Posted on 06/27/2016 8:47:46 AM PDT by Maceman
The conservative blogosphere is lighting up again with accusations of polling bias against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in his race against Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. However, Trump supporters should avoid giving into this temptation to assume unfavorable results must be biased results. Clinton really is leading Trump, and by nearly 6 percentage points.
The blogospherian argument goes something like this: Clinton is leading Trump by 5 to 7 points in certain polls because the pollsters oversampled or over-weighted Democrats by about 5 to 7 points. If the polls are “corrected” to include fewer Democrats then the race is actually tied, they say.
For instance, one blogger argues that a recent CBS News poll inflated the number of Democrats in the poll, comprised of 28 percent Republicans and 35 percent Democrats. Citing one pollster’s calculation, she thinks party identification in the United States is closer to parity, with 28 percent Republicans and only 29 percent Democrats rather than a seven-point Democratic advantage. She reasons that if you erase the partisan gap that would erase Clinton’s six-point lead over Trump.
For Trump supporters, this is a tempting narrative to believe. But this simply isn’t so. The fact is there just are more Democrats out there than Republicans, and this has largely been the case at least since the New Deal. That obviously doesn’t mean Democrats always win, but it’s unwise to assume a pollster is biased because its sample included more Democrats than Republicans.
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
At this point in 1980 I think Carter was up by 11.
Special Report
How Carter Beat Reagan
Washington Post admits polling was “in-kind contribution”; New York Times agenda polling.
By Jeffrey Lord – 9.25.12
Dick Morris is right.
Here’s something Dick Morris doesn’t mention. And he’s charitable.
Remember when Jimmy Carter beat Ronald Reagan in 1980?
That’s right. Jimmy Carter beat Ronald Reagan in 1980.
In a series of nine stories in 1980 on “Crucial States” — battleground states as they are known today — the New York Times repeatedly told readers then-President Carter was in a close and decidedly winnable race with the former California governor. And used polling data from the New York Times/CBS polls to back up its stories.
Four years later, it was the Washington Post that played the polling game — and when called out by Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins a famous Post executive called his paper’s polling an “in-kind contribution to the Mondale campaign.” Mondale, of course, being then-President Reagan’s 1984 opponent and Carter’s vice president.
All of which will doubtless serve as a reminder of just how blatantly polling data is manipulated by liberal media — used essentially as a political weapon to support the liberal of the moment, whether Jimmy Carter in 1980, Walter Mondale in 1984 — or Barack Obama in 2012.
First the Times in 1980 and how it played the polling game.
The states involved, and the datelines for the stories:
· California — October 6, 1980
· Texas — October 8, 1980
· Pennsylvania — October 10, 1980
· Illinois — October 13, 1980
· Ohio — October 15, 1980
· New Jersey — October 16, 1980
· Florida — October 19, 1980
· New York — October 21, 1980
· Michigan — October 23, 1980
Of these nine only one was depicted as “likely” for Reagan: Reagan’s own California. A second — New Jersey — was presented as a state that “appears to support” Reagan.
The Times led their readers to believe that each of the remaining seven states were “close” — or the Times had Carter leading outright.
In every single case the Times was proven grossly wrong on election day. Reagan in fact carried every one of the nine states.
Here is how the Times played the game with the seven of the nine states in question.
• Texas: In a story datelined October 8 from Houston, the Times headlined:
Texas Looming as a Close Battle Between President and Reagan
The Reagan-Carter race in Texas, the paper claimed, had “suddenly tightened and now shapes up as a close, bruising battle to the finish.” The paper said “a New York Times/CBS News Poll, the second of seven in crucial big states, showing the Reagan-Carter race now a virtual dead heat despite a string of earlier polls on both sides that had shown the state leaning toward Mr. Reagan.”
The narrative? It was like the famous scene in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy and her friends stare in astonishment as dog Toto pulls back the curtain in the wizard’s lair to reveal merely a man bellowing through a microphone. Causing the startled “wizard” caught in the act to frantically start yelling, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” In the case of the Times in its look at Texas in October of 1980 the paper dismissed “a string of earlier polls on both sides” that repeatedly showed Texas going for Reagan. Instead, the Times presented this data:
A survey of 1,050 registered voters, weighted to form a probable electorate, gave Mr. Carter 40 percent support, Mr. Reagan 39 percent, John. B. Anderson, the independent candidate, 3 percent, and 18 percent were undecided. The survey, conducted by telephone from Oct. 1 to Oct. 6, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
In other words, the race in Texas is close, assures the Times, with Carter actually in the lead.
What happened? Reagan beat Carter by over 13 points. It wasn’t even close to close.
http://spectator.org/articles/34732/how-carter-beat-reagan
I have no doubt Clinton is ahead at this point. Not the 10-12% but in the 4-6% range. They are closer in the states that matter, but Trump has to define Clinton the way he defined the field in the primaries to pull this out. He’s got all the opportunity to win, but he hasn’t won it yet.
You forget that some significant portion of the black community will stay home with Hillary instead of Obama. This is a significant difference between 2012 and 2016. If even 10% actually vote for Trump instead of Hillary, it would be a YUGE earthquake in the electoral landscape.
Sure, there are more Democrats than Republicans in the general electorate.
That’s been true since the New Deal. But there aren’t twice as many Democrats in the general electorate.
Gallup reports the partisan split in America as 46 D 40 R and 14 I.
Hillary is indeed leading but not by double digits.
The liars at NBC/WSJ with another push poll for their lying mediots for discussions this Sunday of how Trump is losing!
Three Strikes - 3rd Time This Campaign Season NBC/WSJ Caught Promoting Agenda Polls
The Conservative Treehouse ^ | 02/17/2016 | Sundance
Posted on 2/17/2016, 4:57:15 PM by PJBankard
The team of NBC and Wall Street Journal (Rupert Murdoch owned) has struck again with their latest highly coordinated and heavily manufactured latest “Agenda Poll”. We have previously revealed NBC/WSJ’s prior two constructs.......
[SNIP]
Remember, an “agenda poll” is not created to show a statistical snapshot of the presidential race. An “agenda poll” has nothing to do with the support. Agenda Polls are manufactured to create media talking points, to create media narratives.
Agenda polling is about setting out to make a story, to sell a specific narrative, by using polling as the means to justify the story you are selling. Nothing more, and nothing less.
(Excerpt) Read more at theconservativetreehouse.com …
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3398474/posts
The Electoral College is often denigrated for doing exactly as it was intended: preventing large states from dominating the popular vote. A candidate has to build a winning set of electoral votes from multiple states, rather than just focusing on the population centers.
For various reasons, most states are predisposed to one political party or another. It takes a true landslide to swing these states to the other party. But, without a landslide (like Reagan's 1984 election), it comes down to a handful of battleground states.
In those battleground states (PA, FL, OH, VA), Clinton's lead is much less than the national average. If the Republican Party will ever stop undermining Trump and focus on those battleground states, Trump can win the election.
Is this another paid shill for Jeb Bush, the Biggest Loser of them all?
Well, I don’t think Clinton will turn out 90% of the 2012 Dem vote
What Huffpolster won’t tell you is that more independents lean toward Republican than Democrat and that my friend is where the rubber meets the road.
Brexit is only a disaster for the globalists.
Another #NeverTrumper
The only cautious tone I’d add to this, is around here last time, I remember TONS of articles about polls showing Romney behind Obama and the same logic was put forth: oversampling of Democrats.
Problem is, all the polls turned out to be spot on, and then some. So for now, it’s too early to tell. It’s a long way away. At a minimum, these two have to pick running mates and debate each other 2 or 3 times. Anything can happen.
The issue is not about how many Dems there are vs Rep in the general election, the issue is what are the percentages of Dems and Reps who actually turn out to vote. The Dem party is made up of various groups which have a very low turn out on election day.
I would like to see the percentages concerning voters who actually turn out and vote. I would think it’s pretty close. There is not a 12% gap between Dems and Reps on election day.
Unfortunatly you are correct.
Trump will have to pull in a ton of new voters (eg. Ones who have never voted before and former dem voters).
It is a long shot, but not too likely since people go with “the devil they know”.
After 2012, I vowed never again to fall into the "polls are wrong" fantasy.
There are a number of former Republicans who are now Independent who support Trump, but couldn’t stomach the GOPe any longer.
Polls are not omniscient. How a poll is weighted and to what end...matters.
This happens every election cycle. Early polls are slanted to show the D way ahead, in an effort to demoralize Republicans. Then, as the election approaches, they tighten to more closely approximate reality.
This election, there are larger than usual numbers of voters who are undecided. These voters typically break against the incumbent. That effect will favor Trump.
Moreover, it’s possible that the polls are not accurately predicting/identifying/factoring in some of Trump’s supporters, who come from segments of the population that normally don’t vote.
All in all, I think the only thing one can safely say is that either candidate could win, and polling is likely to be a little bit less accurate than usual.
LOL WHAT A FEEKIN JERK
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