Posted on 10/25/2014 5:08:55 AM PDT by Kaslin
For most of 2012, I maintained that Mitt Romney would lose to Barack Obama. Only after President Obama's first debate did there seem to be a glimmer of hope. After that debate, polling moved in Romney's direction. Conservatives had hope.
As we now know, much of the polling in 2012 was wrong. There were some great pollsters. The IBD/TIPP poll, the Reuters/Ipsos poll, the Pew Poll, and others were spot on. But many pollsters, including the most prominent pollster of all, Gallup, were left with black eyes.
After the election, Scott Rasmussen left his own eponymous polling firm. The Rasmussen poll, relied on for comfort by Republicans, had gotten it wrong. In fact, many Republican firms underestimated President Obama's ground game. This year, however, much of the polling world is on the same page nationally. President Obama's job performance ratings are terrible. Nationally, most likely voters want the Republicans to take the Senate.
Now would be a good time to ask if there may be a Deming Funnel problem in state-level polling. Dr. W. Edward Deming devised, among other things, a funnel experiment. The goal was simple: Drop a marble through a funnel onto a sheet of paper on which a target had been placed. The objective was to get the marble as close to the target as possible. It turned out to be more difficult than one might expect. The experiment showed that tampering with systems without fully understanding them can lead to even more adverse results.
In-state level polling around the country, much of it is done by small pollsters or political consulting shops diversifying into polling shops. Those pollsters remember the lessons of 2012. They remember the ruined reputations of pollsters who got it wrong. They do not want that to happen. They remember, in particular, that one reason so many pollsters got it wrong was because those pollsters underestimated the president's ground game.
These pollsters have adjusted and compensated accordingly. Many state races, including in red states such as Georgia, seem very close. Kentucky, where Allison Grimes has run a disastrous race against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, seems too close to call. The closeness in these races, however, is not reflected in national polling or even in many of the polls conducted by major polling firms that got 2012 right.
The recently released Associated Press/GfK poll has been perhaps the best news for President Obama lately. That poll showed President Obama's disapproval was at 59 percent. Yes, that was the good poll for him. The Reuters/IPSOS poll, released at about the same time as the AP's poll, showed President Obama at 61 percent disapproval among likely voters. Likely voters is key. Democrats do better when registered voters as a whole are polled, and they do best when all American adults are polled. But American adults do not all vote. President Obama's approval ratings improve as the number of people polled increases.
Just as striking, the generic ballot question favors the Republicans. In 2010, the Associated Press gave the Republicans a 7-point margin on the generic ballot asking voters which party they preferred to control congress. In 2014, the AP poll gives the Republicans an 8-point margin, even showing Republicans gaining with women.
More and more national polling trends suggest the Republican Party is going to take over the United States Senate. In states like Colorado, where Republicans have had a difficult time, the Republican Senate candidate has moved into the lead. Democrats have given up trying to win new seats in the House of Representatives. They have largely given up on breaking even, instead just trying to mitigate their losses.
Again, though, this is not reflected in much statewide polling. Those national polls should, ultimately, be reflected. In fact, in states such as Georgia where polls show a tremendously close race headed for a runoff, President Obama is deeply unpopular among likely voters. All this begs a question: Are some of these races really as close as they appear, or have pollsters, worried about their reputations after 2012, over-corrected their sampling?
Democrats always stay focused on the long-range plan to hold what they can and take what is given them. Republicans/conservatives seem to eschew the small victories in hopes of a major tout - the Dems have a plan and focus that works, we cede most battles because our principles dictate that it's all or nothing - nothing is not very nourishing and results in eventual starvation. Hunger pains...anyone?
One problem with the polls. They don’t poll the dead.
Yeah....it's kind hard to have to factor that in and try to stay a legitimate polling firm.
The rats are united while on our side are many who are trying to to divide us. This must stop
‘Calibration error’ changes GOP votes to Dem in Illinois county
Could non-citizens decide the November election?
22 signs of Democrat Voter Fraud in 2012 Election
Woman Convicted of Voter Fraud Honored by Ohio Democrats
Vote Fraud is TREASON.
People who engage in it should be punished most severely. Hard labor, stripped of all government checks for life (to include Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security/Pensions/all Welfare).
It’s not easy to poll accurately for Democrat fraud.
<><> KEEP IN MIND---Healthcare.gov is also a voter registration site.
<><> We also know "Obamacare" is a huge voter fraud machine---registering unsuspecting enrollees who get plugged into Democrat voter rolls just by enrolling.
<><>NEWS STORY--Local couple received pre-marked voter registration card from "Covered California" (Cali O/Care); an envelope from the state's Obamacare website contained a letter discussing voter registration and a registration card pre-marked with an "x" in the box next to Democratic Party.
<><> Another Obamacare web site reported it "accidentally" registered 4000 latinos.
<><> Colorado Republican State Senator Ted Harvey told the Washington Times, "they’re getting seven absentee ballots to a household. Children who registered at 18, now 30 years old and living somewhere else, but their voting status is now active, the clerk and recorders are required to send them ballots.....If Mom and Dad wanted to commit felonies, they could vote them.”
<><> In another potential nightmare, "‘ballot harvesting’ ranges from perfectly legal campaigning to pressure tactics to undue influence to intimidation to forgery of ballots and everything in between.
<><>James O’Keefe of Project Veritas videoed Greenpeace’s Christen Topping explains where to glean discarded ballots. A “lower class” building at “Sixth and Belmar Circle” in “ghetto Aurora” is promising, Topping says. “North Aurora is a lot of people who — I hate to, like, put in clichés — but people don’t care.”
<><> Meredith Hicks is a director for Work for Progress, a nonprofit laboring to re-elect Senator Mark Udall, D-Colo. Hicks urges O’Keefe to harness these abandoned ballots......casually suggesting voters commit felonies compounded by forgeries. “That’s not even, like, lying and stealing,” she says. “If someone throws out a ballot, like, if you want to fill it out, you should do it.”(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
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Udall's "Work for Progress" operatives are on tape---aiding and abetting felonies----L/E needs to move on this.
Regarding the Obama mural in the polling place — I’m puzzled by his downward gaze. Is the teleprompter on the floor or what?
since the seats are just being given to the Republicans and they aren’t winning them the Democrats can decide to fight and just as easily take them back 2 or 4 years from now..
some Republicans are actively campaigning but not all..most are sitting still and having a breakfast-in-bed of a win..
knowing how the Republicans throw in the towel come win or lose..theyre going to be caught napping next time...
2016 is anybody’s game...
can we learn to say President Clinton without nausea...
Conservatives were already under the frigging bus.
The Republican Party, helped by massive voter fraud on the part of the Democrats, managed to pull defeat from the jaws of victory by dumping another steaming pile on those who would most ardently support it, even though many still did given the alternative was another 4 of Duh-1.
Why can't the "moderate" (liberal) wing of the Party ever vote Conservative? If all that matters to them is that an 'R' wins, that might work.
In the end there is only one poll that counts. It will come out late on November 4 and early November 5.
I still believe the Republicans will find a way to lose this thing.
“One problem with the polls. They don’t poll the dead.”
Nor the illegals.
The problem is no one has figured out how to conduct a poll of the Democrat inhabitants of cemeteries.
The fake polls are there to cover the fake absentee and mail in ballots. The voter fraud would be too obvious if Dems were losing by 20% in the polls and they would have a 5% win on Election Day in an off-year election.
The GOP better not be too lazy to check voter totals at the precinct level and be on the lookout for double-voting by absentee or mail-in ballots. Dozens of ballots sent to one address should be a tip-off to even the least interested election officials, but not if they’re Democrats.
That’s part of why I posted this with my observation of a mysterious bus in my State
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3219350/posts
If this thread is any clue, I have good reason to be even more cynical now about the election.
Polls? They’re for our consumption anyway.
They don’t poll the dead nor the illegals nor do they allow for the multiple voters or phantom people who live hundreds to one address or the machine programmers. I can’t think of one case of Republicans being charged in court with vote fraud but lots of cases of Democrats in that situation. Democrats usually win close races.
Because they oppose what we want with every fiber of their being.
The ruling coalition is united around several things that the people are against. They are skilled at setting up phony issues (or issues that don’t concern the Federal government) to break up the formation of any possible other coalition.
Republicans and Democrats agree that the purpose of the State is redistribution. How much, and to whom, and under what circumstances, there are disagreements. But no elected officials of either Party believe that it is wrong to take from you and give to another of their own choosing, for reasons that make sense to them.
Republicans and Democrats agree that you have “rights” - lots of them. They also agree that any question ABOUT your “rights”, or whether or not something IS a “right”, should not be decided by a political process because that is “divisive”. So, they both agree that the voice of “the People” as contemplated in Articles IX and X can only be voiced by nine unelected life tenure judges, and that five of them, at any time or for any reason, can give new “rights” and take away old ones, particularly if those old ones arise out of majority voting.
Republicans and Democrats all believe in “diversity”. They, ignoring completely the results of all social science research on this subject, and contrary to millennia of human experience and wisdom, believe that the more “diverse” our country, its institutions, and any private entities within her become, the more cohesive and productive we will become.
Republicans and Democrats almost all believe in “free trade” and “immigration”. These things are good for various constituencies of both parties while they wreck the economy and the nation.
Many of the People, perhaps a majority, do not believe in any of these things. But in our existing system, captive as it is to the MSM-mandated “process” for choosing two candidates for POTUS neither of whom will change a thing, leaves the People with no voice.
The people who you call "liberal Republicans" will, almost always, support, caucus with, or vote for a socialist before they will vote for one of us.
That's why, at the end of the day, working AGAINST a third party is futile - because there is no second party.
The Republicans can win if we support them, but we can never win because they won't return the favor.
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