a 47% approval among 'national adults'. "

I didn't know you could consider Democrats as "adults".

Besides, conservatives don't read Newsweek ot Times - not if they have any brains that is.

[jscottdavis_for_48th_district]

Yes, the false polls also didn't work starting back in 1994 when the liberals (Democrats) really started losing power on Capital Hill.

[kcvl]

When "news" organizations start citing polls I know they aren't "reporting" anything. They are MAKING news, not REPORTING it! They have an agenda and they think we are too stupid to know it.

[ohioWfan]

The 'original poster' said what he thought important...........i.e. that Republicans were undersampled and Dems oversampled............something that educated conservatives all know. I'm neither speaking for him, nor anyone else except myself. (That's what we do on FR........are you not aware of that either??)

And I am wondering why you continue to argue with a basic fact about polling that the rest of us all know.

Do you, or do you not understand that the left skews its numbers to get negative results for the President? And do you, or do you not have a problem with that?

[festus]

Does it bother anybody that so many polls, that at least claim to be ramdom smaples, have Reps polling 29-30 %

While I understand where you are coming from in your question it doesn't bother me in the least. The MSM has been trying to pretend we don't exist or are smaller than we really are for a long time now.

Frankly I would be surprised if the poll were random or for that matter wasn't made up out of whole cloth.