Polls, Graphs and Madness

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Saturday March 12, 2016 · 10:58 AM PST

2016/03/12 · 10:58

Whether you FeeltheBern or YourWithHer, trying to make sense out of this primary seasons’ polls is enough to give you a nose bleed. After the debacle of polling versus votes in Michigan, I am (like many others) skeptical and suspicious of polling data. Despite Nate Silver’s 538.com polling mea culpa and declaration that Michigan was “a fluke, an anomaly”, I can’t help but feel more anxiety this time around. I want my candidate to win but find pollsters methods a little dubious and intentionally dishonest. Take for example Huffington Posts Pollster site. Graphs for state primary polls and general election polls differ between Democrats and Republicans. Both measure on the y-axis (dependent variable) in measures of 20. But the Republican graphs begin with 10 while Democrats’ graph is 20. This causes a bigger gap between Republican candidates and a smaller gap between Democratic candidates. Trump looks like he’s running away with it when polled against his closest rival, where, with the exact same percentage spread, Sanders looks excitingly closer to Clinton. It is intentional. It is meant to create feelings of “OMG he’s running away with it” or “You know, she isn’t that far ahead”. There are quite a few more examples on other sites. The pie charts on 270toWin.com show lot’s of undecided space...more than the % really should be. A big yellow pie slice when the slice would be barely visible if done correctly. No wonder I am twitchy. I think we’re being messed with.

Thoughts on Obama's Poll Numbers

Wallysmom

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Friday June 27, 2014 · 9:24 PM PDT

2014/06/27 · 21:24

I was doing a little investigative hunting this evening, partially because insomnia has kicked in. Seems that the turning point in the national polls for Obama were (and this is approximate) on July 8th of 2013. It was on this day and possibly this week, that he went from net favorable to net negative in almost all polling. Why? Staying marginally favorable, despite the election wind-down and international nonsense, it looked like smooth sailing to 2014 and the upcoming elections.
This was the day that Obama made the monumental error of announcing a delay in the implementation of certain aspects of Obamacare. Instead of talking about the GDP growth of 2.0%, which was the highest it had been in 5 years, and the deficit reduced to pre-2008 levels, the media chose to laser focus in on the delay of the employer mandate of the healthcare law. Republican doomsayers and right wing blogs were on fire. FOXNews was apoplectic. They couldn't decide whether they were happy or sad that employers got a break (after all, they are the employment engines of our economy). Instead of appeasement, they saw it as failure. There was no winning with them. And since, the President has not regained the approval numbers necessary to help Democratic candidates this November. Once again the negative cloud of Republicanism hangs over 2014.
Maybe after the Republicans self immolate with impeachment matches and gerry-cans full of lawsuits, Americans can reward Barack Obama with the positive approval numbers he deserves.

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