L.A. Times poll draws GOP fire

Washington Times ^ | 6.16.04

[ambrose]

The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com

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L.A. Times poll draws GOP fire

By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published June 16, 2004

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Republicans are accusing the Los Angeles Times of conducting a bogus political survey, but the paper is vigorously defending its numbers and methods.

    A Times poll released June 10 showed Democratic Sen. John Kerry leading President Bush by 51 percent to 44 percent among registered voters -- results that Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd and Republican pollster David Winston say were skewed to favor Democrats.

    The Times is defending the poll -- distilled in the aftermath by other news organizations to headlines such as "National poll gives Kerry solid lead" from Reuters.

    According to a statement from Times polling director Susan Pinkus yesterday, the political affiliation among the poll respondents was 38 percent Democratic, 25 percent Republican and 24 percent independent -- which she said was on par with Times polls dating to 2001.

    The proportion also lines up with national figures when the margin of error -- plus or minus three percentage points -- is taken into account, she said.

    And therein lies the rub, according to the two critics.

[Torie]

The parisan split really is ludicrous (if that were the real split (38 Dem/25 Pubbie), this election would be over before it began). Quality control is really not job one at the LA Times.

[ambrose]

Remember the recall election when they had Bustamante leading 35% to Schwarzenegger's 22% ?

The only real question is: deliberately biased polling, or simple incompetence?

[Torie]

Incompetence. I don't do conspiracy stuff. Arnold gained a lot of traction at the end, and maybe Arnold had not yet pulled in all the usual suspects at the time of the poll (he certainly had not yet pulled in me, although nervous Nellie that I was, I voted for him at the end). Bustamante had his core from day one, and never got beyond that.

[ambrose]

That's not what SurveyUSA was showing. SurveyUSA consistently showed Arnold and the recall question right around where the final number ended up.

It was only the media polls which were showing a last minute "surge" for Arnold. Freeper Wolfstar did a fairly complete analysis of this.

[Torie]

I never saw any poll showing Arnold in the high 40's. If I had, and believed it, I would have voted for McClintock.

[GretchenM]

"These are OUR lies, we're proud of them, and we stand by them." - Spokesman for the LA Times

/sarcasm
not really

[ambrose]

The last minute sleaze attacks against Arnold certainly caused many to be concerned of a last second turnaround against the recall, a la Bruce Herschensohn in 1992..

[Political Junkie Too]

The only real question is: deliberately biased polling, or simple incompetence?

Whose incompetence, the Times' or Bustamante's?

It's possible that he could have been up by that much, as Schwarzenegger was avoiding debates and not making deep policy statements early on. However, once they all shared the stage Bustamante tanked (Yes, Arianna. I know, Arianna. A quart of milk and a dozen eggs, Arianna).

-PJ

[goldstategop]

Arnold won with 48% of the vote and his Republican rival Tom McClintock won 17% of the vote - between them, the GOP captured the votes of roughly 65% of the California electorate. This, in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 3-2 in party registration! The Los Angeles Times in any of its polls never saw that coming.

[dvwjr]

With the LA Times poll director saying that her numbers were:

38% - Democrats
25% - Republicans
24% - Independents
*******************
87% - Total

what were the other 13% classified as, and how did they vote? If you use the above numbers with the internals on the question #4 of the poll you do not get the published results:

44% - Bush
51% - Kerry
 1% - Neither
 4% - Don't Know

you actually get:

38.1% - Bush
45.6% - Kerry
 0.3% - Neither
16.1% - Don't know

So even the "admitted" numbers do NOT go along with the published poll just by doing the algebraic multiplication. Something is still not right...

dvwjr

[labard1]

"Incompetence. I don't do conspiracy stuff."

I generally subscribe to the view that one should never ascribe to conspiracy what can be adequately explained by mere gross incompetence. However, the consistency of the LA Slimes' pro-Dim bias makes it hard to believe this is MERELY gross incompetence, though if the Slimes wanted to do a persuasively misleading poll in favor of the Dims, there were certainly more intelligent ways to make up the numbers.

[truthandlife]

I think this is great. All the Freepers have known the liberal bias spin from the LA Times for a while. Now the whole world gets to see how much of a garbage paper this truly is.

Old media is dying and I love to see it.

[Wolfstar]

Torie, this is the analysis Ambrose refers to. Although it's somewhat lengthy, it's quite revealing in what it demonstrates about polling.

I have always been a skeptic about polls. But there is absolutely no objective way to prove the results of any poll are accurate, except for those few taken within a couple of weeks of an election. I don't mean the mathematical accuracy within any given poll's methodology; I mean accurate in what it claims are the opinions of millions of people.

A couple of years ago, I read "MOBocracy" and "Coloring the News," two excellent books which confirmed that having a healthy skepticism about polling is a smart thing to do. These days, I don't place stock in any polls other than those taken within about two to three weeks of an election, whether or not the polls are positive for my candidate or issue.