[muawiyah]

People self-identify in these polls so what is it you are saying?

Give you a choice here ~ that the people say one thing and the pollsters change it in their reports. Or, that the people just flat out lie to the pollsters.

Did it ever occur to you that people may think they are Republicans but they are really Democrats? And vice versa. So, they tell you what they think ~ not what their party registration is ~ or maybe they don't really know ~ or maybe "independent" is what the pollsters call people who say they've voted for both Democrats and Republicans in the past.

There are so terribly many options, so you tell us how it is these polls are a JOKE ~

[tobyhill]

It's a geographically, racially, gender, etc, weighted poll. Party affiliation has rarely varied by more than a couple points.
If you know that the 2010 elections throughout the country showed an equal amount of affiliations yet less than two years later the poll shows a wide variable then more than likely the weighted sample is wrong.
It is a joke poll.
A true poll will ask 1 question with 1000 people in each state through 50 states (no questions on party, race, gender, etc), “who will you vote for”? No need to weigh the poll because with 50,000 there will be a very good base sample.