Media Polls Biased Against Republicans?
By Ronald Kessler ~ Political polls conducted for most media organizations often are biased against Republicans, says Kellyanne Conway, one of the most respected GOP pollsters. As a result, Barack Obama’s lead over John McCain probably is exaggerated and is contributing unfairly to his momentum, says Conway, president and founder of the Polling Company.
Rather than slant the questions, pollsters distort the results by weighting tallies with more responses from people who are likely to vote for Democrats than is warranted, Conway tells Newsmax. For example, they wrongly assume that huge numbers of groups who favor Democrats will show up to vote.
To be sure, “Barack Obama has energized a critical mass of younger people and new voters to actually show up to the polls,” Conway says.
But in some cases, pollsters assume that those who cast votes will be as much as 40 percent Democrats, versus 25 percent Republicans.
“The country’s just not configured that way,” Conway says.
Conway draws an analogy to the way some news organizations endorse Obama, in effect, with their selection of stories and angles to pursue. In the same way, they endorse him through polls by oversampling respondents who are Democrats, Conway says.
“What is the incentive of the major media to have scientific, artfully constructed polling?” Conway says.
By creating the impression that McCain will lose, many media polls are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, Conway says. Because of the attention their polls receive, they depress the turnout for McCain — not to mention cutting into his contributions, endorsements, and support.
“To me it’s a different kind of voter suppression, to constantly try to make people feel like the election is over before it’s even begun,” she says. “Before a single vote has been cast, they’re basically saying, about John McCain, he can’t win. What are the three most fatal words in politics? You can’t win.”
Looking back at polls over the years, “The errors in media polling rarely benefit a Republican,” Conway notes. “It wasn’t like anybody said, ‘Oh, Ronald Reagan will have a landslide in 1980.’ In fact you look back at the Dukakis numbers, the Perot numbers, there was always this presumption that the Republican was going to lose. Not just that the Democrat would win, but that the Republican was going to lose. There was a news report that concluded polls showed Kerry leading Bush 53 percent to 43 percent in 15 swing states.”
Exit polls also tend to favor Democrats unfairly, Conway says.
“Remember the exit polls in the last election all favored John Kerry,” Conway says. “And I had to shoot off a quick memo to people saying that exit polls are more illustrative and anecdotal, more qualitative than quantitative and scientific in nature, because it’s a self-selected population of people who actually reveal to a total stranger how they just voted.”
Rather than slant the questions, pollsters distort the results by weighting tallies with more responses from people who are likely to vote for Democrats than is warranted, Conway tells Newsmax. For example, they wrongly assume that huge numbers of groups who favor Democrats will show up to vote.
To be sure, “Barack Obama has energized a critical mass of younger people and new voters to actually show up to the polls,” Conway says.
But in some cases, pollsters assume that those who cast votes will be as much as 40 percent Democrats, versus 25 percent Republicans.
“The country’s just not configured that way,” Conway says.
Conway draws an analogy to the way some news organizations endorse Obama, in effect, with their selection of stories and angles to pursue. In the same way, they endorse him through polls by oversampling respondents who are Democrats, Conway says.
“What is the incentive of the major media to have scientific, artfully constructed polling?” Conway says.
By creating the impression that McCain will lose, many media polls are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, Conway says. Because of the attention their polls receive, they depress the turnout for McCain — not to mention cutting into his contributions, endorsements, and support.
“To me it’s a different kind of voter suppression, to constantly try to make people feel like the election is over before it’s even begun,” she says. “Before a single vote has been cast, they’re basically saying, about John McCain, he can’t win. What are the three most fatal words in politics? You can’t win.”
Looking back at polls over the years, “The errors in media polling rarely benefit a Republican,” Conway notes. “It wasn’t like anybody said, ‘Oh, Ronald Reagan will have a landslide in 1980.’ In fact you look back at the Dukakis numbers, the Perot numbers, there was always this presumption that the Republican was going to lose. Not just that the Democrat would win, but that the Republican was going to lose. There was a news report that concluded polls showed Kerry leading Bush 53 percent to 43 percent in 15 swing states.”
Exit polls also tend to favor Democrats unfairly, Conway says.
“Remember the exit polls in the last election all favored John Kerry,” Conway says. “And I had to shoot off a quick memo to people saying that exit polls are more illustrative and anecdotal, more qualitative than quantitative and scientific in nature, because it’s a self-selected population of people who actually reveal to a total stranger how they just voted.”
Labels: Kellyanne Conway, Media Bias, Presidential Polls
posted by Mike McCarville @ 12:09 AM
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