Latest conservative grievance - polls "oversample" Democrats

[Omg a Black Conservative]

Originally Posted by Randvek

Why do you think Republican turnout will be better and Independent turnout worse in 2012 as compared to 2008 when the meta has been "Republicans are going Independent?"

Who said that?

[Really Not All That Bright]

Originally Posted by Omg a Black Conservative

I'm looking at three things; registration data within any given state, historical voter turnout and the enthusiasm gap. You look at... a poll. Now which should I believe?

What are you using to measure the enthusiasm gap, exactly?

[DSeid]

Sorry to bump such an old thread but the latest 538 post is interesting in this regard. It turns out that there was a significant oversampling going on that resulted in a significant bias across the whole universe of pollsters ... even those labeled as Democratic leaning typically actually had a GOP lean. Gallup and Rasmussen did especially poorly.

FWIW.

[drewtwo99]

The polls WERE biased... in favor of the Republicans. Hilarious.

[Merneith]

I was hoping Silver would do an analysis of the overall performance of each poll and call Gallup on their lousy results. They've been wrong the last three elections, and seriously wrong regarding Romney's chances. It makes you wonder what else they're were wrong about.

[Evil Captor]

Originally Posted by drewtwo99

The polls WERE biased... in favor of the Republicans. Hilarious.

I've been waiting to hear claims that the actual vote oversampled Democrats.

[Kolak of Twilo]

Originally Posted by drewtwo99

The polls WERE biased... in favor of the Republicans. Hilarious.

And how long until the usual suspects come running to explain this away? Huh? OMG? adaher?

:::tap tap tap:::

Is this thing on?

[elucidator]

I was reading one of these, as referenced herein, where the commenter was swearing that he had video of busloads of illegal Ethiopian voters being trundled to the polls to vote Dem.

[YogSosoth]

Originally Posted by elucidator

I was reading one of these, as referenced herein, where the commenter was swearing that he had video of busloads of illegal Ethiopian voters being trundled to the polls to vote Dem.

Well that's stupid. Didn't they know Obama was Kenyan?

[Northern Piper]

Here's an interesting post-mortem on the polling issue: The GOP Polling Debacle.

For Republicans, one of the worst parts of the GOP’s 2012 trouncing was that they didn’t see it coming.

Top party strategists and officials always knew there was a chance that President Barack Obama would get reelected, or that Republicans wouldn’t gain control of the Senate. But down to the final days of the national campaign, few anticipated the severe setbacks that Republicans experienced on Nov. 6.
...
The reason: Across the party’s campaigns, committees and super PACs, internal polling gave an overly optimistic read on the electorate. The Romney campaign entered the last week of the election convinced that Colorado, Florida and Virginia were all but won, that the race in Ohio was neck and neck and that the Republican nominee had a legitimate shot in Pennsylvania.

Interestingly, the article homes in on much the same issues that got debated here on the SDMB - what assumptions go into the "likely voter" screen, and the turn-out?

It’s not as if the party is totally at a loss to explain where it went off course. Sources familiar with Romney’s polling say that it underestimated the Democrats’ 6-point voter identification edge, nationally, and put far too much stock in what one Republican operative called “false signs of Republican enthusiasm.” Multiple Republican pollsters also acknowledged that they misjudged how many young people and minorities would show up to vote.

Democrats had argued for months before the election that Republican polling was screening out voters who would ultimately turn up to support Obama. In fact, Obama advisers said, if you applied a tighter likely voter screen to Democratic polling — counting only the very likeliest voters as part of the electorate — you could come up with results similar to what the GOP was looking at.
By assuming that only the most enthusiastic voters would actually show up, Republicans greatly overestimated their national position. Operatives and activists rejected public polling data that showed substantially more voters identifying themselves as Democrats in states like Ohio and Virginia, giving Republicans an unwarranted sense of confidence that crumbled last Tuesday.

And, take comfort, OMG and adaher: others were making the same assumptions that you were:

One top GOP pollster expressed dismay at the ultimate composition of the electorate: “I had no expectation that Democratic advantage on party ID would be the same as it was in 2008. I thought there would be more Democrats than Republicans, but I didn’t think it would be equal to 2008.

“There were just too many damn Democrats,” the pollster said.

[jsgoddess]

Originally Posted by Northern Piper

And, take comfort, OMG and adaher: others were making the same assumptions that you were:

Well, yes. That's where people like adaher got the idea: from the echo chamber.

Every time an idea or conspiracy pops up in the echo chamber, a few conservatives trot along to the dope to tell us all about it.

[Gorsnak]

Originally Posted by Northern Piper

And, take comfort, OMG and adaher: others were making the same assumptions that you were:

John Madden is doing polling now?

"You see you've got this election, and if you want to win the election you have to get more people voting for you, and the problem for the Republicans is that they're not doing that. If the Republicans want to win in the second half, the key is going to be getting more people to vote for them.

[Chimera]

Needs more circles and arrows

[drewtwo99]

To be fair, I am frankly surprised that the electorate looked so much like 2008 as well. As a guy who desperately wanted Obama to win, even I had my doubts and was predicting a slim Romney win based on the assumption that there'd be a smaller gap between D's and R's.

Thankfully I was wrong.

[Ulf the Unwashed]

Quoted above: --"Sources familiar with Romney’s polling say that it underestimated the Democrats’ 6-point voter identification edge, nationally, and put far too much stock in what one Republican operative called “false signs of Republican enthusiasm.” Multiple Republican pollsters also acknowledged that they misjudged how many young people and minorities would show up to vote. "

My experience campaigning (for Obama) was that there was a great deal of enthusiasm for the president. I was involved in GOTV efforts, so of course the folks I was talking to were expected to vote Dem, but I was pleasantly surprised at how eager they were overall--"oh yeah, I'll be there," "Don;t worry, we're solid for Obama," "He's just GOT to win this thing," "I'm having knee surgery, so how do I get an absentee ballot?"

I've been involved in campaigns where it's difficult to get voters who are supposedly on your side motivated to get to the polls. This was NOT one of them.

Also, though I did not meet many minority voters (I was in a pretty heavily white blue-collar county), I talked to quite a few young voters (under 25) who seemed no less enthusiastic than the older ones.

[Linden Arden]

Originally Posted by Kolak of Twilo

And how long until the usual suspects come running to explain this away? Huh? OMG? adaher?

:::tap tap tap:::

Is this thing on?

Has adaher been seen since the election?

[Silophant]

Nope. Here's his last post, midmorning on election day.

[DigitalC]

That's surprising, he seemed like the most rational of the delusional righties we have.

[BrainGlutton]

Well, I hope South Park does something with the RW and LW reactions to this election, like they did in 2008.

[Fear Itself]

Originally Posted by Silophant

Nope. Here's his last post, midmorning on election day.

He did log in without posting the day after the election, so he knows what awaits him. Just couldn't face us, I guess.

[Jack Batty]

Deep cover liberal. Fear not. The check has cleared. His work here is done.

[waterj2]

Dean Chambers, the UnSkewed Polls guy, is back with a new website, helpfully unskewing the election results by showing where Obama only won through fraud. Basically, his shocking proof is that there are several states where the margin was small enough that the result was swung by heavily Democratic counties where “the Democrats are known for years for stuffing ballot boxes.”

[Jack Batty]

www. barackofaudo . com?

Subtle.

[Marley23]

Since Chambers' unskewing thing turned out to be made-up bullshit I guess he needs to do something else to stay in the spotlight. Yes, it turns out that some districts went overwhelmingly for Obama and others went overwhelmingly for Romney. Apparently black vote = vote fraud for some Republicans at this point. In 2014 or 2016 these people will dumbfounded that black people will support the Democrat again and won't see a connection between these things.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Originally Posted by waterj2

Dean Chambers, the UnSkewed Polls guy, is back with a new website, helpfully unskewing the election results by showing where Obama only won through fraud. Basically, his shocking proof is that there are several states where the margin was small enough that the result was swung by heavily Democratic counties where “the Democrats are known for years for stuffing ballot boxes.”

Maybe he should have called it unskewedelection.com.

[Robot Arm]

Hmmph, I already said that the election over-sampled Democrats. The only difference is that I was kidding.

[zoid]

Originally Posted by Jack Batty

Deep cover liberal. Fear not. The check has cleared. His work here is done.

He'll be back; He'll try to sneak in the back door quiet as a church mouse, like a 13 year old prayin' like hell that his father doesn't smell it on his breath that he's been out smokin' weed with those older kids down the block.

[Mr. Miskatonic]

Originally Posted by waterj2

Dean Chambers, the UnSkewed Polls guy, is back with a new website, helpfully unskewing the election results by showing where Obama only won through fraud. Basically, his shocking proof is that there are several states where the margin was small enough that the result was swung by heavily Democratic counties where “the Democrats are known for years for stuffing ballot boxes.”

Yah, just say it a whole bunch of times. Don't need anything like evidence.

Seriously, I'd like to know how Democrats stuff the ballot box with 200,000 votes without someone noticing.

[elucidator]

Microballots.

[Chronos]

Ah, but somebody did notice!