Oct 24 2016

Media Polls Oversampling Democrats

Published by at 5:59 pm under 2016 Elections,All General Discussions

Two  recent “news” media polls are suffering from serious over sampling of Democrats (hard to call these organizations “news” media anymore, now that we know they are the propaganda arm of the DNC and political elite).

ABC News came out with a 12% Clinton lead with a 9% sampling edge in Democrats over Republicans:

METHODOLOGY – This ABC News poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone Oct. 20-22, 2016, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 874 likely voters. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 36-27-31 percent, Democrats – Republicans – Independents.

This is an unrealistic 9% edge for Democrats

Then today a CNN/ORC poll came out with Clinton at 51% and ahead by 6% in the 2-way race (she was ahead by 4% in the 4-way poll). To pull this off the sample was once again skewed to the Democrats:

Respondents were asked questions about whether they are registered to vote, their likelihood of voting, past voting behavior, and interest in the campaign. Based on the answers to those questions, 779 respondents were classified as likely voters. Among those likely voters, 37% described themselves as Democrats, 30% described themselves as Republicans and 33% described themselves as independents or members of another party.

This is 7% edge for Democrats, but it only produced a 6% lead for Clinton (where the 9% edge in the ABC “News” poll produced a 12% lead)

So how bad are these turnout models? For comparison 2012 was a great year for Democrats and President Obama. A year Hillary Clinton has little hope of replicating. The results from that year were:

Party
Democrats 38%
Republicans 32%
Independents 29%

Lets compute how far off each poll is from 2012, a rare, high watermark year for Dems:

  • ABC “News”: 2% low for Dems, 5% low for Reps and 2% high for Indies.
  • CNN: 1% low for Dems, 2% low for Reps and 4% high for Indies
  • In 2012 the Dems led the GOP by 6% and the Indies by 9%
  • ABCE “News” has the Dems leading the GOP by 9%, Indies by 5%
  • CNN has the Dems leading GOP by 6%, Indies by 4%.

So these “polls” show a much lower GOP turnout and a much better Indie turnout than in 2012?? 2016 is the same year Trump broke all primary voter and small donor records? The year union members abandoned the Democrats? How does that equate with a worse showing for the GOP???

My guess is these polls reflect the dearth of GOP respondents to the pollsters. As I have noted in my Florida early-voting posts, it is the Dems who have a problem with turn out and returning ballots, not the GOP. The GOP is ahead of where they were in 2012, and ahead of the Democrats overall. In addition, the 3rd largest voting group (“Independents”) is the group really lagging behind in returning ballots.

So there is no basis for either polls’ turnout model, except to speculate Trump supporters (Les Delporables) are just not interesting in responding to rigged election polls.

3 responses so far

3 Responses to “Media Polls Oversampling Democrats”

  1. Chikung69 says:

    AJ,
    Curious for your take on this:

    Party ID 2012 38/32/29 (D/R/I) = D+6
    Party ID 2008 38/32/29 (D/R/I) = D+7

    Latest ABC (HRC+12) 37/29/31 (D/R/I) = D+9
    Latest CNN (HRC+5) 37/30/33 (D/R/I) = D+7
    Latest NBC (HRC+5) 35/30/33 (D/R/I) = D+5, But Drill in and they have leaners: 31/36/33 (D/R/I) = R+4 (?????)
    The NBC is a 32K sample Survey Monkey online

    Finally, the “trustworthy” one:
    Latest IBD/TIPP (HRC+1) 37/29/34 (D/R/I) = D+7

    These things are all over the place AND they all seem to be sampling at the D+5 to +7 range.

    Is there any meaning to any of this anymore?

  2. AJStrata says:

    A new article is out on Drudge or Memeorandum noting that the pollsters just have no idea what is going to happen this year. Which is why I think as long as Trump is close he has a great chance. The early vote in person in FL started and the Dems surged ahead, so it is all about who gets out to vote

  3. Chikung69 says:

    Yes. Lot’s of Occam’s razor stuff here.

    I am curious how much of this is malfeasance vs incompetence.
    The +12 stuff is just laughable. And one would expect that to be monkeyed data assumptions. I just wonder why? When all of this is over, the Rasmussens, Gallups and IBDs need to soldier on with a credible business model. Yes, Rasmussen messed up last time. But The WaPo and NBC and CNN assigning their names to such tripe? Meh.