The Voters Have Not Been Kind to Pollsters Since 2002

National Review ^ | 11-5-2012 | Jim Geraghty - Commentary

[Wolfie]

Modern polls are about propaganda and shaping opinion. It’s not a shock that they’re disconnected from reality.

[sdcraigo]

“But Gallup uncovered one very significant shift in this year’s voting electorate. There has been a remarkable movement toward the Republican party. As Gallup reports:

The largest changes in the composition of the electorate compared with the last presidential election concern the partisan affiliation of voters. Currently, 46% of likely voters identify as Democrats or lean Democratic, compared with 54% in 2008. But in 2008, Democrats enjoyed a wide 12-point advantage in party affiliation among national adults, the largest Gallup had seen in at least two decades. More recently, Americans have been about as likely to identify as or lean Republican as to identify as or lean Democratic. Consequently, the electorate has also become less Democratic and more Republican in its political orientation than in 2008. In fact, the party composition of the electorate this year looks more similar to the electorate in 2004 than 2008.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/332386/parsing-polls-michael-g-franc#

So instead of the dems +8 (or thereabouts) that a lot of polls are using, we will be seeing a Republican +1, which makes most of the current polls incorrectly slanted toward the dems, by a lot.

Furthermore, according to Rasmussen, in October the number was actually +5.8 for Republicans, which, in combination with the incorrect dems +8, would mean that the “national polls” are potentially off by close to 14 points:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/archive/mood_of_america_archive/partisan_trends/summary_of_party_affiliation

Could this possibly portend a landslide? I sure hope so.

[neverdem]

"Sometimes a google search can turn up results."

It did here. I do that when archive searches fail on this forum, frequently, but now a search bombs out, not just fails to do an archive search. I get this message:

Access to the webpage was denied

You are not authorized to access the webpage at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search?m=all;o=time;q=quick;s=The%20Voters%20Have%20Not%20Been%20Kind%20to%20Pollsters%20Since%202002. You may need to sign in.

HTTP Error 403 (Forbidden): The server refused to fulfill the request.