Given that the answer is quite obvious there’s really no need to actually … give an answer. Jim Geraghty has an interesting post about these ridiculous polls we continue to see on a daily basis that are basically trying to make it as if the last 3+ years never happened. Or at least didn’t happen the way that we who reside in reality know that they happened.
Starting in 1992, EVERY Pew poll appears to lean to one direction — always towards the Democrat, and by an average of more than 5 percentage points. Worse this is a reflection of the “final” poll which even the Democratic firm, Public Policy Polling, usually gets right.
October 1988 — Bush 50 Dukakis 42; Actual Result Bush +7.6 (Call this one spot on.)
Late October 1992 — Clinton 44 Bush 34; Actual Result :Clinton +5.5 (Skew against Republican candidate +5.5)
November 1996 — Clinton +51 Dole 32; Actual Result Clinton +8.5 (Skew against Republican candidate +10.5)
November 2000 — Gore 45; Bush 41 (Skew against Republican Candidate +3.5)
November 2004 — Kerry 46; Bush 45 (Skew against Republican Candidate +3.4)
November 2008 — Obama 50 McCain 39 (Skew against Republican + 3.8)
After being wrong in the same direction so consistently, wouldn’t you think that Pew might attempt to adjust their sampling techniques to adjust their techniques to avoid under-sampling Republican voters? Keep in mind the polls I have highlighted are the last polls in the race. I find it interesting that not one of their poll statisticians came out and said, ‘Boss, these results look whacked out because the electorate is going to be more than 24 percent Republican, and self-identified Democrats aren’t going to outpace Republicans by 9 percentage points.’ The Democrats couldn’t even reach that margin in 2008 . . . and you wonder why so many people think Obama is going to win. Didn’t Einstein once say the definition of insanity was “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. So I ask are the people at Pew insane or just biased?
Once again, a question that needs no answer. Read the whole thing.
[...] Jim Geraghty, via Tarpon, points out that Pew's polls are always wrong, and always wrong because their sampling is always skewed in the sa…. [...]