“Push polls” — which are not really polls at all — are often criticized as a particularly sleazy form of negative political campaigning. Voters pick up the phone to hear what sounds like a research poll. But there is no effort to collect information, which is what a legitimate poll […] Read more »
Explaining Cantor’s errant poll
I’m going to defend the indefensible and attempt to explain the inexplicable. I’m unwilling to throw up my hands and blame statistics or incompetence for the failure of polls to foresee Rep. Eric Cantor’s primary defeat. Start, in Holmesian fashion, by eliminating the impossible. Those with a middle-school-level knowledge of […] Read more »
The Cantor Prediction Is Part of a Pattern: GOP Pollsters Stink
The last few years have regrettably made the phrase “Republican pollster” less a job title than a punch line. From the 2012 election, where many in the GOP were stunned by the Obama campaign’s victory, to the 2013 closer-than-expected Virginia gubernatorial race, all the way to the present, Republican polling […] Read more »
Why the GOP Still Struggles With Polling
… Eric’s Cantor’s shock defeat Tuesday is being blamed on any number of reasons. But among the seasoned Republican campaign operatives, the biggest internal culprit is seen as the majority leader’s longtime pollster, John McLaughlin, whose own survey of the Virginia race showed Cantor leading his opponent by 34 points. […] Read more »
The Challenges Behind Accurate Opinion Polls
This week’s stunning defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor came after his internal polls showed him winning — instead he lost by double digits. Mara Liasson, NPR Read more »
National GOP: Don’t use Cantor’s pollster
National Republicans are warning candidates to stay away from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-Va.) pollster, who predicted just weeks before Cantor’s loss that he was up by a huge margin. CONT. Cameron Joseph, The Hill Read more »