Posted on 08/31/2026 4:29:51 AM PDT by MtnClimber
The venerable Dick Morris this week revealed that the manipulation of polling data goes even deeper than many of us thought.
We’ve all been long aware (though many tend to ignore it in practice) that the polls have been corrupted to the point of worthlessness. It has become standard among many (myself among them) to add 3 to 5% to all poll results for the GOP – the higher the better, usually – which in many cases gives totals very close to real-world results. This was reinforced this summer by the scandals involving primary poll results involving Abdul Mohammed El-Sayed, who was given double-digit leads in the Michigan Democrat senatorial primary but barely eked out a 1% victory, and the Florida Democrat senatorial primary, in which ex-military hustler Alexander Vindman held a polling lead of nearly twenty points but lost to socialist Angie Nixon by 12 points. Only world-class naivety can excuse dependence on polls from this point on.
But it’s not only results. There are a lot of ways to skin a cat, and the pollsters have used considerable ingenuity in assuring that numbers say the right things about the right people.
Morris, who could look healthier, reports on a study by Patrick Ruffini at Echelon Insights. Ruffini analyzed the results of several hundred polls taken during congressional election campaigns over the years. He discovered that pollsters have been regularly overstating the numbers for Democrat candidates in the months leading up to the election, with emphasis on the summer months. Then, during the final weeks of the campaign, the pollsters carefully “ratchet back” their results, bringing them into sync with the actual voter sentiment going into election day. “They’re wrong in July and August,” Dick tells us, “then they get more and more correct as September and
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
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Yes, this is done to demoralize the opposition.
True but my main concern is there’s been no flip of Democrat seats in any of the special elections that I recall. Republicans need to get out and vote, even if it’s simply and “anti communist “ reason to vote the Republican.
And if THAT doesn’t work, Dems just make the election results match the polls (Sayed in MI)
“the polls have been corrupted to the point of worthlessness.”
Many here on FR have known this for years. On the other hand there are also many here on FR that treat the polls as though they were God’s word.
It actually makes the Dems overconfident, as they misread how acceptable their policies are to the electorate. Then they find out the hard way that they have lost again.
“God’s word.”
Or alternatively, “I only believe polls that confirm my own preferences. All the others are enemy psyops.”
The ability to quickly forget what I myself had been saying for months leading up to an election is an essential tool for managing cognitive dissonance. Online echo chambers are built for this purpose.
Please please don’t tell me we are back to “unskewing” polls so the results say what we want. This didn’t end well the last time.
Polls have been corrupted to the point of worthlessness.
Media approved
Crooked polls have immense practical value. They provide cover for Democrat cheating in election ballot manipulation.
It’s done to increase democratic voter turnout, it’s the perceived winner effect. Think of it as a football game, if a team is having a winning season then their game attendance will increase, no one turns out to cheer for a team that’s expected to lose. If you’re the Patriots under Tom Brady and everyone expects you to win the turnout will be huge. Same thing with the inflated polls for the Dems, they motivate their low info voters to go to the polls if they think their side is going to win.
“The venerable Dick Morris”
Yeah nope. That little joker is about as crooked as a barrel of snakes....so venerable? Two faced is more like it.
I wouldn’t doubt he’s probably the grandfather of poll manipulation and thought it all up.
The typical John Doe voter loves NASCAR and spends his spsre time fixing up old pick up trucks. He's not paying attention to politics but he's on the Trump train. He needs to be reminded to show up to vote on the Election Day.
So he needs constant reinforcement to vote and that is the greatest flaw of Trump's coalition is his dependency on low-propensity voters.
To paraphrase one of my mentors...
“All polls are wrong. Some are useful.”
Originally used to describe chemical process models, but applies to polls as well.
The only poll that matters is the one in November.
True
Every summer the Democrats are leading. Somehow the polls flip or tighten October 1.
Good ole Dr. Toe Jam.
Decades. We’ve known this for decades at this point.
Fake polls by fake news are published to help Dims with fundraising and hold back Repubs.
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