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State Polls Today: VA, NV and NC

In reach? Did you see that the polls were slanted and still only had a slight edge to Obama... that's not within reach... those are Romney's states at the moment...

Well, I know you are much too smart to actually believe the stuff that Fox and Rush are trying to sell to their not so savvy audience in need of pep talk, though I can certainly appreciate the fact the you want to believe that ALL of the polls are wrong. Nonetheless, you and I know that is not case, so please cut out the bull as it is disingenuous.
 
Well, I know you are much too smart to actually believe the stuff that Fox and Rush are trying to sell to their not so savvy audience in need of pep talk, though I can certainly appreciate the fact the you want to believe that ALL of the polls are wrong. Nonetheless, you and I know that is not case, so please cut out the bull as it is disingenuous.

If the proportions and percentages of those polled don't matter why did Axelrod summon Gallup officials to the White House after several of their polls showed Romney with a lead and "suggest" they change their methodology to suit his preferfences? And why when they didn't change did the Justice Department join a 3 year old law suit against them in August? And how come all of the polls since then with the exception of Rasmussen tilt dramatically in Obama's favor?
 
If the proportions and percentages of those polled don't matter why did Axelrod summon Gallup officials to the White House after several of their polls showed Romney with a lead and "suggest" they change their methodology to suit his preferfences? And why when they didn't change did the Justice Department join a 3 year old law suit against them in August? And how come all of the polls since then with the exception of Rasmussen tilt dramatically in Obama's favor?

..and what is your cite for that ridiculous suggestion?

Sorry, but most losing candidates go through the "polls aren't right stage" as they come to realize they aren't going to win.

Media relying on flawed polls: Gallup and CBS/NYT skewed toward Republicans | Research | Media Matters for America
Friendly Reminder: The Polls Are Usually Right | The New Republic
PAXALLES: Laura Ingraham Slams Romney Campaign For Trailing in Polls, Poor Strategy
Morning Jay: Is Gallup Biased Against Obama? | The Weekly Standard

You have a bad candidate with a bad, incoherent message.

Why Romney is losing - Baltimore Sun
Noonan: Romney campaign 'incompetent' - POLITICO.com
Mitt Romney, worst candidate ever - New York Daily News

Barring some radical change of events, he is not going to win. As I pointed out earlier, he could walk away in Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada and Florida and still be walked over on November 6. Not only are the swing state polls tracking against him, but he is losing big in the states that are not swing states, which give Obama sufficient electoral votes to only need one or two to the nine swing states to end this.

RealClearPolitics - 2012 Election Maps - Electoral Map
 
You are confusing how many people are REGISTERED as Democrats or Republicans, with how many people IDENTIFY as Democrats or Republicans. They are not the same thing. Someone could easily change the way they think of themselves without going to the trouble of actually changing their voter registration. The whole purpose of an opinion poll is to capture shifts in opinion. This includes partisan affiliation. To demand "balance" for partisan affiliation doesn't make sense any more than demanding "balance" between Obama and Romney supporters would (which would produce a 50-50 tie in every poll).

And your assertion that +1-3% Democratic might be acceptable, but +7-8% is not, isn't based on anything other than your guess as to what the opinions of the country are like. Thanks, but I'll trust the pollsters who have actually measured it.

I'm not confusing anything... any rational mind that sees a poll which says 8% more of those polled identified as Democrats, would say, this is a skewed poll...

How do you think they conduct these polls? By making sure the audience they're sampling is an accurate representation of the population as a whole? Nope... they call numbers, random numbers, which are most often gathered from urban areas, that traditionally are more liberal than the rest of the country...

Therefore, you're not getting registered Republicans self identifying as Democrats... you're getting Democrats...

Most people who change parties identify that, because they want it known they switched parties to vote for a guy... In the last election, it was commonplace to have heard Im a lifelong Democrat but I'm voting for McCain because he has worked with both sides, and, I'm a lifelong Republican but I'm voting for Obama because he's a new kind of politician and I like his message of change...

It's no mistake that polls by liberal leaning polling agencies take a sample from a skewed source... and then run with the result, despite it showing a clear 8 pt bias towards Democrats, with a 2-3pt result in favor of Democrats...
 
Wonder what unrelated investigation the DOJ is undertaking. It isn't like first amendment protects a news agency or anything.....
 
I'm not confusing anything... any rational mind that sees a poll which says 8% more of those polled identified as Democrats, would say, this is a skewed poll...

How do you think they conduct these polls? By making sure the audience they're sampling is an accurate representation of the population as a whole? Nope... they call numbers, random numbers, which are most often gathered from urban areas, that traditionally are more liberal than the rest of the country...

Ah, now I see the problem. You are simply misinformed about how polls are conducted. You are correct that it's more difficult to get certain types of voters on the phone than others...so pollsters *do* rebalance various demographics (e.g. race, gender, region) so that the results are more in line with the percentage of likely voters. But they do not do this for partisan affiliation, because partisan affiliation is not a set-in-stone characteristic of the electorate...it's something that is itself reflective of voter sentiment.

If the pollsters are finding that the fraction of the population that self-identifies as Democrat is 8% higher than self-identified Republicans (after they adjust for those other demographics), then that is very likely to be an accurate reflection of voter sentiment.

Therefore, you're not getting registered Republicans self identifying as Democrats... you're getting Democrats...

If this were true, then it should be true in every election, not just 2012...because polling best practices have not changed much in the last couple years. In actuality, previous years do not regularly show a consistent bias in either direction. Nate Silver addressed this on his blog yesterday, using historical polling data from previous elections.

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

Most people who change parties identify that, because they want it known they switched parties to vote for a guy.

This is simply not correct. Most voters are not political junkies who post on DebatePolitics and care deeply about their partisan affiliation matching their beliefs. If they registered as a Democrat when they got their driver's license 15 years ago, chances are they're still registered as a Democrat regardless of how they actually vote. Ditto for Republicans.
 
There is nothing ridiculous about it. It's good old hardball Chicago intimidation politics.
DOJ Gallup lawsuit came after Axelrod criticized pollsters | The Daily Caller

Thanks for the cite. This adds an ounce of credibility to your assertion, but not much more than an ounce given the cite is from a right-wing political porn site and its an article created by them (as opposed to a link to a credible site). As Daily Caller at least makes some attempt to be reasonable (Wikipedia refers to them as a right-wing Huffington Post) I will label it as soft-core political porn. Nonetheless, no credible right-wing poster will let you get away with a news article created by Huffington Post, nor will I let you get away with this one.

Its a nice suggestion, but just because Daily Caller said this happened does not mean it happened. In short, you have not proved your point.
 
You are simply misinformed about how polls are conducted

from the natl jrn article david axelrod recommended via twitter, his problems with gallup's sampling (april):

The surveys-from ABC and the Washington Post; the Pew Research Center; CNN/ORC; and the first Gallup tracking poll, diverge in their overall results. The first three polls show Obama leading by seven, four and nine percentage points respectively; the first Gallup track placed Romney up by two percentage points.

But the Gallup track, which is conducted among registered voters, has a sample that looks much more like the electorate in 2010 than the voting population that is likely to turn out in 2012: only 22 percent of the Gallup survey was non-white, according to figures the organization provided to Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz. That was close to the non-white share of the vote in 2010 (23 percent), but in 2008, minorities comprised 26 percent of all voters, according to exit polls; the Obama campaign, and other analysts, project the minority share of the vote will increase to 28 percent in 2012. In its survey, Pew, for instance, puts the non-white share at 25 percent.

Familiar Divisions Give Obama Narrow Edge - 2012 Decoded

https://twitter.com/davidaxelrod/status/192333709159047168

from cbs' exit polls, november, 2010:

Based on CBS News' preliminary national exit polling, Republicans are poised for significant gains in Congress. The youth vote--18-to-29-year-olds--who helped catapult President Obama into office makes up an estimated 9 percent of voters this year, compared to 18 percent in 2008. About 58 percent of the youth vote favors Democratic candidates.

Independents make up an estimated 28 percent of voters in the early exit polls, with 39 percent voting Democratic and 56 percent Republican.

Black voter turnout also appears to be lower during the midterm election. An estimated 10 percent of blacks are voting, compared to 13 percent in 2008. The exit polling found 8 percent of voters are Hispanic, with 66 percent voting Democratic.

Exit Poll: Lower Turnout Among Youth and Black Voters - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

hint: keep your eyes on youth samples, 18 to 29's: they comprised estimated 18% of voters in 08, half that on tsunami tuesday

the marist poll outta nevada, for example, obama leads by 2: the youth sample is 16%

gravis in MI (obama +4) has youths making up 19% of the electorate

links above (actually, you can just go to rcp, more convenient, more comprehensive)

stay up
 
Presidential years do turn out a different demo than the mid-years but nothing seems to indicate that this year will show the kind of turn out as 2008, so I guess it could go either way on the polling argument. I think I would be more comfortable with the results if they did mathematical progressions over time to predict the turnout than just hitching their wagon to either 2008 or 2010. There is also no way to know how those 18-22 year olds in 2008 will vote if they are not employed or not happy with their job options in 2012.
 
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