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More Fun With Polls ...
Pollsters from CBS News, AP/Ipsos, and ABC/Washington Post have come out with their latest numbers -- all of which show President Bush's approval rating at less than 40%. This of course does not appear to be good news for Bush.
However, a closer look at the demographic and political breakdown of the respondents in the three polls should bring into question the accuracy of the polling data in all three polls.
For example, the CBS News poll, which shows that Bush's approval rating is at 35%, reports that an unweighted sample shows that 34.8% of its respondents self-identified as Democrats, while 27.6% said they were Republicans. While the unweighted sample yielded a seven-point differential favoring the Dems, a weighted sample had the spread at 11% points in favor of the Dems. This represents at least a 10-11 point swing in the electorate since the 2004 election (and perhaps as much as 14 points), when Bush won by about three points and the Repubs won the aggregate House vote by about four points.
The AP/Ipsos poll, which has Bush's approval rating at 37%, said its respondents self-identified 49% Dem and 40% Repub, yielding a nine-point differential favoring the Dems. This represents a 12-point swing in the electorate since 2004.
Only 80% of the respondents in this poll were registered voters, while 13% of the respondents reported that they were unemployed (the current unemployment rate is about 5%-6%), and 31% said they were between the ages of 18-34 (this was the only age group that Sen. John Kerry carried in the last presidential election, and it actually voted in a much smaller percentage than that represented in this poll).
The ABC/Washington Post poll, which shows that Bush's approval rating is at 39%, saw its respondents break down thusly: 52% said they leaned toward the Dems, and 41% leaned toward the Repubs. That represents a 14-point swing since last year's elections.
Will someone explain how the demographic breakdowns in these polls represent accurate pictures of the electorate, given what we know about the 2004 election (and the 2002 mid-terms)?
As we've written before, these swings go against short-, mid-, and long-term history. They are not realistic breakdowns of the electorate in any way, shape, or form. This is at best sloppy work.
We wrote about this same phenomenon -- happening to varying degrees in different polls -- back on October 14, September 23, September 15, August 5, and July 2.
Update: The last time a Democratic Party presidential candidate received 52% of the vote, the percentage of Dems responding to Washington Post pollsters' questions, was in the 1964 election when President Johnson beat Sen. Goldwater.
Posted by Tom Elia in Media at 00:38 |
