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The citizens of this country lied to the pollsters The post-mortem on the 2016 election has now begun (and will probably continue for the next dozen election cycles) trying to identify for both Democrats and Republicans how badly the polls performed. The questions will all be variations on a simple premise: How could our pollsters have failed us so badly?

THE MEDIA DIDN’T GET IT WRONG – The pollsters did not work from the wrong data set; the media pollsters, consultants and professional political class did not work from the wrong assumptions, or use the incorrect baselines….. THEY LIED. The professional media polling agents knew exactly what the truth was. They lied and manipulated their data in a concerted effort to intentionally falsify reality. There should be no doubt, EVER, in the mind of any political observer as to what took place within the expressed and broadcasted polling which fueled over two years of broadcast news. The media intentionally lied....

With all of the polling data coming out, there must quite a lot of people and companies involved in polling. But it still seems like a very opaque industry to have so much influience on the daily conversation. I have not been able to find on youtube a good video of a Presidential poll being taken from start to finish. Can we see one? How many calls does it take? How are they getting their phone numbers? How do they know when to stop calling? Who are the people doing the actual calling and can we sure they have no...

*Most election polls are loss leaders, designed for marketing. *Brand recognition is often the main goal, not accuracy. *The real money is giving advice to campaigns. Every day in this election cycle it seems like there are new polls about the presidential race, and it seems like somebody must be making a lot of money from all that data collection. But here's the thing: Most of these polls were never meant to make money. They are just marketing and brand placement to help sell something else. Even the biggest firms, like Gallup, give away political polls to promote the commercial...

This is really damn amazing. I mean really amazing. I told you guys the Republican Establishment was coming to terms with Donald Trump because they hate Ted Cruz so much. This is another data point.Follow this story from the Politico. A leading Republican pollster privately told Speaker Paul Ryan and his leadership team Sen. Ted Cruz would be the biggest drag on House Republicans should he win his party's nomination, according to multiple sources who attended a small meeting of senior GOP lawmakers earlier this month.During the gathering in Annapolis, Maryland, Dave Sackett of the Tarrance Group reviewed a recent...

If you are paying attention to the mainstream media, you might be fooled into believing that most Americans want the Confederate battle flag consigned to the dustbin of history because it's a racist symbol. In fact, a new CNN poll reveals the surprising fact that sentiment with regards to the battle flag hasn't changed much in 15 years: most believe it to be a symbol of Southern pride, not racism. And while a slim majority agrees the flag should be removed from government property, a majority think that most of the suggested ways to remove the flag from American life...

Just how wrong does someone have to be to lose their job in Washington, D.C.? For John McLaughlin, even historically wrong wasn’t enough. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, maybe you know his work. He’s the Republican pollster who predicted just weeks before the June election that then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) would win his primary by 34 points. This week, Cantor packed up his Capitol Hill office, having lost that election by 10 points. “The worst part of it is, you build a relationship with a longtime friend and you never want to lose,” McLaughlin says now,...

Nate Silver has gotten a lot of press for his near perfect election night predictions. In 2008 Silver gained popularity and influence after he called 49 out of 50 states. Many pundits were predicting that Silver would crash and burn in 2012. Instead, he outperformed his 2008 predictions and now that Florida has been called for president Obama, Silver can tout a perfect record 50 out of 50 states called correctly.How did Silver do it?Only Likely Voters Matter: This is one obvious reason SilverÂ’s method outshines everyone else. Anything other than likely voter models is useless information. This is key....

RUSH: Earlier this week, Gallup came out with that 9,000-plus sample poll, with a margin of error of only plus/minus 1%. Nine thousand people. It was a poll that asked partied affiliation, party ID. It came up with plus-three Republican. As of now, party ID... I don't know if it was likely voters, registered voters, adults, whatever. I don't remember what it was, but it was some classification of voters. Now, in 2008 the same poll had Democrats plus 12. Exit polling had Democrats plus 12. The polling data that everybody's going by, all these polls that show it neck...

RUSH: Look, I don't want to -- not bore you. That's not the word. I don't want to wear anybody out, and I don't know what the fatigue factor is. I hear people talking about they just want this election over. People in Ohio, Virginia, Florida, just want this election over. I think it's the Obama people who want this election over. I mean, I want the election to happen, but I'm not tired of this. I could sit here every day telling people the truth about this country. I could sit here every day telling you what I fear...

One of the most amazing — and significant — statistics of this election season has gone almost completely unnoticed: Only 9% of sampled households gave an answer to pollsters in 2012: It has become increasingly difficult to contact potential respondents and to persuade them to participate. The percentage of households in a sample that are successfully interviewed – the response rate – has fallen dramatically. At Pew Research, the response rate of a typical telephone survey was 36% in 1997 and is just 9% today.

A few moments after we wondered when Gov. Rick Scott's pollster, Tony Fabrizio, would join Rick Perry's presidential team, Politico coincidentally reported that Republican campaign sources say he has or will soon. Fabrizio has been in talks with the campaign since and before Perry's disastrous performance at the Republican Party of Florida's Presidency 5 straw poll. Just after the event, Perry sources had told people that Fabrizio was signing on. But Fabrizio, obviously, hadn't. Still, chances are the Politico piece is spot on. And, if so, it's bad news for Mitt Romney. Fabrizio, along with newly hired Perry ad-men Nelson...

This evening I received a call from a pollster. They did identify themselves at the end of it as being hired by the DNC. My first question is why did it show up on our caller id as "international"? Is the DNC hiring people from outside the US to poll for a state race here in Virginia? It was very strange. Also she kept calling McDonnell, McDonald, but she definitely had Creigh Deeds down pat. Lol

This includes final polls up through yesterday, and horizontal lines added indicating actual vote percentages for McCain and Obama.

~snipped~ Though it's controversial, I believe that weighting for party ID is appropriate if done in a manner consistent with historical norms. I fall into the camp that believes party ID is far more static - that voters can change their preferences and the intensity of their partisanship often, but do not as frequently take the step of giving themselves a new party with which to identify. To me, party ID falls somewhere in between "demographic fact" and "variable question response". Preventing wildly fluctuating data outside historical norms provides a better picture of what real movement is occurring in the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton's victory in New Hampshire's Democratic presidential nominating contest confounded pollsters, who found themselves trying to explain how opinion polls got it so wrong. Chastened experts said on Wednesday they would have to closely analyze their forecasts against the results of the New Hampshire primaries to learn why they were so right about resurgent John McCain's win on the Republican side but so wrong about Clinton's win among the Democrats. Ahead of Tuesday's vote in New Hampshire, an early battleground in the state-by-state process to choose candidates for November's election, pollsters had widely predicted Illinois Sen....

NEW YORK Despite rising criticism from some quarters, Gen. David Petraeus appears to command considerable respect from the average American, a new Gallup poll reveals, booosting the chances that his much-publicized September report on the "surge" will be treated as credible by most. The poll of 1,012 adults, taken earlier this month, found that 47% give him a favorable rating, and only 21% unfavorable. The rest had not heard of him or had no opinion. This is the first time that Gallup asked Americans about their overall opinion of Petraeus. In April, however, Gallup asked about the reliability of various...

How about new Federal legislation called the "Truth in Polling Act of 2006", establishing a new regulatory agency? All pollsters would have to register, take qualifying examinations, be fingerprinted, maintain $10 million or more in liquid capital, fill out a few hundred pages of Federal forms every month, document every step they take for every poll, including basis of selection, sampling technique used (no "judgmental" sampling allowed),submit to on-site Federal audits, etc. Penalties for non-compliance should be severe, something like currently in place under Sarbanes-Oxley, or the securities and banking regulations. All of this would apply to public opinion, consumer...

The last polls prior to the election were published today, but pollsters are already broadcasting excuses in advance of Tuesday’s election in case their predictions turn out to be off base. According to Monday morning’s poll released by Maariv newspaper, Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Kadima Party remains in the lead, but has dropped to 34 predicted Knesset seats. The Labor party is predicted to receive 17 seats, Likud 14, Yisrael Beiteinu 12, Shas 12, National Union/NRP 11, Arab parties 7, UTJ 6, Meretz 5 and the Pensioners Party 2. Yediot Acharonot newspaper reported similar results in terms of Kadima,...

The paradox of the year is why so many Americans tell pollsters they feel bad about an economy that's been so good, with solid job growth and corporate profits, rising wages and home prices, and a huge decline in the budget deficit. Perhaps one reason is because the media keep saying the economy stinks. That's the conclusion of... the Media Research Center, which finds that so far this year 62% of the news stories on the Big Three TV networks have portrayed the U.S. economy in negative fashion. The "negative full length TV news stories on the economy outnumbered positive...