More about the polls

Are the polls right? I've been talking about this a bit and we saw it in the last election too. Here's an interesting take on what's going on.



I was having dinner a night ago with a friend of mine who is a statistician for a well-regarded private polling company. They do some work for Republicans in California, but most of the work they do is for Democrats or Democrat-leaning operations (Unions, etc.). Anyway, her shop was retained to do a few Presidential polls for targetted states on behalf of a union so the union could decide where to spend their ad dollars for the last week. They did Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Missouri. After mocking the hell out of the voter id spreads used by Rassmussen, Zogby, etc. (and this is coming from a committed Dem who will be voting for Barry O) she said the results of their polling lead her to believe that McCain will definitely win FL, OH, NC, MO and NV. She says Obama definitely wins New Mexico. She said that Colorado and New Hampshire were absolute dead heats. She said she thinks there is a 55% chance Obama holds on in Pennsylvania and a 75% chance McCain wins Virginia. She absolutely laughed at the public polls showing Obama leading Virginia–and pointed out that all of those polls rely on Dem turnout being +4 and as much as +7, when in 2006, Republicans actually had the advantage by +3. She also pointed out that the numbers for Obama in SWVA look absolutely awful and that McCain is running 10 points better then Allen did in NoVa.

Anyway, her companies conclusion is that the election will come down to Colorado, New Hampshire and the Republican leaning district in Maine, which in her opinion might very well decide the Presidency (apparently the district in Nebraska that Obama thought he might be able to get is now off the table). She said she has very little doubt that the public polling is part of a “concerted voter suppression effort” by the MSM. She said IBD/TIPP was the only outfit doing public polling that was “worth a bucket of warm piss”.


There's also this from RedState:


The results are simply shocking. The polls showed Barack Obama with an 18 point lead in California just a few days ago. The results thus far are the complete opposite. In the most liberal state in the entire country,the results are that 99,000 Republicans have voted and 96,000 Democrats voted. In the mail-in balloting the results so far are that 9,000 Democrats sent in their ballots and that 5,000 Republicans did so. So with nearly 210,000 people having voted,the Democrats have only a 1,000 vote advantage !


These are Pro-McCain sites so their objectivity is something you should consider twice. However, there may well be a grain of truth in them. Keep your eyes open.

Comments

Brian Shields said…
I was just thinking that before I came to the point when you quoted it.

Maybe the polls have been off for the last few elections because they are supressing the real numbers to not motivate the losing side.

I heard a bit on the radio yesterday on NPR that said the people who are running the exit polling the day of the election are going to be sequestered with the info, with no outside contact until all the polls are closed. All this effort to protect numbers that have a 2 hour shelf life.

Polls have become the means the parties use to manipulate voters through the media.
6:36 PM
I'm Full of Soup said…
I will be truly shocked if all these polls are wrong about Obama leading big.

I am voting for McCain and can't stand Obama but I doubt McCain will win. There are just too too many young people who are minddlessly supporting Obama.

And the media shamelessly helped Obama bigtime.
8:18 PM
knowitall said…
The polls will be found wrong, and the liberal illuminati will be upset by the end results.
1:47 PM
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