Factually incorrect. The sampling for party affiliation should reflect the actual distribution in the voting population. We know that there are more Reps than Dems in the U.S. today. See "Vital Statistics on American Politics". Current statistics also indicate that there are more people now who regard themselves as conservative than liberal (same source). This trend toward conservatism started after Reagan's election in 1980. So, no, I don't think we can assume what you are assuming. There has never been a national election in American History since 1960 where on election day....the actual voter turn-out has showed MORE Republicans then Democrats -
Those are the real facts...and not some educational analysis of the subject - Just the cold hard facts - For example in the 2000 election - The breakdown was 4 to 6 % more Dem's then Rep's voted!
As for the trend of Conservative Vs Liberal - I'd agree more people would call themselves conservative ...but that means nothing ....other then "liberal" has a negative conotation to it -
The afrian-american population routinely call themselves conservative in polling after polling....Yet they vote 91% for the Democrat candidate -
You may be right on that point, but it still doesn't matter. You nor I know why Newsweek and Time decided to weigh their poll the way they did. This is like trying to rebuild a nuclear reactor without ever having taken Calculus. Pointless. You simply don't know WHY that weighting is there. It could be based on any number of reasons derived of historical data or something else. You're just automatically assuming that they're wrong for using that weighting but you have absolutely no factual basis for asserting that. The point is that we don't have enough information right now to resolve this conflict between the polls.
I read sometime ago that Reps and Inds who trend Rep is 45%. Same with Dem and Inds who trend Dem. That is why the country is so evenly divided in elections, and why the true Undecided % is so small. Am I wrong?