Mat Toenniessen at Red State is more than optimistic about the upcoming elections. Specifically, he points to the fact that in the spate of recent polls put out by the MSM, there seems to be an uncharacteristically high discrepancy between voter party self-identification and historical norms. Never, for example, has a political party in the last 14 years held more than a four point advantage of self-identifying voters over the other party, yet Mat points to an article at NRO that suggests that respondents interviewed in many early October polls identified themselves uncharacteristically high as Democrat vs. Republican. By as many as 11 points!
* USAToday/Gallup: 9 points.
* CBS/NYT: 5 points
* ABC/WP: 8 points
* CNN: did not provide sample party ID details.
* Newsweek: 11 points.
* AP/Ipsos: 8 points.
* Pew: 7 points.
* Time: 8 points.
Yet, the NRO reports...
...there is a material discrepancy between the party identification listed by people in exit polls (people who actually voted) between 1992 and 2004, and those used over the last few weeks.
and
In short, between 1992 and 2004, only once did one party enjoy an advantage as large as 4 points over the other in party ID. But in recent polling samples used by eight different polling organizations (USA Today/Gallup, CBS/NYTimes, ABC/Washington Post, CNN/Opinion Research, Newsweek, AP/Ipsos, Pew, and Time), the Democratic advantage in the sample surveyed was never less than 5 points.
Mat surmizes (and personally I think it's safe to say) that these numbers are very uncharacteristic when compared with voter trends over the past 12 years. While the people at NRO caution that it can be a natural trend for voters to change identification over time, an 11-point shift in voter identification one way or another seems a bit of a stretch. Thus, Mat states, and I agree, that:
In other words, the media and the polling outfits are MANIPULATING the outcome by over weighting the sample with Democrats so that it LOOKS like Democrats have it locked.
[SNIP]
This is part of the attempt to demoralize and disgust the Republican base so much that they stay home on Election Day.
Mat, however, posits that this last-minute hijinx put forth by the MSM and democrats will backfire. For Pennsylvania, Mat predicts:
Rick Santorum will win his Senate seat because after the debates people of Pennsylvania saw Casey for what he is, a lightweight with no knowledge or truth about the issues. In the last debate Casey actually stated that there were 5000 gun dealers in Philadelphia and only a few dozen ATF agents to police them. Santorum blew him away by proving to him that there are only 22 gun dealers in the city, not 5000. This was but one lie that Casey has been spouting that Santorum has debunked. Santorum is within eight points now, and this number will move further his way in the next two weeks.
And for the
pease de resistance, Mat predicts:
Cut and Run Democrat John Murtha, also of Penna, is under attack by a great Republican candidate, Diana Irey. I tried for months to get a poll of this race and there was nothing. Then last week the Pittsburgh Tribune released a poll of only 400 people, probably from their offices, that had Murtha up by double digits. But the paper refused to list who they polled, from where and from what party. The poll even had Irey losing in her hometown where she is well liked and very popular. The Irey campaign has called the poll wrong and proved that their internal polling show the race a dead heat.
Just as I have suspected all along, now is not the time to drink the Kool-Aid. The election belongs to those people who show up. And it is my prediction that voters will show up in droves to send a clear message that it still isn't safe to vote democrat; and overconfident democrats everywhere will be once again crying in their coffee come the morning of November 8th, wondering what the heck went wrong.
Posted by leo at October 21, 2006 11:31 PM
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Comments
The left has pulled out all he stops in their no holds barred grab and returning to power. Lying and manipulating shouldn't come as any surprise.
The lamestestream media realized long ago that they could form public opinion by a little skew here, a little slant there.
I haven't trusted polls for a very long time and am beginning to feel they should either be banned or subjected to severe restrictions, such as printing sources, areas polled and actual questions asked.
In the end, the lamestream media continues to lose revenue as readers and viewers seek real news elsewhere. False reporting and openly attempting to call elections weeks before they happen are but 2 reasons why.
Posted by:
Lew Waters at October 22, 2006 12:33 AM
Leo and Lew,
I only hope the American people, i.e., the American GOP people, see the drive-by media for who they are, and see through this obvious attempt at voter suppression. The DemocRATs have nothing to offer, as usual, so they must try and hoodwink the voters.
They think we're stupid. We're not. They no longer have the monopoly. Let's bury them...
Posted by: 1H8L1BS at October 22, 2006 01:00 AM
"wondering what the heck went wrong."
No they wont...they will just blame the Rovian, Diebold, Chimpyhaliburton, VRWC, martians and folks in black helicopters. Not once will they consider that they lost with even the MSM supporting them due to their lame ideas.
Posted by: ZootAllure at October 22, 2006 01:01 AM
Leo,
Drat it all! You're spoiling my fun...ah, well, cat's out of the bag now...in case any of you were wondering why I wasn't worried, Leo's post says it all...
Posted by: Mark Noonan at October 22, 2006 01:14 AM
Uh huh, not a suprise! It would be nice to see a land slide election come down on the heads of demoncrats. It would give us enough time to deal with the important issues while they dug themselves from their hole!!!
Posted by: bearmanUSMC at October 22, 2006 01:25 AM
Hum
Red State says the Republicans will turn out like Machines... Are they saying their voters are mindless machines willing to do the will of those who pull the leavers or push the buttons? And will the Republicans toss their machine aside when it becomes tired and warn out?
When The Polls were showing the Republicans in the lead, there was none of this talk about historical trends or faulty poll data... Only when the opposition was in the lead . So what are you saying? That when the Republicans are in the lead, the Polls are okay? But when the opposition is in the lead, the polls are faulty?
Posted by: Magnum Serpentine at October 22, 2006 01:35 AM
*Shakes head*
Magnum you don't pay much attention to some of us do you? I question ALL polls and I'm not the only one around here who does. I disbelieve all polls because I can get a poll to say anything I want, and marketers and pollsters are quickly finding out that the accuracy of polls is dropping fast, especially as more folks switch to cell phones as their primary phone.
So as I say, I never believe the polls. It's stupid to hang your hat on something as fickle as the polls. In the end it'll all come down to the folks who actulaly get people out to vote and who go vote themselves.
Posted by:
Gozer at October 22, 2006 01:46 AM
Don't trust the MSM...GO VOTE REPUBLICAN!!!
*Mark, have you seen this?!?*
BBC Stars Admit Insanely Obvious Bias "We are biased, admit the stars of BBC News"
The Daily Mail: It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.
A leaked account of an ‘impartiality summit’ called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror. It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC’s ‘diversity tsar’, wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.
At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.
One veteran BBC executive said: ‘There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness. Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC’s culture, that it is very hard to change it.’ ...
Political pundit Andrew Marr said: ‘The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.’
Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to ‘correct’, it in his reports. Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it ‘no moral weight’.
Former BBC business editor Jeff Randall said he complained to a ‘very senior news executive’, about the BBC’s pro-multicultural stance but was given the reply: ‘The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism: it believes in it and it promotes it.’
Randall also told how he once wore Union Jack cufflinks to work but was rebuked with: ‘You can’t do that, that’s like the National Front!’
Posted by: Freedom1 at October 22, 2006 05:07 AM
serp
When have the polls ever favored the Republicans? Can you quote some specifics??
My favorite lamestream media polling ploy is to quote polls of registered voters rather than likely voters...or worse yet...polls of americans. The latter is a poll of anyone who answers the phone on a random basis, without regard to citizenship muchless party affiliation or likelyhood to vote.
Posted by: phnxbmed at October 22, 2006 06:09 AM
When in doubt,attack the messenger...
So, now we're supposed to believe that Bush
suck-ups ABC of propoganda film "The Path to 9/11"
infamy,are suddenly fixing polls for dems?Or,that
longtime pollsters at Newsweek,Wash Post,Gallup,
Pew, Zogby,et al are so partisan and evil that
they will risk their reputations to fix a mid-term
election?? How silly can you get ? Does it even
occur to Leo that polls are adjusted by formula
when more of one party are contacted? And who is he to tell a specialist-statistician how to do
their job?
Talk about "Conspiracy Theories"! Jeez
Posted by: PukeOrDie at October 22, 2006 06:52 AM
The oversampling itself may not be quite as nefarious as believed. I forget where I saw it last week, (perhaps it was also at NRO), but there is a growing distrust of phone polling by the polling companies themselves. Apparently, the companies have a hard time finding accurate samples due to things like Caller ID, cell-phone only homes, people who do answer not willing to participate, etc. etc.
Now the nefariousness of the media does come into play when the inability to find a representative sample is not reported in the "stories" about the poll results.
Posted by: TLDietrich at October 22, 2006 01:49 PM
Santorum is toast. Which I am sad to say, because I was personally hoping that he would be served up as Obama's sacrificial lamb in 08. But no matter - I'm sure the GOP can find an equally embarrassing boob to replace him.
To that end, I say "Go Newt in 08"!!
Posted by: Aarontime at October 22, 2006 02:18 PM
I am an independent voter. The only time I ever voted a straight party ticket I pulled the Republican leaver. That was the year Daddy Bush ran the first time. The Republican Party sure has changed since I voted that straight ticket. This article sound like a bunch of paranoid schizophrenics gathered in a back room with the blinds closed. The poles were against Bush and the Republicans – so what. You might find one polling organization that skewered the points – maybe even two polling companies would – but all of them. You’ve got to be kidding.
Hey, now I’ve got it – you are kidding. This is just a bunch of hype so you can get the Republican vote out.
Posted by: IndependentVoter at October 22, 2006 09:54 PM
IndependentVoter--
"...just a bunch of hype so you can get the
Republican vote out."
you nailed it !
Posted by: PukeOrDie at October 22, 2006 11:17 PM
Remember the early exit polls in 2004: Kerry was supposed to bury Bush in a landslide according to those. What happened was that Democrats, eager to speak out, rushed up to the exit pollsters to make sure "their voices were heard". Republicans, sick to death of all the polling, tended to walk away w/o being polled. The result was the same as today; heavy oversamping of Democrat voters.
Historically Republican candidates underperform in the pre-election polls by 8-12 points because of Democrat oversampling and the pollsters assume there are more Democrats out there than there really are because the voter registration records are garbage. The polling firms know this but have no way of correcting them so they don't bother trying.
Posted by: Orion at October 23, 2006 08:13 PM
Please report any inappropriate comments to abuse (at) blogsforbush (dot) com. Be sure to include the title of the blog entry, the name of the commenter, and the text of the offending comment.
Post a comment
The left has pulled out all he stops in their no holds barred grab and returning to power. Lying and manipulating shouldn't come as any surprise.
The lamestestream media realized long ago that they could form public opinion by a little skew here, a little slant there.
I haven't trusted polls for a very long time and am beginning to feel they should either be banned or subjected to severe restrictions, such as printing sources, areas polled and actual questions asked.
In the end, the lamestream media continues to lose revenue as readers and viewers seek real news elsewhere. False reporting and openly attempting to call elections weeks before they happen are but 2 reasons why.
Leo and Lew,
I only hope the American people, i.e., the American GOP people, see the drive-by media for who they are, and see through this obvious attempt at voter suppression. The DemocRATs have nothing to offer, as usual, so they must try and hoodwink the voters.
They think we're stupid. We're not. They no longer have the monopoly. Let's bury them...
"wondering what the heck went wrong."
No they wont...they will just blame the Rovian, Diebold, Chimpyhaliburton, VRWC, martians and folks in black helicopters. Not once will they consider that they lost with even the MSM supporting them due to their lame ideas.
Leo,
Drat it all! You're spoiling my fun...ah, well, cat's out of the bag now...in case any of you were wondering why I wasn't worried, Leo's post says it all...
Uh huh, not a suprise! It would be nice to see a land slide election come down on the heads of demoncrats. It would give us enough time to deal with the important issues while they dug themselves from their hole!!!
Hum
Red State says the Republicans will turn out like Machines... Are they saying their voters are mindless machines willing to do the will of those who pull the leavers or push the buttons? And will the Republicans toss their machine aside when it becomes tired and warn out?
When The Polls were showing the Republicans in the lead, there was none of this talk about historical trends or faulty poll data... Only when the opposition was in the lead . So what are you saying? That when the Republicans are in the lead, the Polls are okay? But when the opposition is in the lead, the polls are faulty?
*Shakes head*
Magnum you don't pay much attention to some of us do you? I question ALL polls and I'm not the only one around here who does. I disbelieve all polls because I can get a poll to say anything I want, and marketers and pollsters are quickly finding out that the accuracy of polls is dropping fast, especially as more folks switch to cell phones as their primary phone.
So as I say, I never believe the polls. It's stupid to hang your hat on something as fickle as the polls. In the end it'll all come down to the folks who actulaly get people out to vote and who go vote themselves.
Don't trust the MSM...GO VOTE REPUBLICAN!!!
*Mark, have you seen this?!?*
BBC Stars Admit Insanely Obvious Bias "We are biased, admit the stars of BBC News"
The Daily Mail: It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.
A leaked account of an ‘impartiality summit’ called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror. It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC’s ‘diversity tsar’, wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.
At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.
One veteran BBC executive said: ‘There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness. Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC’s culture, that it is very hard to change it.’ ...
Political pundit Andrew Marr said: ‘The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.’
Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to ‘correct’, it in his reports. Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it ‘no moral weight’.
Former BBC business editor Jeff Randall said he complained to a ‘very senior news executive’, about the BBC’s pro-multicultural stance but was given the reply: ‘The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism: it believes in it and it promotes it.’
Randall also told how he once wore Union Jack cufflinks to work but was rebuked with: ‘You can’t do that, that’s like the National Front!’
serp
When have the polls ever favored the Republicans? Can you quote some specifics??
My favorite lamestream media polling ploy is to quote polls of registered voters rather than likely voters...or worse yet...polls of americans. The latter is a poll of anyone who answers the phone on a random basis, without regard to citizenship muchless party affiliation or likelyhood to vote.
When in doubt,attack the messenger...
So, now we're supposed to believe that Bush
suck-ups ABC of propoganda film "The Path to 9/11"
infamy,are suddenly fixing polls for dems?Or,that
longtime pollsters at Newsweek,Wash Post,Gallup,
Pew, Zogby,et al are so partisan and evil that
they will risk their reputations to fix a mid-term
election?? How silly can you get ? Does it even
occur to Leo that polls are adjusted by formula
when more of one party are contacted? And who is he to tell a specialist-statistician how to do
their job?
Talk about "Conspiracy Theories"! Jeez
The oversampling itself may not be quite as nefarious as believed. I forget where I saw it last week, (perhaps it was also at NRO), but there is a growing distrust of phone polling by the polling companies themselves. Apparently, the companies have a hard time finding accurate samples due to things like Caller ID, cell-phone only homes, people who do answer not willing to participate, etc. etc.
Now the nefariousness of the media does come into play when the inability to find a representative sample is not reported in the "stories" about the poll results.
Santorum is toast. Which I am sad to say, because I was personally hoping that he would be served up as Obama's sacrificial lamb in 08. But no matter - I'm sure the GOP can find an equally embarrassing boob to replace him.
To that end, I say "Go Newt in 08"!!
I am an independent voter. The only time I ever voted a straight party ticket I pulled the Republican leaver. That was the year Daddy Bush ran the first time. The Republican Party sure has changed since I voted that straight ticket. This article sound like a bunch of paranoid schizophrenics gathered in a back room with the blinds closed. The poles were against Bush and the Republicans – so what. You might find one polling organization that skewered the points – maybe even two polling companies would – but all of them. You’ve got to be kidding.
Hey, now I’ve got it – you are kidding. This is just a bunch of hype so you can get the Republican vote out.
IndependentVoter--
"...just a bunch of hype so you can get the
Republican vote out."
you nailed it !
Remember the early exit polls in 2004: Kerry was supposed to bury Bush in a landslide according to those. What happened was that Democrats, eager to speak out, rushed up to the exit pollsters to make sure "their voices were heard". Republicans, sick to death of all the polling, tended to walk away w/o being polled. The result was the same as today; heavy oversamping of Democrat voters.
Historically Republican candidates underperform in the pre-election polls by 8-12 points because of Democrat oversampling and the pollsters assume there are more Democrats out there than there really are because the voter registration records are garbage. The polling firms know this but have no way of correcting them so they don't bother trying.