Polls —-> lolololololololol
MCLAUGHLIN & ASSOCIATES
McLaughlin & Associates is a national survey research and strategic services company whose personnel have played a key role in assisting successful organizations in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Latin America. We specialize in public opinion research, media planning and buying services, and strategic consulting services.
Skewed Media Polls
The latest skewed media polls must be intentional. It’s clear that NBC, ABC and CNN who have Democrat operatives like Chuck Todd, George Stephanopoulos and other Democrats in their news operations are consistently under-polling Republicans and therefore, reporting biased polls. They continue to poll adults or registered voters that skew away from likely voters. So instead of the 33% Republican turnout which actually happened in 2016, they are reporting polls on only 26%, 25% or even 24% Republicans. Since you get over 90% of the Republican vote, for every point fewer Republicans that they do not poll, they reduce your vote total by a point. In contrast CBS polled likely voters. CBS had 32% Republicans and a close national race. The bias seems to be an intentional strategy to suppress your vote. The latest media spin is that it’s too late to define Joe Biden and it’s too late for President Trump to win. We can hardly wait until they start spinning a “Biden electoral lock”. It has to be a strategy to counter the enthusiasm of Trump voters.
For, example, the CNN poll out today is another skewed anti-Trump poll of only 25% Republican. It’s a poll of 1,259 adults – not even registered voters, let alone likely voters. Also, it was done between June 2nd and 5th, before the great economic news from last Friday. In their questionnaire between asking about your job approval and the ballot, they had questions on issues including race relations, not job creation, which could have biased the poll further. It appears that the CNN poll is biased in both sample and questionnaire design to manufacture an anti-Trump outcome.
Specifically, the NBC/WSJ poll on Sunday was among registered voters, not likely voters, and is only 26% Republican. Again this shorts Republicans about 7 points from the 2016 exit polls which had 33% Republicans. This poll was done May 28th through June 2nd and would not have a Friday’s great jobs impact.
The refusal to screen for actual likely voters is creating an under-polling of Republicans and therefore Trump voters. It seems intentional. It’s exactly what the media did in 2016.
It is true that when pollsters take a random sample of voters and/or likely voters,
in most cases (not all, but most) their random sample has more who declare one
political party ID than another....much like if we randomly flip a coin ten times
we are not necessarily going to get exactly 5 heads and 5 tails. And so, as you
correctly point out, such a poll -- even though a random sample -- will have an
inherent bias for aggregate results. That is a fact.
However, equally true are at least three (3) counter-points:
1/ the respondents of any poll are not ALL the people they tried to contact,
but rather a grouping of those who agreed to participate. As such it is quite
possible that there are simply more Dems now than Repubs who are willing
to participate and/or it could also mean there are more Dems and therefore that
sample is reflective of today's society.
Either way this is NOT a fault of the pollsters.
2/ if the numbers are within the margins of error the polls can be dismissed.
But all those results shown above are outside the margin of error (MOE) and
therefore legit -- albeit some of them with a significant bias, but certainly not all.
3/ most (but not all) those polls showing double digits are so far above the MOE
that even allowing for bias they are STILL significant and legit.
Fictitious example to illustrate the point as it pertains to MOST the polls above:
You and I take a poll that has
53 Republicans and only
47 Democrats.
Of the 100 responses 80% give Trump a favorable rating compared to only 20%
who give him an unfavorable rating.
80% !!
Would it be right for DEMS to argue that poll result is BS simply because there
were a handful more Republicans in the sample size ???
Of course not.
The actual margin is important. -12.2 approval is so high that it compensates
for the inherent bias that DOES appear in some of those polls.
The number would come down, for sure, but STILL be statistically significant
after balancing for bias.
And it's not good for Trump as it stands today.....though this could all change in July.