Washington Post Josh Voorhees: “Was Romney's Debate Win the Most Convincing in History? It Looks That Way.”

Washington Post Josh Voorhees: “Was Romney's Debate Win the Most Convincing in History? It Looks That Way.”

Writing for The Slatest, Josh Voorhees penned on Monday, “Was Romney's Debate Win the Most Convincing in History? It Looks That Way.”

According to Mr. Voorhees, “Gallup's latest survey shows just how overwhelmingly the American public thought Mitt Romney bested President Obama onstage in Denver last Wednesday: 72 percent of debate watchers gave the win to the GOP challenger with only 20 percent seeing the president as the winner.

That 52-point gap was the largest the polling outfit has ever seen, topping even Bill Clinton's 42-point margin over George H. W. Bush in 1992…”

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/10/08/gallup_romney_won_debate_by_52_percent_draws_even_in_national_polls_.html

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The Slatest by Josh Voorhees: the 'skewed' polling results conspiracy theory goes mainstream

Your daily PM briefing from the Slatest (@slatest), your trusty news companion.

By Josh Voorhees (@JoshVoorhees)

[…]

GOING MAINSTREAM: A new poll out today suggests that GOP accusations of intentional manipulation on the part of pollsters are resonating with the American public. Roughly 42 percent of those surveyed by left-leaning Public Policy Polling said pollsters were manipulating their data in order to show Obama with a lead, while 40 percent said that wasn't the case.

The results show that self-identified Republicans were particularly likely to buy into the pollsters-are-against-us conspiracy theory, with 71 percent saying that the recent major polls showing President Obama pulling ahead nationally and in key battleground states are biased against their candidate. That number balloons to 84 percent when focusing exclusively on respondents who said they were Tea Party members.

THE EXACT WORDING: "Do you think pollsters are intentionally skewing their polls this year to help Barack Obama, or not?"

REFRESHER: Frequent Slatest readers will remember that the pollsters have already debunked the conspiracy theory, explaining that conservatives' main beef with the numbers—what they say is an oversampling of Democrats in the surveys—actually is just further proof that the president is out in front coming down the home stretch.

That explanation, however, has done little to convince conservative pundits that the polling data is on the straight and narrow. And, by the looks of the PPP poll, unless that happens, Republican voters in general are unlikely to accept any poll that shows Obama with a lead—even those sponsored by Fox News.

ON THE TOPIC OF NOVEMBER PREDICTIONS: New York Times' psephologist Nate Silver is wondering aloud whether the Electoral College could possibly return a split decision, with both Obama and Romney earning 269 electoral votes, or one shy of the 270 needed to clinch the race.

While very unlikely, that scenario isn't exactly impossible to imagine, given Silver's latest FiveThirtyEight forecast, which has the president with an 85 percent chance or better of winning in 21 states. If you add up the electoral votes at stake in those states you get ... you guessed it, 269.

EVERYONE CALM DOWN: Of course, while the 269-apiece scenario may be easy to get to looking at the map, that doesn't make it even close to likely. For starters, it assumes that Obama wins all 21 states he's currently heavily favored in and not a single other, including a handful where he has a significant-but-not-dominating lead. So what are the odds of the sister-kissing tie? 0.6 percent. Silver's full post here.

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Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack: http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/ = http://www.kevindayhoff.net/ Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/ or http://kevindayhoffart.com/ = http://www.kevindayhoff.com/ Kevin Dayhoff Westminster: http://kevindayhoffwestgov-net.blogspot.com/ or http://www.westgov.net/ = www.kevindayhoff.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoff Twitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ = www.newbedfordherald.net Explore Carroll: www.explorecarroll.com The Tentacle: www.thetentacle.com

Deja vu for New Hampshire polls? - The Washington Post

Deja vu for New Hampshire polls? - The Washington Post: "By Jon Cohen, Published: January 9 http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/deja-vu-for-new-hampshire-polls/2012/01/09/gIQAgab9lP_story.html

A “fiasco,” one analyst called it. Another observer called it a “snafu.”

In short, the pre-election polls before the New Hampshire primary in 2008 were a disaster. The numbers had anticipated a clear result: It would be a second, major win for then-Sen. Barack Obama over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had been the overwhelming favorite for the Democratic nomination."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/deja-vu-for-new-hampshire-polls/2012/01/09/gIQAgab9lP_story.html

'via Blog this'

1936 presidential election: Landon in a Landslide: The Poll That Changed Polling

1936 presidential election: Landon in a Landslide: The Poll That Changed Polling

Retrieved January 10, 2012 http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5168

The 1936 presidential election proved a decisive battle, not only in shaping the nation’s political future but for the future of opinion polling. The Literary Digest, the venerable magazine founded in 1890, had correctly predicted the outcomes of the 1916, 1920, 1924, 1928, and 1932 elections by conducting polls.

These polls were a lucrative venture for the magazine: readers liked them; newspapers played them up; and each “ballot” included a subscription blank.

The 1936 postal card poll claimed to have asked one fourth of the nation’s voters which candidate they intended to vote for. In Literary Digest's October 31 issue, based on more than 2,000,000 returned post cards, it issued its prediction: Republican presidential candidate Alfred Landon would win 57 percent of the popular vote and 370 electoral votes…http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5168

[20120120 Landon in a Landslide The Poll That Changed Polling]

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Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack: http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/ = http://www.kevindayhoff.net/ Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/ or http://kevindayhoffart.com/ = http://www.kevindayhoff.com/ Kevin Dayhoff Westminster: http://kevindayhoffwestgov-net.blogspot.com/ or http://www.westgov.net/ = www.kevindayhoff.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoff Twitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ = www.newbedfordherald.net Explore Carroll: www.explorecarroll.com The Tentacle: www.thetentacle.com