No, The Polls Aren’t Biased. Clinton Really Is Leading Trump

The Federalist ^ | June 24, 2016 | Emily Ekins

[Maceman]

The conservative blogosphere is lighting up again with accusations of polling bias against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in his race against Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. However, Trump supporters should avoid giving into this temptation to assume unfavorable results must be biased results. Clinton really is leading Trump, and by nearly 6 percentage points.

The blogospherian argument goes something like this: Clinton is leading Trump by 5 to 7 points in certain polls because the pollsters oversampled or over-weighted Democrats by about 5 to 7 points. If the polls are “corrected” to include fewer Democrats then the race is actually tied, they say.

For instance, one blogger argues that a recent CBS News poll inflated the number of Democrats in the poll, comprised of 28 percent Republicans and 35 percent Democrats. Citing one pollster’s calculation, she thinks party identification in the United States is closer to parity, with 28 percent Republicans and only 29 percent Democrats rather than a seven-point Democratic advantage. She reasons that if you erase the partisan gap that would erase Clinton’s six-point lead over Trump.

For Trump supporters, this is a tempting narrative to believe. But this simply isn’t so. The fact is there just are more Democrats out there than Republicans, and this has largely been the case at least since the New Deal. That obviously doesn’t mean Democrats always win, but it’s unwise to assume a pollster is biased because its sample included more Democrats than Republicans.

[tumblindice]

Emily’s a liberaltarian, but not guilty.
http://reason.com/people/emily-ekins/all

She shoots herself in her pretty foot, unfortunately, by admitting the crux of our complaint: poll more Democrats than conservatives and you get skewed results. Duh.
“The fact is there just are more Democrats out there than Republicans, and this has largely been the case at least since the New Deal.”
Poll Free Republic and Trump leads 99.99%. Poll DU, vice versa. ABC/WashPost poll, garbage sampling, garbage results.
Unless they publish their methodology and their samples (w/more than just `3% margin of error’) and unless it is replicable, it’s just `rat propaganda.

[Grampa Dave]

“If you support Mr. Trump have to be quiet about it to protect yourself.”

Particularly if you live in California with:

More recently, the Public Policy Institute of California, estimated that, in 2013, 2.67 million unlawful immigrants resided in California or about 6% of the state’s population. This is believed to be almost a quarter of all unauthorized immigrants living in the United States. Mostly, this population is from Latin American (estimated at 79%) with a declining majority from Mexico (52%). About a tenth of the state’s workforce is composed of unlawful immigrants and about 13% of California K-12 school children have an unlawful immigrant parent.

LaRaza thugs in every town/city/county.

BLMers on the freeways in the cities.

Bat Guano insane liberals everywhere.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for the clarification of where this bs is coming from.

“Let’s not forget that The Federalist is the cRuz loving blog. They are the ones who were rolling out non-stop anti-Trump stories, when cRuz was still in the race. They’ve continued their negative Trump articles, since.

The publisher, Ben Dominech, is the co-founder of RedState (TedState).

Take a look at their articles, and you’ll see a definite anti-Trump history.

Take this article with the same grain of salt that you would anything from TedState.

[erlayman]

I think Rasmussen and OAN both lean conservative and those have been closer. It is the WP, Reuters etc that are going to be blasted around the world and need to be countered by Trump or one of his surrogates.

[Tau Food]

I believe that a lot of these polls are phony. I believe that there are people who are determined to steal the nomination from Trump and I believe that they intend to use these phony polls as a weapon.

[amihow]

You sound like the same A Hxxxs that mocked me when I predicted a Romney loss when he was up in the polls.

I do not rely soley on polls.

[MaxistheBest]

“Unless they publish their methodology and their samples (w/more than just `3% margin of error’) and unless it is replicable, it’s just `rat propaganda.”

The last Bloomberg poll was like that ... it was way out of line towards the Hildabeast..they didn’t show the internals. One of the guys at PowerLine.com tried to get the information from them and they refused, giving him some garbage excuse.

Most of the polling companies, if they are not posted, will send the internals to anybody in the media. If they don’t, then it’s a biased poll.

[amihow]

We will see.

[Jane Long]

I hear the enthusiasm for Donald diminishing. Big time and reluctantly in most cases.

---

LOL. Just where are you ‘hearing’ this?

[lavaroise]

Some minorities who hated Bush might warm up to Trump, despite the media plastering Trump as racist. That however might make undecided sheeples vote Hillary like idiots. It will play on undecided.

Also blacks used to sit out elections if the candidate was not white. They might not be as enthused to vote Hillary, although Obama might help them out.

Now voter fraud and illegals voting is really what is playing out.

[COBOL2Java]

You sound like the same A Hxxxs that mocked me when I predicted a Romney loss when he was up in the polls.

I do not rely soley on polls.

Ouija board? Crystal ball? Entrails? Urim and Thummim?

BTW, it's spelled solely.

[AllAmericanGirl44]

Ping me Jane, if you get a legit answer to your query.

I believe our future is coming into sharper focus even for the most dim witted.

[pfflier]

As long as I have been a member, there has been plenty of opinions, sarcasm, justification, rationalization and lip service. It always seems to end there.

[MaxistheBest]

If they want us to trust the polls ok then...:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-poll-florida-north-carolina-wisconsin-colorado-battleground-states/

3 out of 4 are within the margin of error and the 4th, WI, is only a 5 point lead for Clinton, which for WI, has to be scary for her.

[pfflier]

For whatever reason, the pollsters seem to miss their european predictions. I find it entertaining watching them squirm out of how they got it wrong.

I'm glad the conservatives are confounding them over there.

[sergeantdave]

“The fact is there just are more Democrats out there than Republicans..”

Yeh, that’s why Republicans completely control 26 states - governor, legislature and state elective offices - while rats control 11 states.

[Boomer]

Don't listen to these polls. Here's why. This poll was on MSN.com for a while. I recorded the results just after I voted in it. Look at the number of people who voted. This is a true representation of what the general polling outlook was on 6/23/16.

Who will you vote for in the presidential race?

31% Democrat Hillary Clinton

49% Republican Donald Trump

10% Other candidate

10% I'm not sure

Total responses: 828,825 votes

Even if only half of the "I'm not sure" crowd votes for Trump; that still gives him 54% to her 36% if she gets the other half. We win and win big but keep this within our little circle here at FR. We don't want a single person staying home because they thought it was in the bag for Trump.

[nathanbedford]

I remember TONS of articles about polls showing Romney behind Obama and the same logic was put forth: oversampling of Democrats. Problem is, all the polls turned out to be spot on, and then some.

Of course we have seen this movie before and the ending does not change no matter how many times we replay it. The electoral college landscape is set up against the Republican nominee and we must acknowledge that the electoral college is simply the starting point.

The problem is compounded in this election because, unlike Romney, Trump does not have adequate money in the till (even assuming he can get it) and he does not have anything resembling an up to speed campaign staff. His time to remedy these potentially fatal deficiencies is running out. Another rarely commented upon factor which could decide this election assuming Trump and bring it close, that is within two or three points, is the utter absence in the Trump of data mining and its application. I have been posting on these threads for years the reports which were originally published by MIT Technology Journal describing the revolutionary application of digital technology to electioneering. It seems clear that if the election is within two or three points the candidate who has mastered this art will prevail.

The Republican national committee claims that it has mastered the art but it made the same claim four years ago and not only did the assurances ring hollow on election day but the party and the candidate were both utterly humiliated when the computers literally crashed on election eve. Trump himself has no such expertise in his camp but there are assurances coming from the Chairman of the National Committee that the Republicans have digital mining completely mastered and they are cooperating with Trump to apply the technology. We shall see.

My fear is that lack of money, the lack of staff, the lack of technology, and the lack of time, singly and combined, present new obstacles to a Republican candidate who already suffers from a huge handicap simply by accepting the party's nomination and carrying the standard.

We are depending on Trump's charisma, the power of his personality, and his unique ability to crystallize an issue and make it understandable and unforgettable to the mass of the voting public. He must identify and crystallize the issues such as immigration trade etc. which make the affirmative case for his election and he must crystallize the evidence which disqualifies Hillary. He must do this in the teeth of a hostile media, yet another obstacle.

We will often hear that we are early in the campaign season. I emphatically disagree. This is the season in which Trump and Hillary, although to well-known figures for decades in American culture, will be defined. Hillary has the money and she is spending it to define Trump. This is a particularly dangerous time for Trump because of Nathan Bedford's first maxim of American politics: all politics in America is not local but ultimately racial. Hillary is defining Trump as a racist and a bigot. If that definition sticks, the obstacles to election will become daunting indeed.

Trump made a great speech to define Hillary, but free media alone is probably not enough. We will often hear that free media might be enough in the primary contest starting with 17 contestants but it is not sufficient for a national election. I think that is clearly true.

As for the general election, we conservatives must always understand that we do not represent the voting public. We know the issues, we know the arguments, we certainly are not swayed by some television commercial which superficially distorts the underlying realities with which we are so familiar. Joe sixpack is an entirely different voting animal. He has feelings rather than convictions, he votes emotionally rather than analytically, he is not a party loyalist or, better, loyal to a philosophy, he is a habitual party line voter disinclined to break habits but when he does so it is for a superficial and likely transitory motivation.

That is not to denigrate the voter, he has other things in life which are more important to him but it does illustrate the power of television and, more recently, the power of digital mining.

There is a great resentment and unease smoldering just below the surface of America. No one is better equipped by virtue of his persona to fan those smoldering embers into a blaze which can win the election. But that is the only way he can win the election.

[V K Lee]

Ignorant of history when Reagan was swept into the WH. Due to health reasons unable to vote and did not follow the polls prior to the vote. Just knew that Carter was failing the country unmercifully. At that time, as others have noted, there was not a run toward ‘free stuff’ as there is at this time. It was not until BO’B was reelected the ‘free stuff’ factor appeared in all its glory on the full screen.

The fact TRUMP generates enthusiasm and change among the voters is to be seen as a plus. The fact Crooked Hillery is meeting with indifference and antipathy among her voters is a plus as well.

Polls are biased/manipulated and though seen on a day to day basis not given much credence.

[amihow]

Experience. Politeness that allows me to interact and communicate.

Please mind your manners and learn to communicate productively.

Appreciate your correction of my spelling error. I am slightly handicapped visually and using small keyboard.