Posted on 09/11/2013 11:13:39 AM PDT by Kip Russell
The next time you're wondering if polls are biased, just remember this admission from Public Policy Polling:
Reflecting on the Colorado recalls
We did a poll last weekend in Colorado Senate District 3 and found that voters intended to recall Angela Giron by a 12 point margin, 54/42. In a district that Barack Obama won by almost 20 points I figured there was no way that could be right and made a rare decision not to release the poll. It turns out we should have had more faith in our numbers becaue she was indeed recalled by 12 points.
What's interesting about our poll is that it didn't find the gun control measures that drove the recall election to be that unpopular. Expanded background checks for gun buyers had 68/27 support among voters in the district, reflecting the overwhelming popularity for that we've found across the country. And voters were evenly divided on the law limiting high capacity ammunition magazines to 15 bullets, with 47% supporting and 47% opposing it. If voters were really making their recall votes based on those two laws, that doesn't point to recalling Giron by a 12 point margin.
We did find on the poll though that voters in the district had a favorable opinion of the NRA by a 53/33 margin. And I think when you see the final results what that indicates is they just did a good job of turning the election more broadly into do you support gun rights or are you opposed to them. If voters made their decision based on the actual pretty unobtrusive laws that Giron helped get passed, she likely would have survived. But the NRA won the messaging game and turned it into something bigger than it was- even if that wasn't true- and Giron paid the price.
John Hickenlooper won the district overwhelmingly in 2010 but is only tied at 42 with Tom Tancredo in a hypothetical match up there, so it's something Democrats will have to figure out how to deal with before next year.
People want the state they thought they knew back.
I figured there was no way that could be right
This guy doesn’t get out much
“made a rare decision not to release the poll.”
Every election from now on, this statement will be in every apology from obama’s PPP.
Sit on the unfavorable poll ? ..and not release it ?
Bwahahahahaha!
And this poll failed to mention that the
'anti-gun 'faction out spent the 'pro-gun 'faction by $6 to $1 !!
Public Policy Polling (PPP): Publishing all the polls that fit our political bias!
After 2012 when we were embarrassed at the accuracy of the polls. We should just not even look at polls. We didn’t listen to them in 2012 at all and they all ended up being right.
The PPP is the “Progressive” Democrats favorite polling outfit, because they are shills for their agenda. No one should believe polls from this biased bunch of Democrat boot-lickers.
Well, if you had any doubt about where the poller stands on the issues, he removed them.
Universal background checks are NOT unobtrusive! Quite the opposite -- they could be used as a precursor to confiscation or other improper actions, and since it's the government, the worst possible presumption consistent with the known fact MUST be made. How is any other presumption safe? (Especially when they COULD do UBC's in an anonymous way, but don't, so how can anyone trust their claims that something harsher isn't the intent, PLUS believe that something harsher will never be the intent of any future government that inherits the information they had to right to possess in the first place?) Ridiculous to even entertain that.
No way it could be right. We still thought all the fraudulent voters we bused in were still there.
I'm curious, which other polls fell into this "rare decision" batch and were never reported?
No kidding. Not only do they give us their crystal ball opinion of what went wrong for the lefties, but they openly advise DEMS to fix this prior to 2014.
I bet they side with doing away with voter ID laws while supporting these “unobtrusive” background check laws.
What is more dangerous? Most DEMs will never be hurt by a conservatives legal gun, but we are hurt daily by their illegal votes.
Thank God, even with outside money and changing voting laws that invite fraud from the usual DEM college kids and SEIU bus riders, they still lost. However, I am disappointed with the numbers, especially Morse. I thought it would be even higher. I was hoping for ground shaking numbers to come out and it scares me that with this much criminal activity by DEMs and Obama that the polls were not overflow all day.
One thing to remember, however, is that whoever pays for a poll has the right to keep the results private if they choose to do so. The sponsor of such a privately-funded poll will use it how they see fit... and if it helps their cause to release it prior to an election, they will do so...
However, they obviously did not choose to do so in this case... but maybe the polling company has the right after the election to comment on it/release the results, because doing so doesn't affect the paying client.
If any of us pays for a poll, we get to decide how it gets used, or not used...
Just sayin' ...
That's certainly the case...I did find it surprising that the polling firm admitted that they didn't release the poll results because they found them implausible. It won't help their reputation, given that people will wonder in the future what other results they're hiding.
This was a recall election- notoriously difficult to predict- and yet, they got the numbers exactly- right? Keep in mind, this is the same polling outfit that didn't do so hot on another difficult-too-predict race recently: "PPPs final poll of the special election in South Carolinas 1st Congressional District finds a race thats too close to call..". Sanford, IIRC, won this race by nine points...
Kind of like back in the day when ‘going’ to the track wasn’t some kind of social event (such as Triple Crown etc), the hawkers would be out front and have their ‘tip sheets’. If 4 or 5 people went in together chances are you would not all get the same sheet bought from the same guy, at the same time.
Wait 3 or 4 races and go back and get the same guy, selling the same sheet and somehow the ‘winners’ are in his ‘tip sheets’ or when leaving they would ‘hand you’ a pretty good sheet for todays card and YES, be selling you a ‘pre card’ for tomorrow.
Of course, LIKE ALL GAMBLERS, we were smarter than the house and didn’t need them ‘stinkin sheets’.
Amazing the Entrepreneurships that can arise when the situation warrants it...
I guess in the long run that we did win as most of the old tracks that had ambiance etc are gone, replaced with cookie cutter ovals.....The NEW surge of Casinos should take a tip from the old ‘race tracks’ - when you overflood an area or zone, NO ONE makes any money.
Back when there was just Vegas, the house was VERY PROFITABLE as they were the only ‘game in the land’.
Now that you have a casino or two in every state the intake and outgo may remain basically the same but being ‘shared’ by to many outlets.....
Used to be 2 tracks in CharlesTown WV and they would basically run 365, switching dates etc... One is left but it is more of a casino than any thing else, may not have any racing there, not sure...
Anyway, one of them had a huge boulder out before the final turn and I ‘swear’ the positions would dramatically change when they ‘went behind the rock’....
I gave up on my 1st and 2nd million and am now working on my 3rd.
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