Posted on 09/22/2012 6:00:35 AM PDT by markomalley
The war of the polls gets a little wearisome for non-wonks, but we’ll keep this short and sweet. The mainstream media are rigging the polls. No headliner there, but just how bad is it? It could mean that Romney has as much as a double-digit lead of 54-44 in Realityville. How, you ask? Because the Democrats are fooling themselves in terms of likely voter party identification and voter enthusiasm.
An Ipsos/Reuters poll trumpets a five point lead for Barack Obama, and since the rest of the media keeps tight as a herd of cows before a thunderstorm, millions believe it. Such “rainmaking,” or using polls to make results instead of report them, is common in the pro-Democrat mainstream media.
But these polls are bogus, to put it mildly. Simply put, the mainstream media are mixing in registered voters (which skews Democrat, even though many might not vote), and playing games with the Republican-Democrat-Independent breakdown.
Rasmussen has this breakdown as about 37.6% Republican (and a record number since November 2002), 33.3% Democrat, and 29.2% “Other.” As the Examiner reports, the Reuters/Ipsos poll has “52.5 percent Democrats, 37.6 percent Republicans and 9.2 independents among the 2,078 registered voters and 1,437 likely voters.”
Thus, Reuters/Ipsos is oversampling Democrats by about 15% and undersampling and misrepresenting Independents. Independents are favoring Romney, not “leaning Democrat,” so it is dishonest to lump together Independents and Democrats.
Many more strongly disapprove of the president’s job in office than strongly approve, the majority dislike big government policies, and most believe the country is on the wrong track. More trust Mitt Romney on the economy, which is overwhelmingly this election’s most important issue, and the president’s lead on foreign policy is shriveling.
If anything, the presidential polling should be neck-in-neck. The only landslide here is the mainstream media’s reputation crumbling and their continued slide into irrelevance.
A fifty something advantage to Romney would not surprise me. Only the most insanely lickspittle party loyalists or Fauxsheviks could support Obama at this point.
Either that, or after he wins he'll sign an Executive Order moving the Presidential Palace to Hawaii. Boo Yah!
Hes moving away from the mainland to Hawaii to escape the coming chaos that he is purposely creating here.
Your post was to long to quote, so I’ll just say that I completely agree with you. It’s nice to know that others think the same thing I’m thinking.. thanks!
There is no way you get to a 52.5% Democrat sample unless you are intentionally skewing the polls. This is more than mere pro-Democrat bias. Obama sued Gallup for showing him losing the race, and the other pollsters are doing whatever they can to avoid a similar fate. Obama is a tyrant who has no regard for freedom of speech or of the press, and the pollsters know it.
I have to wonder if Nate Silver “cell phone” effect is the Leftist equivalent of Conservative 2008 wishful thinking about the “Bradly Effect”. The Leftist seem desperate to find some reason, like Conservatives did in 2008, why their candidate is not doing better in polling then they think he should.
I doubt phone usage has changes so much in 4 years that this massive under sample due to cellphone use that Silver claims is really there. I suspect the number of cell phones in use were pretty similar in 2008 to today. I doubt the numbers have changed that much.
Silver is basing his assumption on an unprovable just like Conservatives did in 2008. He fails to realize that polling is not like Baseball stats. In Baseball you either hit the ball or you don’t. In polling there is a large measure of uncertainty that requires pollsters to “guess” at their sample mix.
Silver wants to apply his expertise in baseball statistics analysis to election polling analysis, it is an apples to oranges comparison.
So Rass who actually polls for this and came up with that number, which happens to match up fairly well with current party voter registration figures, is "living in fantasy land" while you who base your statement on nothing stronger then your own opinion are dealing in reality?
Please explain to us then why the Media pollsters, who base their sample on an assumption of turning out more Democrat voters in 2012 then they did in 2008 are not also living in fantasy land?
Let us assume, like you do, that Democrats have a 3-4% party registration advantage.
Now reweigh the pro Obama polls down to that sample mix.
Well look at that, re-weighing the polls to the +4 Dem sample you want to use gives Romney either a slight lead or a tie.
The same thing Rass is showing in his polling.
I read somewhere that Rasmussen’s party break-down is based on an average of 2004 and 2008 — and not the part identification he had in the August survey.
yep! could work both ways, just gotta get out there.
I can’t believe, even if Obama’s internals show him as losing badly, that he would just throw in the towel with 7 weeks left. That’s just not the style of Democrats. They will give it everything they got. His disinterest in what’s going on in the Middle East may, in fact, show he believes he’s winning big or will win big by cheating and chicanery.
“The mainstream media are rigging the polls”
Studies of polls in the past have shown how they are conducted.
1. A list of registered voters is drawn from public records.
2. Phone calls are made from 10:am to about 3 p.m. Who is in their home at this time?
3. Widows on Social Security;the unemployed;people on government assistance, mostly.
4.Minorities are disproportionately represented because they have higher unemployed or governement assisted- rates.
This is a perfect population to skew the results in favor of Democrat thinking irregardless of the party afilliation.
And how many cautious (if not frightened )people do not want to be thought of as racists. Just answering the phone poll shows a compliant personality to begin with.
Remember the Reagan-Carter race? The polls showed Reagan losing right up to the last few days of the election. Then Reagan won by a landslide. Yes...Romney is no Reagan but the case can be made that Obama is perceived as worse than Carter.
I think there could be something to this. I saw a Yahoo headline today that said “Romney Campaign Trails in Crucial Ground Game.”
I just couldn’t help laughing when I saw that! I think the MSM knows that we aren’t buying their bogus polls, so now they are trying out this “Romney trailing badly in ground game” narrative to try and depress us.
Both campaigns have internals, if you see Obama start campaigning in PA, WI, MI than you know they got serious problems in their own internals...
Like that picture. So it’s true, he really is the first gay President.
Hawaii will probably protect him from warrants and summons also. I think it’s the safest place for him to go (next to Indonesia or Kenya) to avoid arrest or prosecution.
[ I read somewhere that Rasmussen’s party break-down is based on an average of 2004 and 2008 — and not the part identification he had in the August survey. ]
Yes, Rasmussen is using a Rat +2 sample.
I still can’t get Manchelle’s forlorn, sad look out of my mind as Bath-House Barry gave his final speech at the DNC convention...she looked totally depressed, didn’t she? (I think she knows they’re gonna lose BIGTIME.)
Romney needs a bump that peaks on election day.
Then Reid will make sure the Capitol is completely cordoned off to keep out all the smelly commoners.
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