# Latest conservative grievance - polls "oversample" Democrats **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 24, 2012, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647 "2012-09-24T01:31:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/61 "2012-09-25T17:09:22Z")
Today’s Washington Post poll results do not look good for Miit: > **[Post polls: Obama has lead in Ohio, edge in Fla., hampering Romney path to...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/washington-post-poll-obama-lead-in-ohio-edge-in-fla-narrow-romneys-path-to-victory/2012/09/25/aba76e22-068c-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_story.html)** > > President Obama is threatening to block Mitt Romney’s best route to victory in the Electoral College, grabbing a significant lead over his Repubilcan challenger in the premier battleground of Ohio while holding a slender edge in the perennially... And the WaPo did not oversample Dems: > **[5 takeaways from the Washington Post Ohio and Florida polls](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2012/09/25/5-takeaways-from-the-washington-post-ohio-and-florida-polls/)** > > What you need to know from the Post's new OH and FL polls ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/62 "2012-09-25T18:27:30Z")
We’ll know soon enough. Either Romney will win and prove that the polls were false and slanted in favor of Obama, or Obama will win because the polls were false and slanted in his favor. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/63 "2012-09-25T18:34:47Z")
Serious question, here, from someone who doesn’t really understand the basic issues at play: the accusation is that the polls are weighted using 2008 demos. Is this true? Is it a proper thing to do? What’s wrong, in principle, to what [unweightedpolls.com](http://unweightedpolls.com) is doing (besides adding in Republican voters based on Rassmusen; that I understand)? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/64 "2012-09-25T18:46:36Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Serious question, here, from someone who doesn’t really understand the basic issues at play: the accusation is that the polls are weighted using 2008 demos. Is this true? Is it a proper thing to do? No, it isn’t true. The polls ask whether you identify as a Democrat or Republican or Independent. As the political winds shift, so does this self-identification. None of the professional polls weight the sample toward political ID based on any exit poll. They do compare their sample with the exit polls to get a sense of whether they are doing something willdy wrong. > [@Leaper](#): > > What’s wrong, in principle, to what [unweightedpolls.com](http://unweightedpolls.com) is doing (besides adding in Republican voters based on Rassmusen; that I understand)? The above should answer that. But what’s wrong is that the polls aren’t weighted to begin with. They are reporting what they are learning based on random sampling. And the random sampling suggests that at this snapshot in time an unusually high number of registered voters is self-identifying as Democratic-voting. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/65 "2012-09-25T18:49:33Z")
Actually I believe Rasmussen does weight their national tracking poll by party ID: [Methodology - Rasmussen Reports®](http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/about_us/methodology) Most other polling firms do not but rather simply report what the respondents told them. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/66 "2012-09-25T18:52:51Z")
Yes, I did not mean to suggest that Rasmussen is not a professional poll. But it is a special case, since they make no attempt to call cell phone users they necessarily have to massage their party data to partially account for that significant gap. I think there is also some trivial number of other professional pollsters that weight by party. ABC news used to do so, I think. But it is definitely the distinct minority based on the reporting I’ve seen. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/67 "2012-09-25T18:59:46Z")
Right. Because numerous studies have shown that party ID is extremely malleable, especially for swing voters (really the only kind that matters in this type of polling). They will happily fly between calling themselves Democrats, Republicans, or Independents (although more typically they go from Dem-\>Ind-\>Dem or GOP-\>Ind-\>GOP). Currently you have a lot of folks that decided they were independents in 2010 admitting they’re Democrats again and a lot of conservatives that don’t like Romney calling themselves independent. It’s also, I think, a fatal flaw to place any weight on mid-term party percentages when analyzing presidential polling - the electorates are just not comparable. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/68 "2012-09-25T20:52:53Z")
It’s worth reflecting on how deeply crazy and yet deeply widespread this theory is. This is all over the conservative mediasphere. National Review, American Spectator, Hugh Hewitt, Pajamas Media, Rush Limbaugh…it’s hard to find a bastion of conservative viewpoints that doesn’t appear to subscribe to this conspiracy theory. And it’s so self-evidently stupid. First, even if you’re too blindered to consider facts, to buy this conspiracy you have to believe that[Fox News](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2012/09/19/obama-favored-over-romney-among-likely-voters-in-ohio/) is in on the liberal media cabal. Moreover, most of the major media polls are operated by a bipartisan team including one Republican pollster. Why are they in on the conspiracy? That entirely apart from the reality that the factual premise is just demonstrably wrong. The majority of pollsters don’t weight by party ID. I think this really shows how far down the rabbit hole the GOP has gone. Even if some of those sites are just parroting the theory because they think it’s good politics, it shows what they think of their own readership–which is not much. There have, of course, been Democratic conspiracy theories involving rigged voting machines and such. But have any of them been anywhere as widespread and self-evidently false as this? ---
**Author:** ![Ca3799](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9f8e36/32.png) [@Ca3799](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ca3799)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/69 "2012-09-25T23:12:13Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > It’s worth reflecting on how deeply crazy and yet deeply widespread this theory is. > > This is all over the conservative mediasphere. National Review, American Spectator, Hugh Hewitt, Pajamas Media, Rush Limbaugh…it’s hard to find a bastion of conservative viewpoints that doesn’t appear to subscribe to this conspiracy theory. > > And it’s so self-evidently stupid. First, even if you’re too blindered to consider facts, to buy this conspiracy you have to believe that[Fox News](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2012/09/19/obama-favored-over-romney-among-likely-voters-in-ohio/) is in on the liberal media cabal. Moreover, most of the major media polls are operated by a bipartisan team including one Republican pollster. Why are they in on the conspiracy? That entirely apart from the reality that the factual premise is just demonstrably wrong. The majority of pollsters don’t weight by party ID. > > I think this really shows how far down the rabbit hole the GOP has gone. Even if some of those sites are just parroting the theory because they think it’s good politics, it shows what they think of their own readership–which is not much. > > There have, of course, been Democratic conspiracy theories involving rigged voting machines and such. But have any of them been anywhere as widespread and self-evidently false as this? I think the R’s are just prepping their stolen election theories: “How could Obama have won? All the polls were for Romeny! Voter fraud!” ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/70 "2012-09-25T23:50:24Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > No, it isn’t true. … They are reporting what they are learning based on random sampling. And the random sampling suggests that at this snapshot in time an unusually high number of registered voters is self-identifying as Democratic-voting. No it isn’t true but it is not completely based on random sampling: it is based on random sampling then adjust to attempt to reflect the current demographics (not voter ID but income, urban vs rural, racial ID) of the RV pool. The tools to make those corrections vary between houses. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/71 "2012-09-26T00:15:42Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > …That entirely apart from the reality that the factual premise is just demonstrably wrong. The majority of pollsters don’t weight by party ID. I don’t think the argument is quite as bad as you make out. I think they’re asserting that the party ID ratios reported by the non-Rasmussen polls reveal that those polling firms have skewed sampling practices. That is, the conservative complaint isn’t that the polling firms are weighting for party ID, but that the party ID ratios reported by those polls indicate that they should be. This is almost certainly still incorrect, but not quite as obviously so as you’re portraying it. ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/72 "2012-09-26T00:52:24Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > _Again_ the voter ID difference is found on the all RV data; the expectation of what turnout will be is what moves the data back towards a GOP favored position with the open question being how much and with most pollsters having assumed moreso than in 2008. It’s probably just polling bias. > [@](#): > > Your analysis does not comport with the facts. You haven’t trotted out any facts thus far, except to cry foul. > [@](#): > > Nope. That they are both right for what they each claim to be measuring. Not really. “Party identification” is generally susceptible to question wording, which is why I’ve never trotted out a poll as evidence of party identification (Gallup, Rasmussen or otherwise, and I dare you to prove me wrong) as it can vary wildly from pollster to pollster and even from individual pollster’s polls. What I’ve said is that I’m more inclined to believe Gallup/Rasmussen as they’re trends more closely match individual state trends. That’s why I focus on-- as I have been-- a state’s actual party voter registration data. > [@](#): > > Voter registration does not measure current party identification, to believe it does misunderstands what party ID as polled (a fluid quick to respond creature) and voter registration (not very fluid and a lagging indicator) each are. Oh, sure. If you want to throw in voters who identify with one party but don’t bother to vote. But since they don’t vote… Anyway, we’re right back to what I said before. Your claim is that your polls (and only the ones which you agree with) are right and state registration data is wrong and outdated. Again, that’s a tall claim; one which you cannot substantiate outside of “I want it to be true”. Now I happen to live in Florida, so I’ll just focus on that (as it would be exhausing to go through each state individually). Florida is actually [pretty good at tracking voter registration](http://registration.elections.myflorida.com/CheckVoterStatus). That site updates every couple of days, with the last update being on 9/24/2012. It currently has the partisan split at 39.95D/35.96R/24.08 or more or less a D+4 split, which is about normal for the state. Take [this](http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_FL_923.pdf) poll conducted on September 23rd; it has a D+8 sample (44D/36R/20I), more than double the Democrat’s actual advantage in the state according to one-day old voter registration statistics. How is that not a blatant case of oversampling Democrats? (I’d do the same for the WaPo poll Typo Knig linked to, but I’ve gone through it five times and cannot find where they posted their splits in poll. Maybe I’m just blind.) You can’t simply discount voter registration data as a “lagging indicator” unless you’re going to argue that a large amount of registrations were in the mail at the time PPP conducted their survey or that many people are simply not choosing to update their voter information (in this case Republicans) and are simply choosing to vote for the “other” guy (which you would think would be reflected by a large percentage of Republicans voting D). > [@](#): > > You do understand how rolling averages of polls work? Yes, I do. Now care to answer my question? > [@](#): > > Again, I am open to believing that everyone else other than Gallup is committing some heinous methodological error; you however have not offered any explanation of what that error could be that fits the facts of how polls work. OTOH analyses have offered one that makes sense for way Gallup might be off. So far that argument is more cogent. I wasn’t even looking at Gallup (or Rasmussen for that fact). I simply looked at **state registration data** and compared that to the splits in any given poll, which you summarily dismissed. ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/73 "2012-09-26T01:08:54Z")
Oh, before I forget, that’s not even taking into account polls which have a _likely_ voter sample of D+7 or more, which is absurd beyond absurd. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/74 "2012-09-26T01:26:57Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > Now I happen to live in Florida, so I’ll just focus on that (as it would be exhausing to go through each state individually). Florida is actually [pretty good at tracking voter registration](http://registration.elections.myflorida.com/CheckVoterStatus). That site updates every couple of days, with the last update being on 9/24/2012. It currently has the partisan split at 39.95D/35.96R/24.08 or more or less a D+4 split, which is about normal for the state. Take [this](http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_FL_923.pdf) poll conducted on September 23rd; it has a D+8 sample (44D/36R/20I), more than double the Democrat’s actual advantage in the state according to one-day old voter registration statistics. How is that not a blatant case of oversampling Democrats? First of all, you’ve got no evidence that Dems are overrepresented in the PPP poll. As has been pointed out, party ID is fluid, and on account of that, party registration statistics are a lagging indicator: if I go back and forth between thinking of myself as a Dem or as an independent, the state files where my party registration is kept don’t receive a text message from my brain each time I change how I think of myself. So it’s quite possible that the registration breakdown accurately reflects what the voters identified as _at the time they registered,_ but the PPP poll accurately reflects how Florida voters regard themselves _now_. Second, you will notice that the poll has a 3.3% margin of error. What it’s saying is that there’s a 95% likelihood that if you polled everyone in Florida about their party preferences, the % of Dems would be between 40.7 and 47.3. Which reduces your claim of blatant oversampling to a claim that no way, nohow, could the Florida voters who identified themselves as Dem have changed by 0.75% between the time they registered, and the time this poll was taken. That’s not a claim you really want to defend. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/75 "2012-09-26T01:28:34Z")
OMG, Let me try this again. You have claimed that the polls are wrong because they are adjusting the polls to fit a turnout based on 2008. That is factually incorrect and cites discussing in detail where and when in the process the party ID number comes from in the polling process have been provided. You have claimed that the polls are wrong because their party ID numbers are different than the registration rolls for party ID. You are free to believe they measure the same or even similar things; you are also free to believe in the tooth fairy. Have fun. Party ID in polls is again a fluid item. Will it reflect on election day? Are those who change their answer to a question about self identification more likely to stay home? Or are they the swing voters? I don’t know. The pollsters likely voter screen is supposed to predict that but we’ll see how accurate it is. But as to the issue about expecting a 2008 turn out vs a more traditional one … 538 had an interesting [take on that](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/30/base-turnout-strategy-may-be-too-narrow-for-romney/) before the GOP convention: > [@](#): > > suppose that the turnout demographics this year look like 2004, when 77 percent of the electorate was white. Furthermore, suppose that Mr. Romney receives the same proportion of the white vote that George W. Bush did in 2004. > > However, we’ll assume that Mr. Obama does retain one advantage from 2008. Although fewer minorities turn out, those that do vote for him in the same proportions as 2008, meaning that he gets about 95 percent of the African-American vote, and about two-thirds of the vote from Hispanics, Asians and other racial minorities. > > These assumptions yield a very close election — but Mr. Obama wins the popular vote. Specifically, he wins it by about 1.7 percentage points. > > Interestingly, that is almost exactly the margin by which Mr. Obama leads Mr. Romney among surveys of likely voters right now. > > This may not be a coincidence. The consensus of polls suggests that minority turnout may be down a bit from 2008. It also suggests that Mr. Romney should improve on Mr. McCain’s numbers among white voters. However, the surveys show Mr. Romney struggling with minority voters — including Hispanics, among whom Mr. Obama maintains about a two-to-one advantage in recent surveys. > > Turning out your base may not be a sufficient strategy if your base has become too narrow. In 2004, Mr. Bush had an excellent base turnout — but he also captured about 40 percent or 45 percent of the Hispanic vote, a share that Mr. Romney is unlikely to reach. … Oh the answer to your question is obvious to anyone who looks at the polling list and sees that the unreported in the graphic “undecided” column varies from 2 to 18% just in the last several weeks depending on the firm. In some polls those same people seem to be mostly captured as answering “independent.” ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/76 "2012-09-26T01:47:40Z")
Forgot this one: > [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > You can’t simply discount voter registration data as a “lagging indicator” unless you’re going to argue that a large amount of registrations were in the mail at the time PPP conducted their survey What do you mean? Do Floridians have to update their registration every year, or something? In Maryland where I live, you register once, and it stays current as long as you keep voting, and keep living at the same place. The only reason I’d need to change my party affiliation on my registration is if I decided I wanted to vote in a different party’s primaries. > [@](#): > > or that many people are simply not choosing to update their voter information (in this case Republicans) and are simply choosing to vote for the “other” guy (which you would think would be reflected by a large percentage of Republicans voting D). What do Republicans have to do with it? In your example, the % of self-identified Republicans in the poll is equal to that in the registration statistics, 36% in both cases. We’re talking strictly about movement from independent to Democrat, to the extent that we’re talking about movement at all, as distinct from normal sampling error. And again, what reason do Florida voters have to update their registration, as long as they can still go and vote? None since primary season. And even then, since we’re talking about D/I slippage, was there a seriously contested Presidential or Senatorial primary on the Dem side this year? Negatory. There might’ve been such a primary on the Dem side in a few of Florida’s 27 Congressional districts, but if there was, that would only apply to a small fraction of the state’s voters, and you’d have to prove it by me anyway. Barring that, Florida voters who go back and forth between thinking of themselves as Dem or independent have had no reason to update their party affiliation since the spring of 2010. It’s safe to say that attitudes towards the Democratic Party are a bit better in Florida now than they have been during most of that period. So it’s quite possible that a few percent of Florida voters now think of themselves as Dems when they wouldn’t have affiliated with either side when they registered. ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/77 "2012-09-26T02:30:48Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > First of all, you’ve got no evidence that Dems are overrepresented in the PPP poll. …So I’ll just let this one slide. > [@](#): > > As has been pointed out, party ID is fluid, and on account of that, party registration statistics are a lagging indicator: if I go back and forth between thinking of myself as a Dem or as an independent, the state files where my party registration is kept don’t receive a text message from my brain each time I change how I think of myself. Now you guys are just making excuses. Pray tell, at what split would you begin to question whether or not a poll was adequately representing the partisan split of a state? 55 - 45? 60 - 40? 70 - 30? 99 - 1? Or are all partisan splits in a poll valid on the basis that “party identification is fluid and party registration is a lagging indicator which just hasn’t caughe up yet”? I highly doubt it. Party identification is not nearly as fluid as you are painting it. The only reason you are arguing this is because you want to assume that the polls you want to use are adequate representations of any given electorate. Here is, essentially, what it boils down. State level data says X, Poll A says X and Poll Z says B. I say Poll A is probably correct because it mimics state level data; you say poll B is right because there are other polls like it. I find that a bit odd as, if the tables were turned, you’d be crying foul. > [@](#): > > So it’s quite possible that the registration breakdown accurately reflects what the voters identified as _at the time they registered,_ but the PPP poll accurately reflects how Florida voters regard themselves _now_. Highly unlikely. You do realize this is (not so) easily checkable, correct? > [@](#): > > Second, you will notice that the poll has a 3.3% margin of error. What it’s saying is that there’s a 95% likelihood that if you polled everyone in Florida about their party preferences, the % of Dems would be between 40.7 and 47.3. > > Which reduces your claim of blatant oversampling to a claim that no way, nohow, could the Florida voters who identified themselves as Dem have changed by 0.75% between the time they registered, and the time this poll was taken. > > That’s not a claim you really want to defend. Interesting how people are now concerned about the MOE where all I’ve been seeing on this board is “Hey, look! Obama is leading in this poll [even though its well within the MOE]! Obama 2012! BLOWOUT!” No, we’re only concerning ourselves with the topline, which is what’s important, in this case the percentage by which some polling firms are oversampling Democrats. > [@DSeid](#): > > You have claimed that the polls are wrong because they are adjusting the polls to fit a turnout based on 2008. No, I claimed that some polls are oversampling Democrats (which conversely deflating GOP turnout). Have you even looked at the internals of some polls? Some polls have GOP turnout this election as less than 30% of all votes cast. > [@](#): > > That is factually incorrect and cites discussing in detail where and when in the process the party ID number comes from in the polling process have been provided. Except it’s not correct. Scroll through almost any poll of the last few weeks and you’ll notice that their numbers mimic the 2008 electorate almost to a tee (with the GOP fairing worse) with likely voter samples being far more than occurring historically. Do you seriously need proof of this? > [@](#): > > You have claimed that the polls are wrong because their party ID numbers are different than the registration rolls for party ID. You are free to believe they measure the same or even similar things; you are also free to believe in the tooth fairy. Have fun. No, what I said was, and I quote: > [@Me](#): > > I’m more inclined to believe Gallup/Rasmussen’s numbers as they seem to be more inline with observable swing state trends… > > I’d be willing to bet that if there is any significant move towards the Democrats, it’s in states which are overwhelmingly Democratic in nature as is. Simply looking at the data above from 2008 to 2012 tells me that there isn’t this “mass exodus” away from the Republican party that you’re portraying (at least not in the above looked at states). In fact, those trends most closely mirror the trends in Rasmussen’s/Gallup’s analysis than it does the polls in HuffPo’s analysis. You’re the one who wanted to argue that Gallup and Rasmussen are wrong because other polls not named Gallup or Rasmussen agree with each other. My response was in response to that. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/78 "2012-09-26T02:50:53Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > I don’t think the argument is quite as bad as you make out. I think they’re asserting that the party ID ratios reported by the non-Rasmussen polls reveal that those polling firms have skewed sampling practices. That is, the conservative complaint isn’t that the polling firms are weighting for party ID, but that the party ID ratios reported by those polls indicate that they should be. > > This is almost certainly still incorrect, but not quite as obviously so as you’re portraying it. I disagree that this is the argument being put forward on those sites. Can you link to a major conservative website stating it that way? It doesn’t even make internal sense that way; if you concede that this is the result achieved by random sampling (weighted by objective demographics, naturally), what theory would counsel for discounting that result? In other words, in that theory, where is the error being introduced? ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/79 "2012-09-26T03:48:26Z")
I didn’t say it was a good argument, just that it wasn’t quite as blatantly false as you were portraying. And it’s being made not three posts up in this very thread. If you take the voter registration statistics as gospel like **OMG** is doing, then if your poll is showing a different partisan split it must be sampling wrong. Where’s the error being introduced? Who knows, but it’s clearly there since the polling results contradict the registration data. I’m in complete agreement with the arguments being made against this position in this thread, but once you conflate party ID and registration everything else follows quite naturally. ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2012, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647/80 "2012-09-26T04:03:12Z")
It is a strawman, but I’ll respond anyway. Speaking for myself, if Obama were behind in the polling, I might have a lot to say about it, but I really don’t think I’d be insisting all of the polls were wrong, and just wait and see! (Maybe the obviously biased/flawed ones, like Rasmussen, but on a case by case basis, not a sweeping insistence that the polls are at odds with reality.) I think conservatives are really arguing with reality here, and we’ll see in about 6 more weeks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-conservative-grievance-polls-oversample-democrats/635647.md?page=5)