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Poll bias

Where did all the biased polls go?


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Slartibartfast

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So now that Romney is doing better in polling, where did all the claims of poll rigging go?
 
What poll rigging?

All the panty twisting and crying about the media being in a conspiracy to make Romney's polling look worse than actual popular sentiment. Were you not here the last three weeks?

To me, its a perfect example on how the opinion makers in the popular media truly lead the conservatives in this country like shephards.
 
All the panty twisting and crying about the media being in a conspiracy to make Romney's polling look worse than actual popular sentiment. Were you not here the last three weeks?

To me, its a perfect example on how the opinion makers in the popular media truly lead the conservatives in this country like shephards.

I was joking.
 
All the panty twisting and crying about the media being in a conspiracy to make Romney's polling look worse than actual popular sentiment. Were you not here the last three weeks?

To me, its a perfect example on how the opinion makers in the popular media truly lead the conservatives in this country like shephards.

Conspiracy?

It's an established fact that certain polls were over sampling Democrats and under sampling Republican and independent voters.
 
Conspiracy?

It's an established fact that certain polls were over sampling Democrats and under sampling Republican and independent voters.

established? :lol:

Poll Averages Have No History of Consistent Partisan Bias - NYTimes.com

Presidential elections are high-stakes affairs. So perhaps it is no surprise that when supporters of one candidate do not like the message they are hearing from the polls they tend to blame the messenger.

In 2004, Democratic Web sites were convinced that the polls were biased toward George W. Bush, asserting that they showed an implausible gain in the number of voters identifying as Republicans. But in fact, the polls were very near the actual result. Mr. Bush defeated John Kerry by 2.5 percentage points, close to (in fact just slightly better than) the 1- or 2-point lead that he had on average in the final polls. Exit polls that year found an equal number of voters describing themselves as Democrats and Republicans, also close to what the polls had predicted.

Since President Obama gained ground in the polls after the Democrats’ convention, it has been the Republicans’ turn to make the same accusations. Some have said that the polls are “oversampling” Democrats and producing results that are biased in Mr. Obama’s favor. One Web site, unskewedpolls.com, contends that even Fox News is part of the racket in what it says is a “trend of skewed polls that oversample Democratic voters to produce results favorable for the president.”

The criticisms are largely unsound, especially when couched in terms like “oversampling,” which implies that pollsters are deliberately rigging their samples.

But pollsters, at least if they are following the industry’s standard guidelines, do not choose how many Democrats, Republicans or independent voters to put into their samples — any more than they choose the number of voters for Mr. Obama or Mitt Romney. Instead, this is determined by the responses of the voters that they reach after calling random numbers from telephone directories or registered voter lists.

Pollsters will re-weight their numbers if the demographics of their sample diverge from Census Bureau data. For instance, it is typically more challenging to get younger voters on the phone, so most pollsters weight their samples by age to remedy this problem.
 
When the polls are good both sides (more one that the other) are silent. When they aren't they yell BIAS. WHAAa

both sides need to grow up and smell the copier ink.

There are polls out there that are unbiased
There are polls out there that aren't
There are polls out there generated by computers
There are polls out there that aren't
And there are polls out there that don't give a crap what you think which is probably most of them.

Look at all of them, take and average and live with the result no matter what it is. Grow up
 
So now that Romney is doing better in polling, where did all the claims of poll rigging go?

Internal emails between senior officials at The Gallup Organization, obtained by The Daily Caller, show senior Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod attempting to subtly intimidate the respected polling firm when its numbers were unfavorable to the president.

After Gallup declined to change its polling methodology, Obama’s Department of Justice hit it with an unrelated lawsuit that appears damning on its face.

TheDC is withholding the identities of the Gallup officials to protect them from potential retaliation from Obama’s campaign and his administration.

Read more: DOJ Gallup lawsuit came after Axelrod criticized pollsters | The Daily Caller

Employees at the venerable Gallup polling firm suggested they felt threatened by Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod when he questioned the methodology of a mid-April poll showing Mitt Romney leading the president – according to internal emails published Thursday.
That poll showed Romney leading Obama 48-43 percent.

The exchange, according to emails published by The Daily Caller, started when Axelrod sent a tweet saying the tracking poll was “saddled with some methodological problems” and directing followers to a National Journal story in which a professor suggested outdated sampling.
According to the email chain titled “Axelrod vs. Gallup,” the White House in addition asked that a Gallup staffer “come over and explain our methodology,” which was apparently perceived as a subtle threat.

A Gallup official said in an email he thought Axelrod’s pressure “sounds a little like a Godfather situation.”

Read more: Emails suggest Axelrod leaned on Gallup after unfavorable poll | Fox News
 
The polls are still biased toward the democrats--Romney is just that fare ahead, so I will go with rootabega
 
Yes, it's an established fact and that quote did nothing to take away from it.

Nice job citing your sources and backing up your assertions.
 
Ok, but that means gallup had integrity in face of potential pressure, not that gallup is biased.

Oh, I agree. I just threw that up here to show that manipulation isn't out of the question. I really think this story should have gotten more legs, but we've been to busy with Big Bird. ;)
 
Ok, but that means gallup had integrity in face of potential pressure, not that gallup is biased.

Except ... Gallup then changed its methodology to return more favorable results to the Obama administration.
 
Except ... Gallup then changed its methodology to return more favorable results to the Obama administration.

I just went over that with Maggie, her sources actually stood up for Gallup even though she didn't intend that. Can you do better?
 
I just went over that with Maggie, her sources actually stood up for Gallup even though she didn't intend that. Can you do better?

At this point I think it's safe to say you'll simply defend anything that is pro-Democrats.
 
Conspiracy?

It's an established fact that certain polls were over sampling Democrats and under sampling Republican and independent voters.

Good pollsters don't weight by party ID. Party affiliation is an attitude, and trying to weight for it, only causes problems in the results.
 
Except ... Gallup then changed its methodology to return more favorable results to the Obama administration.

Do you have any evidence of that? I haven't seen anything showing Gallup changing their methodology.
 
So now that Romney is doing better in polling, where did all the claims of poll rigging go?
It's a statistical fact that most polls usually overrate democratic support. 2008, for example.
 
It's a statistical fact that most polls usually overrate democratic support. 2008, for example.

You must have not looked at my citation from nate silver.
 
a) NY Times is a joke. :lol:

b)The entire article was rhetoric.

c)Look at the hard facts.


a) dismissing a valid source and expert statistician

b) I see you didn't bother to read it with an objective lense

c) That is from 2008 and has nothing to do with this election.
 
It's a statistical fact that most polls usually overrate democratic support. 2008, for example.

Actually, that isn't quite true. Although the final average in national polls in 2008 overestimated Democrats by .3%, the average of all state polls overestimated Republicans by 1.4% and by 2.3% in swing states. In 2010 every polling company but one overestimated Republican support.
 
a) dismissing a valid source and expert statistician
Oxymoron? rofl

b) I see you didn't bother to read it with an objective lense
There are no facts in the article. It is nothing but rhetoric for hacks to eat up.

c) That is from 2008 and has nothing to do with this election.
ahahahahahaha no, just no.

The only way to judge the accuracy of polls for this election at this point in time is based on history. And, historically, most polls (not all) overrate Democratic support. But believe whatever you want to chief, I don't care. lol
 
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