As the presidential election reaches its apex in intensity, so have arguments from the right that polls and economic statistics — the numbers used to explain the 2012 campaign — are not to be trusted. The theory that many polls are under-sampling Republicans (and thus overstating the support for Obama) […] Read more »
Shifting Party Allegiances Are Tricky for Pollsters
… In the last few weeks, Republican figures such as Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh have questioned polls showing leads for President Barack Obama over Republican nominee Mitt Romney—including, in Mr. Rove’s case, in the opinion section of this newspaper. They say many polls are skewed because far more respondents […] Read more »
Hunting for Opinions on the Web
As more and more people drop landlines and screen calls, pollsters are having a tougher time rounding up valid samples of consumers and voters. Start-up CivicScience takes another approach–it lures them with online surveys on websites. … The Pittsburgh-based company works with website publishers to add these polls or to replace […] Read more »
When Assessing House, Parties Are in Parallel Universes
… This year, Republicans believe that Democratic pollsters are relying too heavily on the 2008 turnout models, that the samples showing Democrats doing well in key districts include more minority and younger voters than those who will actually turn out. Democrats think Republicans are too wedded to the 2010 models […] Read more »
Why Mitt Romney Won’t Win the Post Debate Swing State Polls
Tonight Mitt Romney could give the most effective debate performance since Ronald Reagan out debated President Carter, or even since Abraham Lincoln showed up Stephen Douglas, and Mitt Romney will still lose the post debate swing state polls. Why? Because the voter samples that the media pollsters will call are […] Read more »
Skewed polls and the ornate palace of self-flattering delusions
A new poll by Public Policy Polling (PPP) asks respondents the charmingly reflexive question of whether they think pollsters are “deliberately skewing their polls this year to help Barack Obama, or not”. … I don’t want to spend any time at all explaining why the idea that pollsters overall are […] Read more »