The main stream media is suddenly publishing polls that show\u00a0Obama surging ahead in battle ground states.\u00a0 The media is trumpeting these polls in an obvious attempt to encourage Obama supporters and discourage Romney supporters.\u00a0 But facts are stubborn things and here are the facts:<\/p>\n
The polling industry has lost all credibility.\u00a0 The reason is\u00a0quite simple.\u00a0 It all depends on who answers the phone.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter how many calls you make, if a significant percentage of people don\u2019t answer the phone.\u00a0 History has shown\u00a0some very consistent trends.\u00a0 Exit polls taken during an election are absolutely meaningless.\u00a0 They always show Democrats\u00a0doing much better than final results.\u00a0 In 2004, exit polls had John Kerry winning Ohio.\u00a0 He lost big.\u00a0 In the Wisconsin recall election exit polls had this as a very close race.\u00a0 Anchors told us this was going to be a long evening.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t.\u00a0 All the networks called the race for Governor Scott Walker within the first hour.<\/p>\n
Exit polls ask people who have just voted how they voted.\u00a0 It sure seems like this would be really accurate.\u00a0 But it isn\u2019t.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t because Democrats like to talk to people taking exit polls, but Republicans don\u2019t.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The same thing is true for political polls that telephone a lot of people.\u00a0 Republicans, who don\u2019t want anything to do with those people doing exit polls, also don\u2019t want anything to do with those people calling on the phone.<\/p>\n
What really matters is this.\u00a0 We already know that about 90% of Democrats will vote for Obama and 90% of Republicans will vote for Romney.\u00a0 So far, the independent votes are leaning strongly toward Romney.\u00a0 Most long term polls, taken over months and years, show a pretty consistent split of 35% Democrat, 35% Republican and 30% Independent.\u00a0 If there is any movement, it is toward Republicans.<\/p>\n
So, what matters is who actually votes.\u00a0 The pollsters are obviously assuming that because Democrats are answering the phones, they will show up at the polls.\u00a0 They think Democrats will surge to the polls in record numbers just like they did in 2008.\u00a0 If that is true, Obama wins.\u00a0 If it is not true, Romney wins.<\/p>\n
Shortly after the polls closed in Florida in 2000, all the networks announced that, based on exit polls, Al Gore had defeated George Bush.\u00a0 The media asked George Bush for a reaction.\u00a0 He just smiled and said his people had been looking at their own data and he thought he would win Florida.\u00a0 The main stream media was stunned.\u00a0 I think they were expecting a concession speech.\u00a0 So they started looking at actual results, rather than exit polls and they were stunned to find out that Bush was right.\u00a0 That evening we went through that bizarre sequence where the networks first called Al Gore the winner, before the polls even closed, then changed it to too close to call, then called George Bush the winner, only to have Al Gore decide to contest the results.\u00a0 The lesson here is that these campaigns have real data with real metrics and they KNOW how they are doing.\u00a0 George Bush knew he was doing a lot better in Florida than indicated by those exit polls.\u00a0 He was right and the main stream media ended up with egg all over their face.<\/p>\n
When the Romney campaign was confronted with these polls, they just smiled and said:\u00a0 we are confident in our own data.\u00a0 It reminded me of George Bush.<\/p>\n
TDM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The main stream media is suddenly publishing polls that show\u00a0Obama surging ahead in battle ground states.\u00a0 The media is trumpeting these polls in an obvious attempt to encourage Obama supporters and discourage Romney supporters.\u00a0 But facts are stubborn things and … Continue reading