Wednesday, June 20, 2012

We Ask America ...

... you just made my list of pollsters that are suspect.

They have Romney ahead by 2 in Michigan in large part because Obama only leads 45-42 among women. No other demographic data was released to the general public but this was a poll of likely voters and they do indicate they weighted for demographics.

Pollsters pretty much have to weight for demographics these days given the poor and biased response rates they are getting but the devil is in HOW you weight for demographics. Mark Blumenthal made this point the other day in explaining why Gallup tends to underestimate the President's support.

I don't know what it is yet but something is wrong with their sample.

5 comments:

William D. Adler said...
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William D. Adler said...

Maybe it's weird. But many of the polls listed on RCP have it close: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/mi/michigan_romney_vs_obama-1811.html. The Rasmussen +8 for Obama is the outlier. A +2 for Romney is within the margin of error of the Baydoun/Foster and EPIC polls.

Larry Becker said...

The Baydoun/Foster poll was taken down well by Mark Blumenthal last week. They oversampled older voters. See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/15/michigan-polls_n_1601368.html?utm_hp_ref=@pollster

The EPIC poll did not release demographic information. But this We Ask America poll has Obama ahead in Michigan among women by just 3? No. I guarantee you something is wrong with their demographic weighting. It could be age or it could be race but something is not right there.

Romney said yesterday (in Michigan) that if he wins Michigan, he'll be the next president. That's true. But he's not winning in Michigan right now and if he wins Michigan, he will already have won Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and a whole bunch of other states that make Michigan irrelevant. Michigan is surely closer than it was in 2008 but that's a given. I am sure Obama is still ahead there.

William D. Adler said...

Or, alternatively, Romney is just doing really well there and that's why Obama is only +3 with women.

Larry Becker said...

Theoretically possible but I don't buy it.