Real Clear Politics Unrelable: Old Polls, Skewed Polls

Please note all polls quoted herein are from the morning of Wednesday, October 10th. The Internet has since trolled me yet again with RCP updating their polls to remove some old ones.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something skewed. With the exception of the borrowed, that's the makeup of the Real Clear Politics average, aka the "poll of polls."

Before I continue, I'd like to say that I use Real Clear Politics (RCP) a lot. As a source for a blog, it's phenomenal. It compiles basically every poll published anywhere in America leading up to the election. Furthermore, I'd like to note that I am not directly accusing RCP of intentional deception. I'm not exonerating them, either.  I will, however, give RCP the benefit of the doubt on this, and simply assume it for the sake of today's article that the problems with these averages is a case of "a chef is only as good as his ingredients."

But there remains a clear skew created by these polls by certain issues. The first is old polls. Let me give you a few examples. Let's start with the general election average:

Do you perchance see the issue with this CNN poll I've highlighted? It's nearly two weeks old, and dates to before the game-changing Presidential Debate on 10/4.The Politico poll isn't quite as old but all data was gathered ahead of the first Presidential Debate.  So here we have two old polls, both with Obama winning (albeit marginally) that keep Mitt Romney's lead smaller. Take those two polls out of the average, you see Mitt Romney not with a 0.8% lead, but a 2.25% lead in the average of the four polls since the debate.

Here's an average from the swing state of Pennsylvania:

So let's compare. We've got two polls from 2-3 weeks ago showing Obama with an average lead of 9.5%.  Then we have two polls from the last week with an average lead of 2.5% for Obama.  Huge swing of 7%. Yet, due to RCP's average, they have Pennsylvania as "leaning Obama." In the last week, the two polls we have show Obama's lead as within the margin of error. It's a tossup, friends. Governor Romney can win Pennsylvania.

One more old before we go into skewed:

Here's another highly important swing-state. It's considered "Leaning Obama" based on the RCP average. However, except for last week's PPP Poll, the other four polls are 2-4 weeks old.  Clearly, according to the Democrat Public Policy Polling, Obama's lead is down to 2% (within the poll's margin of error).

Now let's talk about what we've been discussing for months on Biblical Conservatism: Skewed polls.

Quick reminder: Ohio's voter identification is +1 Republican.  We Ask America's sample was +4% Democrat (5% skew to Democrats). ARG oversampled Democrats by 9% (10% skew to Democrats). CNN/Opinion Research oversampled +2% (3% total skew to Democrats). Survey USA oversampled Democrats by 4% (5% total skew to Democrats).

These are simply snapshots, friends. But the point I am making is important. The RCP Average is packed often with outdated polls and skewed polls, treated as though they were up to date or as accurate as the other polls. It creates a false impression of the reality of the situation. While Real Clear Politics is a good site, please don't get me wrong, but the average is simply not an accurate reflection of the electorate.


To my regular readers: With the Vice Presidential Debate tonight, I will be writing my reaction to that event tomorrow and publishing tomorrow's blog by about 1 pm.

Swing States Swing to Romney Post Debate

Mitt Romney's debate performance last week was one of the finest debate performances I've seen since I started watching debates twenty years ago. Many predicted he would perform well in the debates, but many also said that debates rarely change elections. Welcome to rarely.

Over the weekend, a lot of things started swinging to Mitt. In Gallup, for example, Governor Romney went from losing by 5% before the debate to tied with the President. This is huge, especially since Gallup polls Registered Voters not Likely Voters. In Rasmussen, Governor Romney went from 2% down on Friday to 2% ahead on Saturday.

But what about the swing states? What happened post debate there?  Let's look at recent polls (regardless of organization) before and after the debate. (We'll use statewide party registration data as our baseline where appropriate.)


Colorado (Party Registration +2% Republican):

- Before the debate, We Ask America had Obama leading by +3%.

- After the debate, Gravis Marketing had Romney winning by 3%. (Using an accurate +2% Republican sample)

Florida (Party Registration +5% Democrat):

- Before the debate, Suffolk had Obama leading by 3% (Sample Democrat +6%) and Gravis had Obama +1%.

- After the debate, We Ask America had Romney leading by 3% and Rasmussen had Romney winning by 2%.

Nevada (Party Registration +5% Democrat)

- Before the debate, We Ask America had Obama leading by 11%.

- After the debate, Gravis Marketing had Obama's lead down to 1%.


Now I recognize we're using lots of polls here, but that's because we need to as these organizations are not being consistent in their polling during the campaign. However, one thing is clear. After the debate, Mitt Romney is making a huge comeback. Game on.

Ohio (Party Registration +1% Republican)

- Before the debate, Public Policy Polling had Obama leading by 4% (using a +5% Democrat sample) and NBC, using a tiny sample and a huge margin of error (using a +8% Democrat sample) had Obama leading by 8%.

- After the debate, We Ask America had Romney leading by 1% and Rasmussen had Obama leading by only 1%.

Virginia (Party Registration +3% Republican)

- Before the debate NBC, using a tiny sample and a huge margin of error (using a +2% Democrat sample) had Obama leading by 2%.

- After the Debate, We Ask America had Romney leading by +3% and Rasmussen had Romney leading by +1%.

Wisconsin (Party Registration +4% Democrat):

- Before the debate, the Marquette University claimed Obama had a lead of 11% over governor Romney. (Sample +7% Democrat).

- After the debate, Democrat Public Policy Polling

Swing State Polls are as Cooked as the National Polls (Part 2)

The Drive-By Media spent last week telling us it was absolutely over. Obama has a commanding lead in the Swing States. He's going to win, they tell us. The current Real Clear Politics average shows Obama with 269 electoral votes either strongly, likely or leaning his way. So they say.

There was a day they would get away with this. We talked about a few of these cooked Swing State polls last week:

Biblical Conservatism: CBS is Now Cooking Swing State Polls

So let's continue to look at where other polls are being cooked, shall we?


Wisconsin - RCP Avg: Obama + 6.7% - Avg Democrat Oversample D+6%

Wisconsin Voter Registration: +4% Democrat

- For Public Policy Polling to get Obama to +7% they had to oversample Democrats by +3%

- For NBC to get Obama to +5% they had to oversample Democrats by +5%

- For CBS to get Obama to +6%, they had to oversample Democrats by +8%.

(Other polls were included in this average, however they did not publish their samples.)

Virginia - RCP Avg Obama +3.7% - Avg Democrat Oversample +3% Democrat

Virginia Voter Registration: +3% Republican- For NBC to get Obama to +2%, they had to oversample Democrats by +4%.

- For Suffolk to get Obama to +2% they had to oversample Democrats by +3%

(Other polls were included in this average, however they did not publish their samples.)


In Wisconsin, to get Obama to a +6.7% average lead they had to oversample Democrats by an average of 6%. Again, assuming 90% of undersampled Republicans reweighted will give you a much smaller Obama lead of 1.1%, well within the margin of error.

In Virginia, when you take that 3.7% lead and the 3% oversample of Democrats to get to even (or 6% oversample of Democrats against

Let the Liberal Poll Cooking Begin!

It's election season, and the more trustworthy polling organizations are beginning to show a tough year for Democrats. So what is the official Drive-By Media response? Cooked polls!  Today we've found a fine example of this precise practice in the form of an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll that was published this past Friday. 

The outcome of this poll tries to say that President Obama has a fair lead over Mitt Romney if the election was held today, with Obama leading Governor Romney 49% to 43%.  This stands in stark contrast to the historically far more reliable Gallup tracking poll (that takes data daily and offers a 3 day rolling average) which shows Governor Romney leading the President 48% to 43%. 

So how in heaven's name does NBC come up with this data?  The devil is, as always, in the details. For starters, this poll's sample includes 9% more Democrats than Republicans (43% Democrat or Democrat leaning and 34% Republican or Republican leaning). Considering the question asked was not "what party if any are you registered with" but rather "which party do you most identify with" this is a clear skew that helps Obama look better. (It resulted in a +5% skew for Obama and a -6% skew against Romney...changing the predicted result.)

It is reasonable to assume that there are about the same number of Republican and Democrat leaning individuals in America as a base with maybe 10-15% true middle ground believers. Actually, as I've highlighted before, there are consistently more conservatives than moderates and consistently more moderates than liberals when it comes to a person's self-identity.

At the end of last year, 40% of Americans considered themselves conservative, 35% considered themselves moderate and 21% considered themselves liberal, according to last fall's Gallup Survey. Given a reasonable assumption that the vast majority of conservatives are Republicans and the vast majority of liberals are Democrats and splitting the moderates right down the middle, you get 48.5% Republican leaners, 38.5% Democrat leaners. So to take a poll that is 43% Democrat is highly dishonest.

There is, of course, corroborating evidence against this poll. For example, the poll asked about the preferred Congressional election outcome for each voter. The result was 46% preferring a Democrat Congress and 44% preferring a Republican Congress. This stands in stark contrast to Rasmussen's Generic Congressional Ballot poll which showed that 46% of likely voters prefer a generic Republican against 36% who preferred a generic Democrat. So this poll's skew resulted in a +12% net gain for the Democrats and a -2% net loss for the Republican. (Even in a cooked liberal poll, Republicans are close to beating Democrats!)

My friends, this is only the beginning. The Drive-By Media is not concerned with reporting the truth. They are concerned with skewing results to make Obama look better and to dishearted conservatives and Republicans so that we don't fight hard to defeat Democrats. We will not let them.

Fact is this election year is looking very bad for liberals and Democrats. Game on.