The pollsters do this to get air time on the MSM TV stations. If they don’t the MSM will never mention their polls!
I think it is a mixture of things. There’s an incentive for media to portray a close race (money). Some in media are lazy and using the last election’s model. In some cases (as in hyper ridiculous +8 or higher) I believe the media are trying to keep Obama afloat because they fear a down ticket disaster for Democrats if Obama isn’t seen as competitive.
We’ll see tomorrow I guess. I’ve been concerned about the arm-chair criticism about polling as from several people I know who are in the business, a lot of what hasn’t been accounted for is voter registration efforts that many polling firms have been accounting for. I don’t think we should rest on our laurels tomorrow. Get as many people to go with you as possible to vote. Don’t assume that we have this in the bag due to what seems like manipulated numbers.
They factor in the dem GOTV efforts, which actually are”how successful” will dems be at massive voter fraud?
I believe America wants Romney, but if we really wanted him that bad we would have to be successful in stopping fraud...or else...engage in it ourselves enough to overtake them.
I pray we win tomorrow, but I also think the tightening is because the dems are cheating on a large enough scale in swing states to win the election.
I believe this is the reason people are saying Romney will win the popular vote handily, but will lose the electoral college. The dems know the states they have to cheat big time in, and they are doing that as we speak.
It’s worse than you can imagine. The famous “+11” poll by CNN means predicts 41% of voters will be Democrats, 30% will be Republicans. IN other words, a given voter is 37% (11/30) more likely to be a Democrat than a Republican!!!
Public polling is increasingly problematic due to sampling and modeling issues such as low response rates, call screening, and the so-called “shy Tory effect” in which conservative voters decline to reveal their preferences. Partisan breakdowns are especially dodgy because some pollsters like Rasmussen adjust their top line results for partisanship, while others do not. In addition, events and campaign operations change voter preferences. Most pollsters will declare themselves vindicated if the election is close enough to be within the margin of error.
When Romney wins tomorrow, there are two things I can’t wait to watch.
1. Tingles reaction
2. Pollsters excuses.
Pollsters call land-line phones, for the most part. I hear about 1/3 of the country no longer has a land-line. That in itself is a major problem. Then there are people, like myself, who would lie to a pollster. I despise polls, and people who do them.
I think that JournOlist never went away. The reporters involved were trying to change the world and thought that Obama would be so good for everybody that nobody would care that they helped Obama. Because of that they were sloppy and were caught. Then they went underground and grew bigger because more reporters and other groups wanted to be part of it and “on the team” JournOlist became bigger and more powerful.
Acorn was exposed and is a shell of its former self. But, Acorn only existed with other people’s money. Once their funding was cut, so did its operation. Proof that Acorn has faded is the lower Dem registration efforts.
JournOlist didn’t cost any money. It was exposed but not affected financially. JournOlist controls the message. JournOlist controls the presidential debates. JournOlist controls which pollsters get hired by democrats and which pollsters get on TV. JournOlist picks the winners and losers among pollsters. Pollsters no longer need to be close to be respected and make money, they just need to do what JournOlist wants them to do.
Many freepers have said that this election may expose the media and end their monopoly. It will take more than that. A Romney win will make them go harder left and they will fight Romney even harder than they fought Bush. If Romney succeeds and stands up to the media, unlike Bush, then the media will go nuts, lose power, and be replaced. Just like Dan Rather and that one journOlist guy that used to be on ESPN and then on MSNBC. I can never remember his name.
If Romney is polling +5% on election day, an extra 5% of Dem voters will stay home and state and local races suffer.
Clearly I’m in no position to say that the polls showing the race to be razor-thin are accurate or not; but a thought occurs to me.
If, in fact, things are developing to give Romney a decisive election night victory, I can’t help but wonder if pollsters who might be so inclined are intentionally skewing their polls, via over-sampling and/or loaded questions, so as to create a “reasonable cause” justification for mounting legal challenges to the results. Some would go so far as to say they’re setting the stage for civil unrest due to a created perception of the election having been stolen; however, if they have that anticipation, I suspect that it’s merely icing on their litigious cake.
The truth is, like me, most Republicans don’t participate in polls.
I generally hang up on them.
So, it seems reasonable to expect an oversampling of Dems.