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The GOP polling debacle

Two thoughts on the polling:

1. Even as he had enjoyed a strong reputation prior to the election, my view is that Mr. Newhouse made elementary mistakes that a high-caliber pollster should not have made. His underlying assumption was that the composition of the electorate would not resemble 2008 and would, instead, more closely resemble the 2004 vote. How he made that assumption in the face of ongoing demographic change (growing Latino and non-White share of the electorate) is remarkable. Demographic change in the short- and medium-term is highly predictable. To not factor in demographic change is perhaps as basic an error as one can make in any surveys. There's no other way of putting it, the error was an elementary one no serious pollster should make in the face of demographic change. A simple regression analysis of the Census data and evolving turnout would have shown that the Newhouse assumption was not a realistic one.

2. One would reasonably have expected that internal polls would have been questioned when they consistently provided different results than the multitude of public polls. I suspect confirmation bias precluded such questions and deprived the campaign of possible time that might otherwise have been available to refine its message.
 
I'm not a big fan of polling since it is like the BCS in College Football. Too subjective with the intent to be predictive as a level of precision that isn't possible.

One tidbit I did hear: Romney won every state that had voter ID in place. Did it matter? Perhaps not, but then again, how do you really know?
 
AliHajiSheik said:
I'm not a big fan of polling since it is like the BCS in College Football. Too subjective with the intent to be predictive as a level of precision that isn't possible.

One tidbit I did hear: Romney won every state that had voter ID in place. Did it matter? Perhaps not, but then again, how do you really know?
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That is incorrect. Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Washington, Colorado, and New Hampshire have ID laws and Obama won all of them.
 
donsutherland1 said:
Two thoughts on the polling:

1. Even as he had enjoyed a strong reputation prior to the election, my view is that Mr. Newhouse made elementary mistakes that a high-caliber pollster should not have made. His underlying assumption was that the composition of the electorate would not resemble 2008 and would, instead, more closely resemble the 2004 vote. How he made that assumption in the face of ongoing demographic change (growing Latino and non-White share of the electorate) is remarkable. Demographic change in the short- and medium-term is highly predictable. To not factor in demographic change is perhaps as basic an error as one can make in any surveys. There's no other way of putting it, the error was an elementary one no serious pollster should make in the face of demographic change. A simple regression analysis of the Census data and evolving turnout would have shown that the Newhouse assumption was not a realistic one.

2. One would reasonably have expected that internal polls would have been questioned when they consistently provided different results than the multitude of public polls. I suspect confirmation bias precluded such questions and deprived the campaign of possible time that might otherwise have been available to refine its message.
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The real problem with Romney's polling is that they were making assumptions about voter turnout, period. Conclusions about likely voters should be guided by the polling data -- not the other way around.
 
rocket88 said:
What seemed to happen, and we saw it here, was that any poll that didn't put Romney in the lead, was "horribly biased."

So no wonder they didn't see it coming. They chose not to.
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I don't think people realized how far gone the country and the culture is

When you win an election based on Big Bird, Binders, War on Women, Romney is Satan the problem is a lot deeper than politics
 
Bronson said:
I don't think people realized how far gone the country and the culture is

When you win an election based on Big Bird, Binders, War on Women, Romney is Satan the problem is a lot deeper than politics
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Romney's campaign was mostly re-active. He'd say something dumb, then spend the next week trying to explain himself. Then he'd say something dumb again. It wasn't until he started using teleprompters (the horror!) that he stopped saying dumb things and stayed on message.

The whole "the other guy is terrible" thing is not exactly something Obama invented. It's been a staple of American elections for 200 years.
 
Bronson said:
I don't think people realized how far gone the country and the culture is

When you win an election based on Big Bird, Binders, War on Women, Romney is Satan the problem is a lot deeper than politics
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Don't forget "against immigration" because we all know being against illegal immigration is being against immigration entirely.
 
Henrin said:
Don't forget "against immigration" because we all know being against illegal immigration is being against immigration entirely.
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Passing anti immigration laws that would subject americans who are hispanic looking to being harassed by law enforcement, the large number of general comments stating that illegal immigrants are lazy and taking government handouts (by association that hispanics were lazy as well)

It was not that the republican party was against illegal immigration, but that it sounded to many people that they were more against Hispanics then against illegal immigration
 
lpast said:
In all fairness to you maggie...SO DID I...I thought the same thing...but you and I are not "PROFESSIONALS" who are supposed to know better...and there lies the republican big fail
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Perhaps we overestimated the ability of these professionals to know.
 
Boo Radley said:
Perhaps we overestimated the ability of these professionals to know.
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I could go with that if it wasnt just certain professionals...there were far more that had it correct....to me this was a psychological move by right leaning pollsters, pundits and talk show hosts to keep the GOP morale up and hopefully get out the vote...its being reported in some places that they outright knew what they were spinning wasnt true...who knows...eventually we will have enough information to make our own decisions about it...ill cite one example.

Rasmussen one of the top 3 pollsters...I got his tracking polls daily in my email...along with gallup and others...rasmussen was WAAAAY off the others...had romney ahead slighly in some areas...tied in ohio, ahead in penna...for different than gallup...right wing pundits even attacked gallups polling saying it was being pushed by the obama camp to report rosey figures...well it turned out the opposite was true...
Rasmussen issued a letter explaining why they were so OFF in their polling...it was a weak bunch of excuses and a cloaked apology...I unsubscrbed from their daily mailings and when asked why I said I believe you misreprented your polling results for political purposes but either way I can no longer rely on your results.
 
TurtleDude said:
It was. if those who had voted for McCain had shown up, Romney would have won

McCain was a C- candidate. Romney was an A. I don't know if it was idiot bible thumpers who had problems with Mormons or some McCain voters who didn't like Romney's wealth. I doubt any of that three million voted For Obama and a bunch of Obama 08 voters didn't vote for him this time
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I thought Mccain was better
 
johnny_rebson said:
The polls were run in a similar fashion to the way they've been done the past 3 presidential elections.

The big difference this year was the Obama team pulled a sneaky trick and ramped up their ground game.
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Actually many of the polls appropriately identified that "ground game" and factored into the polls. Its just the many on the right categorically dismissed them arguing that they over-sampled democrats and stated there is no way Obama gets out the vote like he 2008.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/09/the-parade-of-bad-polls-continues.php
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/no-ed-gi...-are-not-dramatically-oversampling-democrats/

The polling experts baked this into many of the polls; while ignorant pundits just dismissed the pollsters suggesting the pollsters did not know what they were doing.

Mitt Romney Completely Blindsided By Loss « The Brandt Standard
 
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The Romney campaign had crappy preparation for the tech involved in polling. I read an article on it and basically they lied to themselves and thought they had key states in the bag that's why they tried so hard to win states like Pennsylvania so they could get a landslide that wasn't there. The GOP and tech in general still doesn't mix well. I think they need to take lessons from Ron Paul's organizers when it comes to things like that, lessons I think they will learn by 2016.
 
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Passing anti immigration laws that would subject americans who are hispanic looking to being harassed by law enforcement, the large number of general comments stating that illegal immigrants are lazy and taking government handouts (by association that hispanics were lazy as well)
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I never understood the problem with this. For one, if you are looking for someone that is breaking the law you are going to be looking for those that fit the description. Since more times than not in the deep south it will be an Hispanics that is here illegally it is only logical to target Hispanics more than anyone else. As for the second part, I have no idea what that has to do with my point of immigration. If everyone wants to get bitchy about being called welfare supporters that are looking for a handout when in fact they are either in support of it or on welfare not wanting that to go away than they need to grow up.

It was not that the republican party was against illegal immigration, but that it sounded to many people that they were more against Hispanics then against illegal immigration
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I think it more comes down to the fact that Hispanics accept liberal policy and not republican policy.
 
What's fun to contemplate is that Rove spent about $100M through his PACS, and his candidates lost miserably.

It's sooooo sweet to see rich rightwingers separated from them money, and paid to the libral media to boot!
 
JohnWOlin said:
The Romney campaign had crappy preparation for the tech involved in polling. I read an article on it and basically they lied to themselves and thought they had key states in the bag that's why they tried so hard to win states like Pennsylvania so they could get a landslide that wasn't there. The GOP and tech in general still doesn't mix well. I think they need to take lessons from Ron Paul's organizers when it comes to things like that, lessons I think they will learn by 2016.
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It's more than tech

Democrats have a union paid and trained Democrat GOTV machine

Republicans do not
 
head of joaquin said:
What's fun to contemplate is that Rove spent about $100M through his PACS, and his candidates lost miserably.

It's sooooo sweet to see rich rightwingers separated from them money, and paid to the libral media to boot!
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At least it wasn't public money and it shows that free speech is alive and well. The right to speak doesn't force the right to be listened to.
 
Bronson said:
It's more than tech

Democrats have a union paid and trained Democrat GOTV machine

Republicans do not
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Bull****. The GOP has a GOTV machine.. it is called the Church network. They are just not as good as the Dems to exploit it as they live in a fantasy world where conservatives go out to vote for anyone with an R at the end of their name. Well this time the Christian right did not, most likely because it was a Mormon that was running for office.

But saying that, the GOP needs a much better ground game if they are to be competitive in the future, but it seems to me they are going another way and trying to gerrymander districts and voting rules in their favor and hence make sure they are still relevant.. that is a dangerous and flawed strategy.
 
TurtleDude said:
It was. if those who had voted for McCain had shown up, Romney would have won

McCain was a C- candidate. Romney was an A. I don't know if it was idiot bible thumpers who had problems with Mormons or some McCain voters who didn't like Romney's wealth. I doubt any of that three million voted For Obama and a bunch of Obama 08 voters didn't vote for him this time
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McCain was a war Hero, a prisoner of war who gave up 5 years of his life being tortured for his country. McCain didnt spend his life buying companies closing them or outsourcing all the jobs and screwing people out of their livlihoods for a quick buck.

McCain was an American Hero

Romney was a non veteran corporate sleezebag sheister.

Of Course McCain got more votes
 
lpast said:
McCain was a war Hero, a prisoner of war who gave up 5 years of his life being tortured for his country. McCain didnt spend his life buying companies closing them or outsourcing all the jobs and screwing people out of their livlihoods for a quick buck.

McCain was an American Hero

Romney was a non veteran corporate sleezebag sheister.

Of Course McCain got more votes
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Lets get on thing straight here. McCain was soldier that got caught! That doesn't make him a hero in my book.
 
Vallista said:
Lets get on thing straight here. McCain was soldier that got caught! That doesn't make him a hero in my book.
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Ill just say this...im biting my tongue so hard...I have blood running down my chin
 
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