In the 2012 race for the White House President Obama is ahead, but the polls are misleading. … To be sure, Obama is ahead in this race. But by how much has become a serious point of contention and one that deserves further examination. [cont.] Doug Schoen, Fox News Read more »
‘Unskewing’ polls with party ID is, statistically speaking, bunk
“The mainstream media is skewing its polls with too many Democrats because they want Obama to win.” Statements like this one are zipping around the internet a mile a minute these days. The general idea is that there are too many respondents identifying as Democrats in public surveys compared to […] Read more »
The Recurring — and Misleading — Focus on Party Identification
The discussion of the party identification composition of poll samples comes up in every presidential election with which I’ve been involved. Interested observers often opine that when a given poll shows that Candidate X is ahead, it cannot be correct because there is a higher percentage of voters who identify […] Read more »
No, the Polls Aren’t Rigged to Look Like 2008
Campaign 2012 has reached the stage where partisans have moved from attacking their opponents to attacking the polls. … One common complaint in the current conservative fusillade is that many 2012 polls are using the “2008 turnout model.” … In fact, the “2008 turnout model” critique is so far off […] Read more »
Among Obama supporters, enthusiasm hasn’t dimmed
A common theme we keep hearing from conservatives who are unhappy with the public polls is that the surveys assume a 2012 electorate that looks a lot like the one in 2008. For instance, The Weekly Standard’s Jay Cost argues that we should be wary of polls showing a strong […] Read more »
Are the Polls Tilted Toward Obama?
… [A] lack of weighing [for partisan identification] creates its own problems, which many pollsters often fail to acknowledge. Specifically, many polls have, in my judgment, overestimated the Democrats’ standing right now. I base this conclusion not on a secret, black box statistical methodology or some crystal ball, but rather […] Read more »