Why Do They Bother Polling?

Today brought us a new national poll by the Washington Post/ABC polling effort. According to these gurus, president Obama is ahead of Mitt Romney by 3% among likely voters. This is a 1% increase to the lead Obama held in the last poll by this group which was taken in the days before the first presidential debate. To say the least, this poll seems to be an outlier; most other national polls now show Romney with a small lead. I decided to look more closely at the poll as a result. Here is what I found:

In the pre-debate poll, the Post/ABC got a sample of likely voters that was 33% self-described Democrats and 30% Republicans. This mix of voters may be slightly more Democrat than the electorate in November, but it is close enough to reality to just represent statistical normality. In today's poll, however, the Post/ABC used a sample of 35% self-described Democrats and 26% Republicans. In other words, the Post/ABC shifted the electorate from D+3 to D+9. To say the least, the best word to describe this shift is nonsense. Even in 2008, when Democrats turned out in record numbers and Republicans stayed home, the electorate did not have 9% more Democrats, and one thing is certain, the 2012 electorate will be much more evenly divided between the parties than it was in 2008. Everyone involved with the poll at the Post and ABC well knows this. In other words, the Washington Post and ABC are pumping out poll results that they know are totally flawed. Let me put it this way: if you took the results of any poll and increased the Democrats by 3% while reducing the Republicans by 3%, Obama would get about an extra 6% added to his lead (or closing his deficit). What this means is that with a sample like the one it used two weeks ago, the Post/ABC poll would have resulted in a 3% Romney lead.

These poll results are just another attempt by the liberal media to make it seem that the Romney bounce from the debate is over. It is not, and the media knows this quite well. Sadly, however, the news shows will surely cover this poll with a big splashy story. Americans who pay scant attention to the details will hear how Obama is back in the lead. It is a scam, however, perpetrated by ABC and the Washington Post, and it is clearly an intentional effort on their part.

It is sad that America has to suffer with "journalists" who believe that their job is to shape events rather than to report about them.