Poll: Bush Ratings Hit New Low (CBS, BUT they change weighting from even to Dem 57%, GOP 43%!!!)

CBS News ^ | 10/6/05 | na

[frankjr]

This CBS News Poll finds an American public increasingly pessimistic about the economy, the war in Iraq, the overall direction of the country, and the President. Americans' outlook for the economy is the worst it has been in four years. Most expect the price of gas to rise even further in the next few months.

A growing number of Americans want U.S. troops to leave Iraq as soon as possible, rather than stay the course, and the highest percentage ever thinks the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq. When given a set of options for paying for rebuilding the hurricane-racked Gulf Coast, only one — taking money from the Iraq War — gets majority support.

[frankjr]

The media putting out bad Bush numbers is not unusual. However, when I went to the underlying poll stats, at the very end, the following table was shown-

Total Respondents 808

Unweighted: Repub 241, Dem 255, Indep 312

Weighted: Repub 207, Dem 273, Indep 328

results pdf

The unweighted splits it Repub 49%, Dems 51% (reasonable based on Nov 2004 election split) But the weighted number is Repub 43%, Dems 57% (completely unreasonable).

I just read their poll methodology link. UNBELEIVEABLE!!! "At the end of our surveys, we find sometimes that we have questioned too many people from one group or another. Older people, for example, tend to be at home to answer the phone more than younger people, so there is often a greater percentage of older people in our surveys than exists in the American public.

When that happens, we take great pains to adjust our data so that I accurately reflects the whole population. That process is called “weighting.” We make sure that our final figures match U.S. Census Bureau breakdowns on age, sex, race, education, and region of the country. We also “weight” to adjust for the fact that people who share a phone with others have less chance to be contacted than people who live alone and have their own phones, and that households with more than one telephone number have more chances to be called than households with only one phone number. "

link

[EagleUSA]

Any poll you want taken with any outcome, I can ensure. Polls are nothing more than methodical lying. You can simply control the outcome of a poll by not only WHO you question, but WHAT QUESTIONS you ask.

That is why polls are useless. But the Dems, being useless themselves, rely on useless information...and try to get every dupe they can to believe those lies.

[MJY1288]

Not to mention that independents do not represent more of the public than Dems and Reps. Plus! we all know that those who claim they are Independents are Liberals who are afraid to admit that they are Democrats

[Numbers Guy]

Unweighted: Repub 241, Dem 255, Indep 312

Weighted: Repub 207, Dem 273, Indep 328

Un-freakin'-believable.

They clearly believed that nobody was going to call them on this.

[finallyatexan]

So in other words this poll is a bogus piece of junk !!!

[Keith59]

Of course the only POLL that counts was Nov 2, 2004 which kept him in office.

[ConsentofGoverned]

"Of course the only POLL that counts was Nov 2, 2004 which kept him in office"

You are right, but i have lost faith over the years with his stands on:
illegal immigration
big gov spending
increasing size of gov with homeland and edu depts and precription drugs as examples
now the appointing of unknown to SCOTUS
in my view BUSH has lied to the conservatives in our party
and has moved far to the left. sad I admire the man who is fighting terrorism but his domestic policy is a nightmare to any true conservative.

[jimfrommaine]

And November 2006. President Bush's poll numbers would go through the roof if he did the following
1.Secure our borders.
2.Instead of throwing 200 billion away into the gulf of mexico, fight for free Enterprise zones, school vouchers, minority home ownership, faith based initiatives. 40 years and 5 trillion dollars spent on Great Society nonsense has not eliminated poverty, it's destroyed lives. It's about time for a new approach.
3.We can't cut in run in Iraq and leave Al-Qaeda and Al-Zarqawi in charge of an oil rich safe haven
4. Tax cuts are revenue generators. Once the technology bubble burst, the Clinton Tax increases lead us into a recession. The Bush Tax cuts have stimulated economic growth and until Katrina hit, cut the deficit.
The President should repeat these points day after day, in every speech. Hold press conferences every day, do tv shows every day. If the guy has a resting heart rate of 47, it's time to start fighting, pedal to the metal. I want huge republican majorities in 2006, and it can happen if we have some forcefull leadership from the President

[jimfrommaine]

And November 2006. President Bush's poll numbers would go through the roof if he did the following
1.Secure our borders.
2.Instead of throwing 200 billion away into the gulf of mexico, fight for free Enterprise zones, school vouchers, minority home ownership, faith based initiatives. 40 years and 5 trillion dollars spent on Great Society nonsense has not eliminated poverty, it's destroyed lives. It's about time for a new approach.
3.We can't cut in run in Iraq and leave Al-Qaeda and Al-Zarqawi in charge of an oil rich safe haven
4. Tax cuts are revenue generators. Once the technology bubble burst, the Clinton Tax increases lead us into a recession. The Bush Tax cuts have stimulated economic growth and until Katrina hit, cut the deficit.
The President should repeat these points day after day, in every speech. Hold press conferences every day, do tv shows every day. If the guy has a resting heart rate of 47, it's time to start fighting, pedal to the metal. I want huge republican majorities in 2006, and it can happen if we have some forcefull leadership from the President

[ConsentofGoverned]

Jim, post that to the whitehouse..you are correct and I still wonder what is BUSH and his advisors thinking one
illegal immigration, SCOTUS, spending spending and increase in size of fed gov programs,,seems almost like we would not be worse off with a democrat in office, somehow I hope BUSH gets the message very disgusted with the senate and BUSH on domestic issues.

[Zenith]

CBS and FRAUD go together !

[jimfrommaine]

Attack, attack, attack. The left never stops spinning their lies. Unless the leader of our movement, and right now it's unfortunately the President, stands up and fights, how are we supposed to win? Talk radio, free republic, and Fox News are great. But I want decisive action from the top. If we had it the left would be terminated as a major polical force.

[SoFloFreeper]

BUSH'S NUMBERS WERE UP IN THE LATEST GALLUP POLL---CBS IS MANDATED TO DO A WEIGHTED POLL TO GET THE NUMBERS BACK DOWN!

[ConsentofGoverned]

"President, stands up and fights, how are we supposed to win?"
.........................
how about just does what he promised us conservative Judges like Scalia for one. Bush seems confused as to whether he is a compassionate Conservative or just plain compassionate as in give it all away this weakness is undoing him.

[elfman2]

Very good catch.

There was a guy here last year that would "reweigh" the weekly poll poll's that skewed the numbers like this. He'd build tables up with the raw, media weighted and correctly wighted numbers and compare the trends over time. (something to do in your "spare time")

[Always Right]

Un-freakin'-believable.

It is. Only a 6% fudge towards the Democrats is surprisingly small for the MSM.

[Mister Baredog]

That is why polls are useless. But the Dems, being useless themselves, rely on useless information...and try to get every dupe they can to believe those lies.

I still laugh when I think back to Nov 04. The acclaimed Zogby mid-day declared sKerry the winner by 3 points.

The exit polls also had him winning.

BUT when the votes were counted.....

Of course to the Kool-aid crowd that just means Bush stole another one.

Let me also take a moment to thank the DUmmies for Howard Dean, we couldn't have picked a better "Maroon" for them, LMAO.

[frankjr]

" He'd build tables up with the raw, media weighted and correctly wighted numbers and compare the trends over time"

Actually, I was bored enough to do that for this poll. Using Repub, Dem and Indep it gets approval up about 3% (so CBS 37% goes to approx. 40%). Then I did it with just Repub & Dem (ex. Indep) unweighted numbers and approval goes to 46%. The problem for me is the lack of insight into the Indep's. They are a significant portion of the sample. If CBS split indep into "leaning Dem" or "leaning Repub" it would be helpful. In this poll, the Indep results were much closer to Dem responses. Since they are a big % of total, it can easily skew overall numbers.

Chances of me doing it for every poll is slim. Two reasons: 1) Getting the underlying data is usually a nightmare (depending on pollster), and 2) I'm a lazy b*stard.

[sarkozy]

Not to defend CBS (OK maybe a little), most pollsters give Dems 37-39 percent when weighting, GOP in the 30-35 range, with the rest independents. That just reflects the registration numbers.
I'm assuming this poll, like most polls of this type, does not exclude the unregistered, hence the large number of independents.
In any case, there are enough polls across the spectrum showing the president in a trough opinion-wise.