how opinion polls are skewed

by truthbetold Sat Sep 29, 2012 1:06 pm

There were complaints by right wingers led by rush against mainstream media opinion polls. The scope includes nbc cbs, ny times, cnn, washington post, gallop,and quinnipiac university. Interestingly the field includes not so liberal wall street journal, and fox news. From what i read in media main charge is that all these news entities skew the samples to favor the dems. The suggestion is that polls sample more dems so that results are likely to be in dems favor. Additionally sample results were further modified for demographic changes that skew in favor of dems. A long term complaint was about leading questions such as "when did you stop beating your wife." I am trying to find other reasons and if anynone published any real data to support their rants.

Is this another rightwing conspiracy theory? Or do you see any bias in the sampling or techniques?

Why is the media so left or liberal leaning?

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Sat Sep 29, 2012 1:15 pm

truthbetold wrote:There were complaints by right wingers led by rush against mainstream media opinion polls. The scope includes nbc cbs, ny times, cnn, washington post, gallop,and quinnipiac university. Interestingly the field includes not so liberal wall street journal, and fox news. From what i read in media main charge is that all these news entities skew the samples to favor the dems. The suggestion is that polls sample more dems so that results are likely to be in dems favor. Additionally sample results were further modified for demographic changes that skew in favor of dems. A long term complaint was about leading questions such as "when did you stop beating your wife." I am trying to find other reasons and if anynone published any real data to support their rants.

Is this another rightwing conspiracy theory? Or do you see any bias in the sampling or techniques?

Why is the media so left or liberal leaning?

What the Dopie is saying is that only the listeners of the "Excellence in Broadcasting" are the only ones who are real unbiased voters and any survey should include ONLY those listeners...(Even Palinists are not favored bcz she is not wholeheartedly behind Mitty the money Minter.)

by truthbetold Sat Sep 29, 2012 1:22 pm

Speaking of palinists, todd akin seems to have recovered and now seem to be drawing even . What is the real story in?

by MaxEntropy_Man Sat Sep 29, 2012 1:32 pm

truthbetold wrote:What is the real story in?

the real story is that there is no short supply of the brain dead.

by truthbetold Sat Sep 29, 2012 7:06 pm

An akin win with brain dead voters is a hard pill to swallow in a country that leads the free world.

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Sat Sep 29, 2012 7:17 pm

truthbetold wrote:An akin win with brain dead voters is a hard pill to swallow in a country that leads the free world.

This is the country that elected Bush, Jr. So don't be surprised.... MO is the state of Atty Gen Ashcroft....so Akin winning is fair game.

The people in KS, OK, and MO are so easily brainwashed by the Church, it is not even funny.

by Idéfix Sat Sep 29, 2012 10:44 pm

truthbetold wrote:From what i read in media main charge is that all these news entities skew the samples to favor the dems. The suggestion is that polls sample more dems so that results are likely to be in dems favor.

The problem with this argument is that voters identifying themselves as Democrats do generally outnumber voters identifying themselves as Republicans across the country. When a pollster calls a phone number, he has no way of controlling for whether the person who answers will be a Democrat, Republican or Independent. If the pollsters are randomly choosing phone numbers to call, then the percentage of Democrats, Republicans and Independents is one of the results of the poll, not a condition that the pollster sets up through his sampling. What the pollster finds is an estimate of the fractions of the population who describes themselves as D, R and I: those fractions change with political events (e.g. a convention).

Nate Silver ran the numbers on polls and found that there are some cycles when the polls overestimated D or R, but there is simply no pattern of bias in either direction.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/poll-averages-have-no-history-of-consistent-partisan-bias/#more-35258

truthbetold wrote:A long term complaint was about leading questions such as "when did you stop beating your wife."

This is not much of a valid concern. Pollsters typically publish the questions they use.

truthbetold wrote:Is this another rightwing conspiracy theory? Or do you see any bias in the sampling or techniques?

It is a right-wing conspiracy theory. There is no evidence of bias in polling. That is not to say that the polls on average do not overestimate the fraction of Democrats in the population.

truthbetold wrote:Why is the media so left or liberal leaning?

When one party considers the likes of Herman Cain, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann as serious candidates for the presidency, it's hard to equate the two parties. When one party in 2012 gets behind a person who talks of "legitimate rape" and opposes equal pay for women, it's hard to keep pretending that both parties are equidistant from the political center.

by Idéfix Sat Sep 29, 2012 11:14 pm

truthbetold wrote:Speaking of palinists, todd akin seems to have recovered and now seem to be drawing even . What is the real story in?

IMO, the real story here is the GOP money and support that is now flowing to him, after the strong condemnations that followed his ill-advised "legitimate rape" comments. I think he will lose the election, as women realize how regressive his views are. He doesn't think women should be legally entitled to equal pay for equal work.

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