Polls: A November Surprise
Lots of stuff I want to report today regarding the lead Democrats enjoy in the polls nationwide, and why the polls are inaccurate…possibly very inaccurate.
But first, I just have to report on one of my favorite candidates, who is really going to upset the Dems on election day, Maryland’s Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who is running for US Senate. From Mary Katharine Ham:
Fred Barnes called him the upset this weekend on Beltway Boys:
“Did you see that debate on television between….in the Maryland Senate race between the Republican Michael Steele and the Democrat Ben Cardin? Steele ate Cardin alive! Ate him for lunch! And as a result, Cardin didn’t show up for a debate the next day.
The truth is Steele is may be the best Republican candidate of the year. He’s an underdog. My upset prediction is Michael Steele wins the Senate race in Maryland.”
Here’s that first debate. And, Sunday’s debate on Meet the Press.
OK, now about the polls and how they have a built-in skew toward Democrats, and don’t believe it’s going to be as bad as the polls show. First up, critically-important, must-read, is Michael Barone’s column today. Some excerpts of his observations:
At this stage of the campaign, pollsters try to screen their respondents and report only those who answer a series of questions in ways that suggest they are actually going to vote. Many polls find that a higher proportion of Democrats than Republicans pass the screen. Others find similar proportions do. But pollsters of both parties will admit that polls do a poor job at projecting turnout.
That was particularly true in 2004, when both parties conducted massive turnout drives. John Kerry got 16 percent more popular votes than Al Gore had in 2000. George W. Bush got 23 percent more popular votes than he had in 2000.
Fewer people vote in off-year elections than in presidential years. In 2002, 75 million people voted. In 2004, 122 million did. My hunch is that people who identify themselves as independents are substantially less likely to vote this year than people who identify as Republicans or Democrats — which would be good news for Republicans, since independents give Bush low job ratings. Another hunch is that the Republican turnout apparatus, with which the Democrats haven’t yet caught up, will boost Republican turnout as it did in 2004, and that the resulting electorate will be more evenly divided in party identification than the electorates shown in most of the public polls.
Serious pollsters concede that there are some problems with polling. Americans have fewer landline phones than they used to, and the random digit dialing most pollsters use does not include cell-phone numbers. Larger and larger percentages of those called are declining to be interviewed.
Interviewers can inject bias in the results. The late Warren Mitofsky, who conducted the 2004 NEP exit poll, went back and found that the greatest difference between actual results in exit poll precincts and the reports phoned in to NEP came where the interviewers were female graduate students — and almost all the discrepancies favored the Democrats.
Next, Dean Barnett speculates on one possible cause of the polls inaccurate skew to the Democrats in recent years. He notes that while conservative comments on lefty blogs (e.g., DailyKos) are pretty much non-existent, lefty comments on conservative blogs are rampant. He points out that
The [Dixie] Chicks are indicative of a trend in modern liberalism. I defy you to come up with a conservative celebrity who’s an example of the same phenomenon. I could probably rattle off the top of my head 30 liberal celebrities who constantly consider it a matter of national urgency that the country become aware of their political thoughts, but I can’t think of a single conservative celebrity who falls into the same category.
Dean then says that while
conservatives have become increasingly wary of sharing their views in public, liberals have become increasingly enamored with the idea of seizing any platform anyplace to celebrate their insights. This likely has a profound effect on polling. Where conservatives decline to even participate in polls, I bet the average liberal over-participates.
Finally, even if the polls are dead-on, a bit of perspective from Hugh Hewitt. The Washington Post is going on about how this election will disgrace Bush & Rove in political history. But, polls show the most likely outcome is for Republicans to retain the national Senate, barely, and lose the house by about 3 seats (loss of 15 seats). That compares to the following mid-term elections in a President’s second term:
* 1986 election (Ronald Reagan, President): Democrats gained 8 seats in the Senate and took control from the Republicans with a 55-45 majority. The Dems added 5 House seats to increase their majority to a 258 to 177.
* 1974 election (Richard Nix….oops! Gerald Ford, President): Democrats gained 4 seats in the Senate, for a total of 60 Democrats. Democrats added 49 seats in the House for 291 to 144 majority.
* 1958 election (Dwight D. Eisenhower, President): Democrats added 14 seats in the Senate for a 65-35 Democrat majority. Democrats added 48 seats in the House for a 283 to 153 majority.
* 1938 election: (Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President): Democrats lost 76 House in 1938, and six Senate seats.
If Bush and his policies in Iraq were as unpopular as the left (including MSM) says they are, the GOP would be facing numbers like those in ‘86, ‘74, and ‘58, or even ‘38.
That the GOP’s candidates and operations are in fact in reach of holding both bodies 10 days out speaks volumes about the president, Karl Rove, and the MSM’s ignorance of history.
Election night is going to be much fun. And remember, the early exit polls will show every Republican losing. It is just the way MSM works.
All in all, I don’t think the MSM is going to celebrating quite so much the day after election day as they think they will be.