Posted on 09/21/2012 6:31:56 AM PDT by TonyInOhio
I reached out to Republican pollster John McLaughlin for yesterday’s piece on how undecided voters are likely to break, and he made some separate comments about polls, their impact on motivation for each side, and how the campaigns want to use skewed poll numbers to depress the opposition.
How he’s defining likely voters right now: “For the most part we’re polling likely voters. It’s a loose screen. We keep people who say they’re only somewhat likely to vote. But the vast majority say that they are definitely or very likely to vote. They’re voting.”
How campaigns try to sway polling results: “In a close race, the operatives are trying to manipulate the turnout through their paid and earned media. The earned media includes lobbying and trying to skew the public polls. Historically the most egregious case was the 2000 Gore campaign’s lobbying the networks’ exit pollsters for an early, and wrong, call in Florida. This suppressed the Florida Panhandle and Western state turnout.” (Polls close at different times in different parts of the state, because the state stretches into two time zones.) “In our post-election Florida poll, we found that thousands of Panhandle Floridians heard the call and although their polls were still open for an hour in a close national race decided not to vote. Panhandle voters went two-to-one for Bush. The CBS early wrong call nearly triggered a national crisis.”
On what a realistic partisan breakdown would look like: The 2004 national exit polls showed an even partisan turnout and Bush won 51-48. Had it been the +4 Democratic edge of 2000, John Kerry would have been President. 2008 was a Democratic wave that gave them a +7 partisan advantage. 2010 was a Republican edge. There’s no wave right now. There are about a dozen swing states where in total millions of voters who voted in 2008 for Obama are gone or have not voted since. There are also hundreds of thousands of voters in each of several swing states like Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, and others who voted from rural, exurban or suburban areas in 2004 for Bush who did not vote in 2008, because they were not excited by McCain or thought he would lose. They are currently planning to vote mainly as a vote against President Obama.”
What Obama and his allies are doing now: “The Democrats want to convince [these anti-Obama voters] falsely that Romney will lose to discourage them from voting. So they lobby the pollsters to weight their surveys to emulate the 2008 Democrat-heavy models. They are lobbying them now to affect early voting. IVR (Interactive Voice Response) polls are heavily weighted. You can weight to whatever result you want. Some polls have included sizable segments of voters who say they are “not enthusiastic” to vote or non voters to dilute Republicans. Major pollsters have samples with Republican affiliation in the 20 to 30 percent range, at such low levels not seen since the 1960s in states like Virginia, Florida, North Carolina and which then place Obama ahead. The intended effect is to suppress Republican turnout through media polling bias. We’ll see a lot more of this. Then there’s the debate between calling off a random digit dial of phone exchanges vs a known sample of actual registered voters. Most polls favoring Obama are random and not off the actual voter list. That’s too expensive” for some pollsters.
Your opinion. And I wouldn’t bet on it.
I know pollsters often base projections on the last Presidential election (2008) and not off-year elections (2010). I think this is a mistake. 2010 was the Tea Party revolution with a huge GOP turnout and suppressed DNC turnout. It was a strange election, but a very good one for us.
If they weighed 2010 into their calculations the polls would be much more favorable. What has changed since 2010? I would argue that those who voted in 2010 are just as motivated (or more) this time. Why would democrats be any more motivated now than they were in 2010? Why do they ignore the election that was labeled as a referendum on the Obama administration?
HH: But I don’t know how that goes to the issue, Peter, so help me. I’m not being argumentative, I really want to know. Why would guys run a poll with nine percent more Democrats than Republicans when that percentage advantage, I mean, if you’re trying to tell people how the state is going to go, I don’t think this is particularly helpful, because you’ve oversampled Democrats, right?
PB: But we didn’t set out to oversample Democrats. We did our normal, random digit dial way of calling people. And there were, these are likely voters. They had to pass a screen. Because it’s a presidential year, it’s not a particularly heavy screen.
HH: And so if, in fact, you had gotten a hundred Democrats out of a hundred respondents that answered, would you think that poll was reliable?
PB: Probably not at 100 out of 100.
HH: Okay, so if it was 75 out of 100…
PB: Well, I mean…
HH: I mean, when does it become unreliable? You know you’ve just put your foot on the slope, so I’m going to push you down it. When does it become unreliable?
PB: Like the Supreme Court and pornography, you know it when you see it.
HH: Well, a lot of us look at a nine point advantage in Florida, and we say we know that to be the polling equivalent of pornography. Why am I wrong?
PB: Because what we found when we made the actual calls is this kind of party ID.
HH: Do you expect Democrats, this is a different question, do you, Peter Brown, expect Democrats to have a nine point registration advantage when the polls close on November 6th in Florida?
PB: Well, first, you don’t mean registration.
HH: I mean, yeah, turnout.
PB: Do I think…I think it is probably unlikely.
HH: And so what value is this poll if in fact it doesn’t weight for the turnout that’s going to be approximated?
PB: Well, you’ll have to judge that. I mean, you know, our record is very good. You know, we do independent polling. We use random digit dial. We use human beings to make our calls. We call cell phones as well as land lines. We follow the protocol that is the professional standard.
HH: As we say, that might be the case, but I don’t know it’s responsive to my question. My question is, should we trust this as an accurate predictor of what will happen? You’ve already told me there…
PB: It’s an accurate predictor of what would happen is the election were today.
HH: But that’s, again, I don’t believe that, because today, Democrats wouldn’t turn out by a nine point advantage. I don’t think anyone believes today, if you held the election today, do you think Democrats would turn out nine percentage points higher than Republicans?
PB: If the election were today, yeah. What we found is obviously a large Democratic advantage.
HH: I mean, you really think that’s true? I mean, as a professional, you believe that Democrats have a nine point turnout advantage in Florida?
PB: Our record has been very good. You know, Hugh, I…
HH: That’s not responsive. It’s just a question. Do you personally, Peter, believe that Democrats enjoy a nine point turnout advantage right now?
PB: What I believe is what we found.
HH: Geez, I just, and an eight point in Ohio? I’m from Ohio. Democrats haven’t had an eight point advantage in Ohio since before the Civil War. I mean, that just never happens, but Peter, I appreciate your coming on. I’m not persuaded that Quinnipiac Polls haven’t hurt themselves today, but I appreciate your willingness to come on and talk about it.
End of interview.
I have talked with people on FR and in real life from Virgina, and he has basically quit there as well.
There may be an ad blitz in a week or so, but right now Mitt is acting like he knows it is lost.
No, RCP was over for Obama. Rasmussen "was right on the money".
I think Romney will win the election. I don’t yet have an opinion on whether it will be a close election or a landslide.
There is a palpable difference in enthusiasm levels this year compared to 4 years ago. Far far fewer people that I talk to are speaking in favor of Obama.
I don’t have to remind everyone here that around this time four years ago, McCain inexplicably suspended his campaign to lobby for a bailout that conservatives opposed and congress would have passed without his help, or that Freepers were talking about “dragging him across the finish line”.
At this point 4 years ago, the mood was anger, bewilderment, and even a bit of despair. Contrast that with the eagerness today. The liberals are trying to suppress Republicans with bogus polls. It isn’t working because (1) we don’t believe them and (2) even if they were accurate, we’re still voting against Obama.
Yeah, I remember President Kerry.
He makes sense, esp on polling manipulation. and see post # 37
I remember the Truman-Dewey election. All the polls gave Dewey the win - except the final one. Sometimes voters will stay home because they’ve been told that since their man can’t possibly lose, why bother to vote? If too many anti-Obama voters get too complacent Obama could win.
Frankly, it doesn’t make much difference to me since they’re both bad. One will sink our ship in four years while the other one will take eight.
The guy who nailed it in 2008 is "crap". Riiiight. IBTZ.
“In 2004, Kerry was down by 5% at this point in the campaign, he made it closer and won by 2.5%.”
Wow, I must have missed that one.
If you're paying attention: Ohio and Florida will go Romney but....
I'm thinking that Virginia may be a very very pale shade of blue....and here's why, They have the only large market, Washington DC and its' surrounding areas, that hasn't been effected by the Housing problem and bad economy the rest of us have suffered under. Why? Because government largess has been the bloodbank that has attracted the mosquitos towards it.
Although a get in Virginia would be nice, there's still Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Colorado in play, with Nevada beginning to even up.
Ohio's rural area didn't turn out in 2008.....it changed in 2010 and now that the non-McCain vote has learned the hard way Like the Panhandle in Florida in 2000...I wouldn't bet on their staying home and sitting on their hands anymore in the near future. I know I lived in Ohio then and I've been paying attention a lot more closely than you probably ever have.
As for Florida, A real bee's nest has been stirred up with the older group that is the most reliable of the voting class. My mother lives and votes in Florida and not One of the people in her allotment is voting for anyone but Romney this time.....If that's any indication I don't no, but in 2008 almost half of them voted for "Dopey and Grange" which seems to indicate something is going on. In addition, the Jewish vote is leaving, think Netanyahu snub and Benghazi in flames, it was down to 59% before the world went up in flames and no Democrat has ever won the election with out 64% of that vote. The Cuban vote is still with us and Mitt has a Puerto Rican Mayor running around the lower third of the state campaigning with Rubio....mano e mano.
On top of all of this, the UNexcited side of the black vote has the general attitude of "Obama ain't done nothin' for me so why should I do somethin' for him" attitude and they're ticked off about the amnesty thing for the hispanic kids that are taking away, what they see as, "their" jobs. They may not vote Republican but they aren't going to get out of the house and stand in line to vote in such large numbers this time and the predictions are that their numbers will be closer to 2004's in turnout.
Finally, If it's really so close than why is MEshell's mama runnin around braggin on how thay all gonna live in Hawaii in thyr 35 million dolla' house?
It wasn't a polling firm, nor a PR agency. Just an outbound call center located in Wichita Falls. They were given their script directly by the Gore campaign.
Nobody has posted it, but I am concerned because Obama has more money right now than Romney. He raised much more money than Romney did in August per numbers released just yesterday. This is reversing the previous advantage Romney had. He does have slightly more when including RNC numbers, BUT that doesn’t help really since RNC ads can’t directly help him. Also, it’s concerning because Obama has the small donor advantage still this year.
I only hope the September numbers look good.
The problem is, though Romney had an advantage earlier, he spent more money on non-advertising stuff. He has got to BUY ADS, not do other stuff. Ads are critical. On the plus side, Romney seems to be taking serious the ground game this year compared to McCain.
But, we need ads. Badly.
I don’t know why the campaign hasn’t been featuring that campaign video biography of him as well. That would be an excellent piece to run.
I think this will all be overcome, but definitely was not good news to read this fundraising info today.
Ads are overrated, people tend to tune them out.
The operative words in your claim are "in the end!"
We're not there yet.
In the meantime, there is convincing evidence that the polls -- with their +10 and +13 Democrat samples -- are not reflecting reality.
If, aside from Rasmussen (who has no media sponsor to satisfy), you believe any of the MSM polls are representative of reality, you are yourself guilty of deluding yourself.
Amen!
Yes, and like WI, people are waiting quietly to vote.
Come back in Nov. and eat some crow!
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