Meet the Guy Who's Re-Weighting Polls to Show Romney Way Ahead of Obama

Rationalist

Hail Voltaire
Ruby Cramer introduces us to Dean Chambers, whose site Unskewed Polls "has re-weighted national polling data from organizations like Gallup, ARG, and the three networks, to fit the Rasmussen Reports partisan trends."

What does that mean? At RealClearPolitics, which averages all national polls, Barack Obama is leading Mitt Romney by 3.7 points. At UnskewedPolls, Romney leads Obama by 7.8 points. If that held up, it would be the largest victory for any presidential candidate since George H.W. Bush thrashed Michael Dukakis.

I talked to Chambers this afternoon; he picked up the phone while Fox News played in the background. "Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell are on right now," he said, "and they're making the same point about sampling."

First question: Why use Rasmussen as the basis for the un-skewing, instead of exit polling from the last few elections? According to Rasmussen, there are now more self-identified Republicans in America than Democrats. But even in the GOP landslide year of 2010, Republicans and Democrats were tied; in the good Democratic years of 2006 and 2008, the Ds outnumbered the Rs.

"I've been following Rasmussen's surveys and polls for a while," said Chambers, "and I've found them quite accurate. They were accurate at finding the results in 2010. They were extremely accurate in 2004. Their final poll, the night before the election, put them within one or two-tenths of a point of the result. It was an amazing level of accuracy."

Chambers repeatedly cited 2004's polls to describe what Rasmussen did right and the media got wrong. "The exit polls in 2004 were off," he said, "but I don't think they were doing anything dishonest when they took them. I think more Democrats respond to polls than Republicans." Rasmussen is a robo-pollster; exit polls are conducted by humans outside polling places. "When the networks get numbers from people who are willing to leave the polls and talk to the media, well, they're getting skewed samples. And that's largely a problem with most of the phone surveys."

Maybe people had a problem with the Rasmussen numbers. Well, if Chambers re-weighted the media polls to look like the 2010 exists, "Romney's lead would still be there, only smaller, around 3-7 points." Maybe numbers like those would save the media from embarrassment. "They have to seriously rethink the way they do this, and maybe the rethink will have to happen after the election, when the results prove that they're way off."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2..._polls_to_show_romney_way_ahead_of_obama.html

Looks like I'm not so crazy after all. I'm predicting a huge win for Romney in November.
 
Republican shill reworks polls to show Republican win. Who woulda thunk it?
Democrats want Obama to win, Repubs want the Romney win. The independents are hoping for a pair of very accurate and fatal lightning strikes. One of these things will occur.

I cross my fingers every time theirs a storm over DC
 
Democrats want Obama to win, Repubs want the Romney win. The independents are hoping for a pair of very accurate and fatal lightning strikes. One of these things will occur. I cross my fingers every time theirs a storm over DC

So you're publicly wishing for the deaths of POTUS and his Republican challenger, and the Dalai Damocles thanks you for it?
 
What? The guy's a blogger who reworks stale Rasmussen polls that are already skewed in order to keep the republicans from totally giving up in order to keep the House and all of a sudden he's a polling genius?

Want to buy some snake oil?
 
In August 1988, the Democratic Party candidate, Michael Dukakis, had a double-digit lead over George Bush senior. Yet, come the election three months later, Bush trounced him in a landslide. There is many a slip twixt cup and lip.
 
Two Democratic pollsters confirm major polls skewed against Mitt Romney

On the Fox News segment “Campaign Insiders” today, Democratic pollsters Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen both confirmed their belief that major polls are skewed in favor of the Democrats by over-sampling of Democratic voters when the surveys are conducted.

The Campaign Insiders segment is co-hosted on the Fox News Channel weekly on Sundays and Monday by Doug Schoen, Pat Caddell, and former New York Republican Congressman John LeBoutillier.

Last week's Pew poll shows a ten point lead for President Obama, 51 percent to 41 percent, and the last Democracy Corps poll showing a 50 to 46 Obama lead. LeBoutillier said of the two polls, “in both polls, suddenly the president is at the magic 50 percent of above, which he has not been at really all year in any poll.”

The picture above shows the chart they referred to in discussing the Pew and Democracy Corps polls. In those polls mentioned, they surveyed a larger ratio of Democrats to Republicans among voters than there is believed to be among the likely voters this year. If one over-samples voters of either party over the other one this way, given 90 percent support of members of each party for their party's nominee, it likely results in a survey result that skews the poll by about that percentage in favor of that party's nominee.

“Are these polls an accurate reflection of the race today,” asked LeBoutillier.

Schoen responded, “The simple answer is no John. The bottom line is there were seven percent more Democrats in the electorate in 2008 than there were Republicans. That's from the exit polls and that's about as accurate as you can get...President Obama won by about seven points. Given 90 percent of Democrats vote for the Democrat and 90 percent of Republicans vote for the Republican, every time you reduce the margin between the parties by one point, roughly it's about one point off the margin.”

Schoen pointed out that the Pew poll was based on Democrats sampled for having an 11 percent voters registration edge over Republicans. He further added, “saying that America has gotten more Democratic than 2008, which is a questionable assumption.”

Schoen cited the latest Rasmussen poll having a 0.5 percent edge for Democrats over Republicans in voter registration and a four percent lead for Romney in contrast with the surveys that are over-sampling Democrats.

Caddell addressed the over-sampling of Democrats in the surveys, saying, “what you have is an act of utter irresponsibility, in my opinion, by the Pew Poll and the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.”

“They shouldn't be running these...(they) are having an effect on this election that is really bad,” Caddell said of the media outlets publishing these polls as news stories.

“The key issue in this business is integrity...here's the real issue, the explicit message in all of this is, you got to tell the truth, I don't believe that anyone doing a poll today, for whoever, could credibly release numbers that are plus 11 for the Democratic Party,” said Schoen.

Caddell said the reason for skewing the polls, “what is the effect, is it to build an artificial picture, an illusion, of great Obama momentum.”

Additionally, a Real Clear Politics article by Sean Trende shows how the latest CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac survey of swing states shows Obama leading and with 50 percent in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. These state surveys also over-sampled Democratic voters and in doing so skewed their results to show Obama running stronger than in other, likely more accurate surveys, conducted with more realistic sampling by voter registration.

The Washington Post/ABC news polls released last month showed the same trend of over-sampling of Democratic voters and results that favored President Obama over Mitt Romney. Critics of the polls say many of the major media sponsored and commissioned polls have been skewed in this way but the media outlets continue to report the results of these surveys.

http://www.examiner.com/article/two...onfirm-major-polls-skewed-against-mitt-romney
 
Two Democratic pollsters confirm major polls skewed against Mitt Romney

On the Fox News segment “Campaign Insiders” today, Democratic pollsters Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen both confirmed their belief that major polls are skewed in favor of the Democrats by over-sampling of Democratic voters when the surveys are conducted.

The Campaign Insiders segment is co-hosted on the Fox News Channel weekly on Sundays and Monday by Doug Schoen, Pat Caddell, and former New York Republican Congressman John LeBoutillier.

Last week's Pew poll shows a ten point lead for President Obama, 51 percent to 41 percent, and the last Democracy Corps poll showing a 50 to 46 Obama lead. LeBoutillier said of the two polls, “in both polls, suddenly the president is at the magic 50 percent of above, which he has not been at really all year in any poll.”

The picture above shows the chart they referred to in discussing the Pew and Democracy Corps polls. In those polls mentioned, they surveyed a larger ratio of Democrats to Republicans among voters than there is believed to be among the likely voters this year. If one over-samples voters of either party over the other one this way, given 90 percent support of members of each party for their party's nominee, it likely results in a survey result that skews the poll by about that percentage in favor of that party's nominee.

“Are these polls an accurate reflection of the race today,” asked LeBoutillier.

Schoen responded, “The simple answer is no John. The bottom line is there were seven percent more Democrats in the electorate in 2008 than there were Republicans. That's from the exit polls and that's about as accurate as you can get...President Obama won by about seven points. Given 90 percent of Democrats vote for the Democrat and 90 percent of Republicans vote for the Republican, every time you reduce the margin between the parties by one point, roughly it's about one point off the margin.”

Schoen pointed out that the Pew poll was based on Democrats sampled for having an 11 percent voters registration edge over Republicans. He further added, “saying that America has gotten more Democratic than 2008, which is a questionable assumption.”

Schoen cited the latest Rasmussen poll having a 0.5 percent edge for Democrats over Republicans in voter registration and a four percent lead for Romney in contrast with the surveys that are over-sampling Democrats.

Caddell addressed the over-sampling of Democrats in the surveys, saying, “what you have is an act of utter irresponsibility, in my opinion, by the Pew Poll and the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.”

“They shouldn't be running these...(they) are having an effect on this election that is really bad,” Caddell said of the media outlets publishing these polls as news stories.

“The key issue in this business is integrity...here's the real issue, the explicit message in all of this is, you got to tell the truth, I don't believe that anyone doing a poll today, for whoever, could credibly release numbers that are plus 11 for the Democratic Party,” said Schoen.

Caddell said the reason for skewing the polls, “what is the effect, is it to build an artificial picture, an illusion, of great Obama momentum.”

Additionally, a Real Clear Politics article by Sean Trende shows how the latest CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac survey of swing states shows Obama leading and with 50 percent in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. These state surveys also over-sampled Democratic voters and in doing so skewed their results to show Obama running stronger than in other, likely more accurate surveys, conducted with more realistic sampling by voter registration.

The Washington Post/ABC news polls released last month showed the same trend of over-sampling of Democratic voters and results that favored President Obama over Mitt Romney. Critics of the polls say many of the major media sponsored and commissioned polls have been skewed in this way but the media outlets continue to report the results of these surveys.

http://www.examiner.com/article/two...onfirm-major-polls-skewed-against-mitt-romney


http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/a...kewed-too-heavily-against-republicans/262834/
 
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