L.A. Times Uses Skewed Sample to Show Fiorina Way Down
If you believe the poll, it shows Boxer up 51 to 43. The problem, as Allahpundit explains, is that the sample is completely skewed. Exit polls from Obama’s 2008 win showed Californians breaking down 42% (Dems), 28% (Ind.), 30% (Rep.). The L.A. Times‘s breakdown? 55% (Dems), 9% (Ind.), 35% (Rep.)
You would have to believe in a higher Democrat turnout in 2010 than 2008. Absurd.
I did some quick and dirty math to try to figure out how the poll would have looked if they had done the breakdown according to 2008 turnout numbers — which, even those are ridiculously skewed towards Democrats — and I got a result of 50-47 with Boxer in the lead. Feel free to check my math.
The poll seems designed to discourage Fiorina supporters. Luckily, we are smarter than that — and our recognition of the need for Unity means there is nobody who is going to prefer Boxer to Fiorina just because Fiorina isn’t pure enough.
Right?
This is not just a skewed poll, this is a fraudulent one. The evidence is the ridiculous bias in polling sample – its no accident. They wanted to manufacture a fraud.
SPQR (26be8b) — 9/26/2010 @ 4:34 pmWhile that does seem ridiculous, it wouldn’t surprise me if independents are somewhat less likely than partisans to vote in non-presidential elections.
Nels (3e56d7) — 9/26/2010 @ 4:44 pmIf Boxer happens to win, I suspect the LA Times will trumpet how it was an unexpected and unprecedented Democratic win that proves the GOP and the Tea Party are down for the count. But if Fiorina wins, this will never be mentioned again.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 9/26/2010 @ 4:53 pmThe snarky remark about purity, nice! As I recall, Carly won the primary. And, she is far to the right of Castle.
Zelsdorf Ragshaft III (002bea) — 9/26/2010 @ 5:09 pmYou’ve got issues…
SteveG (cc5dc9) — 9/26/2010 @ 5:18 pmSpeaking of bogus poll data, did you see this?
Howard Kurtz tweeted:
Uh, no…that’s NOT what the poll said, though I can’t tell what the hell they ARE saying (emphasis mine):
Wow. Devastating. Except, three graphs later the details don’t match up:
So…4 in 10 is twice as much as 40 percent?
dbnrnet (9b5710) — 9/26/2010 @ 5:25 pmGood find, dbnrnet, Kurtz completely misreads the poll.
SPQR (26be8b) — 9/26/2010 @ 5:28 pm“#
The snarky remark about purity, nice! As I recall, Carly won the primary. And, she is far to the right of Castle.
Comment by Zelsdorf Ragshaft III — 9/26/2010 @ 5:09 pm
”
Nobody gives a crap about Castle. However, as poor as his record was, it’s more conservative than two candidates supported by the Tea Party Express (if that matters). The snark is justified by all the people whining about Fiorina, who drastically outnumber anyone promoting Castle.
Mark Levin (b54cdc) — 9/26/2010 @ 5:38 pmI don’t think a call for Unity is even needed there — anyone who doesn’t recognize Boxer as slightly left of Stalin and Lenin — and thus needing removal from office — would have to be dumber than a box of hammers.
Or, as LBJ was so wont to colorfully describe it:
I think there’s a considerable difference between strongly encouraging a rightward shift towards more fiscal conservatives as candidates and voting in favor of a flaming libtard cockroach vs., well, even a slime mold.
IgotBupkis (9eeb86) — 9/26/2010 @ 5:40 pmI knew something was fishy. Can they get away with that? I am asking people I meet are they going to vote for either Brown or Boxer, because I really cannot find anyone within who I meet. The L.A. Times will sadly one day disappear because we in
George Escobar (e954ab) — 9/26/2010 @ 5:49 pmCalifornia are tired of the lies!
__________________________________
Comment by Mark Levin — 9/26/2010 @ 5:38 pm
With all the sock puppetry lately, it’s anyone’s guess whether you’re THE Mark Levin or not. Another “Mark” even posted a non-humorous entry in the thread reserved for sock puppets, whose purpose therefore didn’t seem to fit.
As for Fiorina vs. Boxer, since a lot of Californians feel that if the “Golden State” can’t come to Greece/Mexico/Spain, that Greece/Mexico/Spain therefore should come to the “Golden State,” I wouldn’t put it pass such geniuses to want to return Boxer to the US Senate.
Mark (411533) — 9/26/2010 @ 5:56 pmThis largely depends, if anything, on a number of factors, not the least of which regards the nature of voting requirements for independents.
Some states allow indies to vote in either/both races, FOR or AGAINST certain candidates. In this case one would assume the indies to be more likely to be swing voters, and swing voters are almost always better turnouts than non-swing. They actually have to work to justify their choices.
IgotBupkis (9eeb86) — 9/26/2010 @ 5:57 pmAs I read it, the poll sampling is based in part on the California Secretary of State’s 9/3/2010 report (issued 60 days before the November 2 general election) of Registration by Political Party, which shows a clear decline in GOP registration and slight increases in Democratic and Independent registrations. That doesn’t mean turnout or voting in a general election will follow those trends, but it could be bad news for the GOP.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 9/26/2010 @ 6:06 pmOn the other hand, the report provides data from the 4-year gubernatorial cycle and not for the last Presidential election. Many of those changes could very well have been from the 2008 election.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 9/26/2010 @ 6:10 pmCertainly the primaries showed a large enthusiasm gap cutting against Democratic turnout.
SPQR (26be8b) — 9/26/2010 @ 6:19 pmComment by dbnrnet — 9/26/2010 @ 5:25 pm
(and SPQR)
No, Kurtz read the poll correctly. The two paragraphs describe two different questions:
Question 1 focused in general on the idea of government involvement in health care. Forty percent think Obamacare did not go far enough. Twenty percent think there should be no government involvement. That leaves forty percent who are a combination of Obamacare is the right amount/don’t know/didn’t answer
Question 2 focused on approval/disapproval of Obamacare specifically. Forty percent did not approve of it. Presumably, half of those people are the people who don’t want government involvement in all. That leaves another twenty percent of the respondents who disapproved of Obamacare for other reasons–which include, for instance, people who approve of government involvement but think Obamacare is a totally screwed up incarnation of government control.
Actually, when you think of it, at least fifty percent of the respondents should have (logically) disapproved of Obamacare–the twenty percent who oppose government control on principle, and the thirty percent from the first question who think Obamacare did not go far enough–and on top of that, the people who disapprove of it for other reasons. Which means, I suppose, that at least ten percent of the respondents were Lefties who can’t figure out to pour urine from a boot heel…
kishnevi (c89e0a) — 9/26/2010 @ 6:33 pmat least fifty percent
kishnevi (c89e0a) — 9/26/2010 @ 6:38 pmgot my percentages mixed up. That should have been sixty percent, not fifty, and
at least ten percent of the respondents
should have been twenty.
kishnevi, but conflating the number that think government should not be involved with healthcare with the number that think Obamacare should not have passed is an error.
SPQR (26be8b) — 9/26/2010 @ 6:41 pmWhy?! Independents are not undecideds. Indies have investigated both parties to the point where issues matter more than party–and those people turn out to vote.
Patricia (9c62d9) — 9/26/2010 @ 6:59 pmThe folks who thought it did not go far enough may have meant that they would have liked to have seen some measure of tort reform to limit lawsuits related to health care. It is such a broadly asked question as to be almost meaningless.
Gazzer (c062b1) — 9/26/2010 @ 7:03 pmKishnevi, do you have a link to the internals? I read the article differently, (but I’m only going by the article).
I read the article to say 30 percent support the legislation (and among those 30 percent, 4 in 10 think it didn’t go far enough). And 40 percent oppose the legislation (and among those 40 percent, 1 in 5 want no government involvement in healthcare).
If you have a link to the details of the survey that support the statement, “that Americans who think the law should have done more outnumber those who think the government should stay out of health care by 2-to-1,” I’ll respectfully back down.
dbnrnet (9b5710) — 9/26/2010 @ 7:05 pmHow did that turn into a smart-ass comment about the dead horse “RINO’s vs. true Conservatives” debate?
Orbital (da6d56) — 9/26/2010 @ 7:11 pm“:Comment by Mark Levin — 9/26/2010 @ 5:38 pm
With all the sock puppetry lately, it’s anyone’s guess whether you’re THE Mark Levin or not. Another “Mark” even posted a non-humorous entry in the thread reserved for sock puppets, whose purpose therefore didn’t seem to fit.”
My apologies. That was obviously not Mark Levin, but rather me. I wasn’t attempting to make fun of Levin in this thread, but the moniker held over from the sockpuppet thread,.
Anyhow, attacking Castle doesn’t make sense. We all understand he’s hardly a proper conservative. It’s not a good rebuttal to people joking about unity to point out that Castle sucks, since that’s been granted for years.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 9/26/2010 @ 7:18 pmCastle is done.
SteveG (cc5dc9) — 9/26/2010 @ 7:35 pmOver.
The message was sent that the voters would like a little more conservative bang for their buck.
Fiorina is past the primary and matched against one of the worst liberal offenders in Congress.
I don’t know any conservatives who are not going to vote for Fiorina; sitting it out because she is somehow impure.
One would think the sample with have more independents 15% or 20% and a higher proportion
ian cormac (6709ab) — 9/26/2010 @ 7:38 pmof Republicans, maybe 40%
Field’s most recent poll shows Boxer 47, Fiorina 41, undecided 12, with a .44/.35/.21 split.
That’s slightly more Democratic than 2008, substantially more Republican than 2008, and substantially less Independent – suggesting that Field thinks that non-partisans are less motivated to vote.
It’s worth noting, too, that the 2008 60-day-before-election registration statistics showed 43.9 D, 32.3 R, 23.8 other. Meanwhile, the 60-day report in 2010 shows 44.3 D, 30.9 R, 24.8 other -> that is, over the last two years, Dem and ‘other’ (comprising non-partisan and third parties) registration have grown while Republican registration has fallen.
aphrael (fe2ce4) — 9/26/2010 @ 7:54 pmDRJ – the LAT’s representation of democratic voters is absurdly high, though. I mean, there’s some reason to believe Prop. 19 will increase democratic turnout, but this is still a year where republicans are generally more motivated than democrats.
Ian – It’s difficult to justify a 40% number for Republicans given that they have 30% registration; that’s an awfully big swing between registered voters and likely voters which there isn’t evidence for.
aphrael (fe2ce4) — 9/26/2010 @ 7:57 pmIt’s pretty damn egregious to sit that one out. Fiorina vs Boxer is one of the starkest and clearest choices a voter could hope for.
Sadly, some have actually said they will sit it out on this blog’s threads. That was another hard fought primary.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 9/26/2010 @ 7:58 pmDoubtful that many will actually sit it out… a vote not cast for Fiorina is a vote for Boxer…
SteveG (cc5dc9) — 9/26/2010 @ 8:13 pmBut some people are stupid… the fools on the right will be offset by the fools on the left that write in Cindy Sheehan.
Remember this fraudulent poll by a leftwing rag?
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/10/senate_poll_coakley_up_15_points/
LaFong (66dbdf) — 9/26/2010 @ 8:17 pmTeam R candidates have to earn votes from people. If happyfeet does not think that Fiorina has done enough to show her committment to principles that are in line with some voter, there is simply no obligation for said voter to vote for the Team R person. Team R does not own that vote, it belongs to the individual. If that person does not think that the Team R candidate has earned their vote, that is the fault of the Team R candidate, not happyfeet.
JD (3b62be) — 9/26/2010 @ 8:18 pmaphrael,
You make perfect sense but this is California we’re talking about. I’ll believe that big GOP turnout when I see it.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 9/26/2010 @ 8:56 pm___________________________________
If happyfeet does not think that Fiorina has done enough to show her committment to principles
He’s strikes me as having a peculiar strain of squishiness, certainly when it comes to a few social issues in which he appears to lean left. I guess people can be closeted liberals or closeted conservatives on certain occasions, so I’m not slamming him as much as trying to figure out what makes him tick. It’s just that if such a description does apply to the person in question, one would think that he or she of all people wouldn’t accuse politicians or other voters of not being pure enough.
Mark (411533) — 9/26/2010 @ 8:56 pmI would be surprise if you could find a purity test that happyfeet has advocated for. He just has a certain set of standards, no different than anyone else having their own standards. Are we not all individuals?
JD (3b62be) — 9/26/2010 @ 9:02 pmGoodnight, racists.
JD (3b62be) — 9/26/2010 @ 9:03 pmI don’t have a link to internals. However
I read the article to say 30 percent support the legislation (and among those 30 percent, 4 in 10 think it didn’t go far enough). And 40 percent oppose the legislation (and among those 40 percent, 1 in 5 want no government involvement in healthcare
I think you’re confusing the two questions.
kishnevi (c89e0a) — 9/26/2010 @ 9:07 pmThirty percent of those polled support Obamacare. Forty percent of those polled oppose it.
On the other question, forty percent of those polled (not just forty percent of those who support Obamacare, but forty percent of everyone) think it didn’t go far enough, twenty percent of those polled (not just twenty percent of those who disapprove of Obamacare, but twenty percent of those polled) think government should have no role in health care, and forty percent apparently don’t know what they think, think Obamacre went far enough but no further, or think Obamacare went too far but are not opposed in principle to government having a role in health care. Kurtz’s conflation may be inaccurate (to me it’s a defensible statement), but the statement in the article you quote is correct. Forty percent think there should be more government intervention, twenty percent think there should no government intervention, so there are twice as many of the former as of the latter.
Hmm. My Google-fu was not enough to bring up links to internals, but there was this interesting bit about the professor who co-ordinated the survey on behalf of Stanford.
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/6986/Academic-embarrassment-Prof-Jon-Krosnick-Exposed-for-faulty-climate-polls–Skewed-propagandized-and-presented-intellectually-dishonest-and-shallow-polling-analysis-KrosnickStanfordedu
kishnevi (c89e0a) — 9/26/2010 @ 9:45 pmHere’s something else skewed from the LA Times — another attempt to puff up a rival to the Tea Party.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (fb9e90) — 9/26/2010 @ 9:59 pmOT from #38
Bloomberg? Bloomberg is the very definition of a left wing nut job who loves to disguise himself as moderate.
His new advancement of the nanny state is not allowing people to smoke outdoors either. This goes on top of his salt, smoking, and other nanny state initiatives to “keep new york healthy.”
What bloomberg should do is work to get the 65% of City based New Yorkers on the public dole OFF IT, and cut the outrageous benefits and perks he continues to lavish on public sector employees plus maybe kabash the mosque…..
I detest that piece of human waste. Tax, Spend, Tell You What to Do. Bloomberg.
Heavensent (4f78d0) — 9/26/2010 @ 10:14 pmHilariously, http://www.electoralvote.com misattributes this poll to the “Louisiana Times”. See here, scroll down to the “New Senate Polls” section.
I complained in email, but it’s likely to get lost.
aphrael (fe2ce4) — 9/26/2010 @ 10:41 pmGreenberg Quinlan Rosner
That’s all you have to know, the poll was conducted by them. GQR isn’t a company dedicated to producing objective polls, it is political strategy company (for Democrats) which does some polling. The most newsworthy part of the poll is that USC and the LAT picked a campaign shop to produce an objective political poll (well not the LAT). Not that the fact that GQR is a political strategy company necessarily means that the poll is wrong, but that it should not be presumed to be right and should no more be used as a source of objective polling than Strategic Vision (alright, GQR is better than SV, but they are a strange choice for political polls when there are so many polling companies which aren’t part of political consulting shops).
max (2f2a28) — 9/26/2010 @ 10:52 pmSPQR – By definition the LAT polls is not fraudulent. If you set up a loaded dice game in an alley and tell everyone the dice are loaded, there is not fraud. If it were otherwise, Vegas would not be booming and Nevada would be occupied by native Americans, prospectors and gila monsters, and pretty much nothing more. The reason Patterico is able to put the division the LAT used for this poll is because the LAT was transparent about using that division. You lose credibility when you call something fraudulent that is merely arguable and arguably partisan. Either you have no idea what the difference is, which says something about your intelligence, or you do know and just want to crank up noise.
If you go over to any of the websites that specialize in poll aggregation (Pollster, 538 etc) plus even reality-based writers on some of the partisan sites (on both sides), you can read about how likely voters are to be defined is such a hot issue. Go back just two elections and this was not nearly the issue it is now. I would put the current level of interest down to being yet another effect of the rise of the blogosphere.
A related concept that is just starting to get written about is that the enthusiasm gap, which is certainly real, and has a lot of historical support as well, is not uniform across the country; not at all. One extreme would be South Carolina, where it seems pointless to be a registered Democrat; California may well be at or near the opposite extreme, where the combination o of national and state elections have generated enthusiasm in both bases, but, as Nels suggests at 2, perhaps not nearly so much among independents (or undecideds, if there is any big difference in an off POTUS election year). Texas is intriguing for the same reason. Indeed, all the really big population states seem to be having interesting gubernatorial races that, I should think, likely reflect a somewhat more complex dynamic than enthusiasm or none at the federal level. Otherwise, it makes sense that if independents are disappointed in Democrats but have even less faith in Republicans (which is what national polling has shown throughout the last six months at least), the result would be a lot more of them declining to vote at all.
On a separate matter, whoever has been posting as Mark Levin is obviously a sock puppet; but it also has been pointed out that sock puppetry has become rampant here, and I and my screen name in particular have become subjected to it, and on several threads that are not for sock puppetry.
Patterico, it seems to me, is making it clear, among other things by setting up a weekly sock puppetry thread, that this should not be happening. It hearkens back to his earlier thread on what kind of site this should be: full out one-side partisan, or at least tolerant of visitors and lurkers from the other side of the blogosphere. I note that some of this feeds back on itself: I will post something on a thread, then someone else will post something like it or some attempted satirical take on it or take it to an extreme, absurd or otherwise using my screen name, and then someone will post off the contradictions between what I have posted and what sock puppets have taken it to, and then a chorus will sound off on how I have not responded to even try to reconcile a contradiction that simply does not exist and was not of my making.
As I wrote on Patterico’s what-should-this-site-be post, it really is no skin off my nose or any other part of my body if this site turns full partisan — so long as that reflects Patterico’s intentions. I think that would be too bad, and I would probably not even bother checking in here if it did, because raw untreated partisan aggression is easily obtained elsewhere, and may actually be a more reliable take on a certain segment of the right. But if the sock puppetry is against Patterico’s will and plan and policy (and it does seem to be against the last, at least), then those responsible might wish to reflect on what they are doing to an enterprise they neither own and nor have responsibility for maintaining.
(Hoping not to dilute that last point, I have been looking for, and have not yet seen, a post on the most recent DADT decision.)
shooter (32dc25) — 9/26/2010 @ 10:57 pmThe UCLA School of Journalism would have been better and more honest than the flakey lefties at USC, whose faculties are as corrupt as their athletic department!
The UCLA Journalism School joined with the U. of Missouri a couple of years ago to do a much ignored study over three years showing the American media was hopelessly biased toward the left, so much so that FoxNEWS and Drudgereport were centrist because they covered news that was skewed to a leftist set of tropes and memes.
daveinboca (d0db99) — 9/26/2010 @ 11:00 pmOn an entirely different front, I had thought Mike Castle was not actually done, but was polling to help him consider a write-in effort, or whatever the rules in Delaware provide for. Moreover, I had assumed that if said polling suggested his standing for election would clearly cut into the bearded Marxist more than the Republican COD, that would provide him another reason to continue to campaign. If someone knows something different, and Castle has in fact retired from the race, I would appreciate a link.
shooter (32dc25) — 9/26/2010 @ 11:03 pmHold on. Mr. Shooter is no expert in statistics or poll taking. Since he has stated before that people, well, shoot their mouths off about things of which they know little, I wonder why he bothers with a Wall o’ Text on the subject?
Oh, I know. November is coming.
And, once again, the fellow is blissfully unaware of his own irony:
A laff riot, when you consider this person’s prior posts.
Eric Blair (9ed73e) — 9/26/2010 @ 11:21 pmEvening all. I would suspect that if the Times were trying to discourage conservatives from voting that poll would probably have the opposite action. Liberals (who are having a tough time to get motivated anyway) may sit it out thinking that Boxer is going to win while Conservatives will get even more fired up about voting to give Firorina the best chance possible.
scr_north (3da40b) — 9/26/2010 @ 11:24 pmshooter:
I saw one comment labeled as you that was not you and deleted it. If there are more, send me the links and I will delete them or re-name to the right person. If there are not more, then you have exaggerated the problem.
People need to be careful that their names don’t carry over from the sock puppet threads.
Patterico (6de867) — 9/26/2010 @ 11:31 pmPatterico – I expect the one you picked out was at the extreme of obvious, but I actually saw a whole hell of a lot more than one.
I will go back and pick them out.
shooter (32dc25) — 9/27/2010 @ 12:51 amthe LA Times has been known, on occasion, to possibly misstate things in their articles……
Pete Wilson (fb8750) — 9/27/2010 @ 1:18 amBullwinkle J. Dog Trainer: “Hey Rocky, watch me pull this poll out of my a$$!”
Icy Texan (23d8ae) — 9/27/2010 @ 1:19 amRocky: “Again? That trick never works!”
BJDT: “This time for sure! PRESTO!”
@19 Regarding Independents:
I can tell you for a fact that many many Independents, that is, people registered in the Independent Party in my state (Oregon) are most certainly undecided voters. The one thing I heard the most(I manage a political campaign up here) from people we contacted when seeking the Independent Party nomination is that they people DID NOT KNOW they were joining a political party when they X’d the Indy box on their registration form. This was by design by the I.P. in Oregon, a sort of invisible or accidental coup, if you will, to get more people under their banner. In fact, because of the new format of the registration cards here, the Independent Party has MORE registered voters than the GOP in my district (District 3, the most populace district in my state).
CT Lostaglia (ea2b04) — 9/27/2010 @ 1:53 amIts actually a pretty revealing poll in many respects; but for the narrow purposes of this thread, I will take on the Hot Air premise.
Allahpundit gets an oversimplification out of an assumption. His assumption is this: if a subject self-identifies as strong D, weak D or lean D, it all amounts to the same thing: D; and similarly, if a subject self-identifies as strong R, weak R or lean R, it all amounts to R.
There at least 4 reasons why this assumption is unsafe:
1) The poll does not say it worked that way. It does not say that anyone who self IDs as D no matter the strength of the self-ID is in fact a registered D, or conversely a registered R. Indeed, the word registered only appears once in the main body of the discussion, and only twice more in a single footnote on the same page, and in all three respects it is completed divorced from party registration.
2) The poll is not designed to elicit a vote preference per se. It is designed to elicit attitudes. Moreover, there is nothing in the design that suggests that it is in any way a push poll or is otherwise disingenuous in its approach. There is a fairly well developed literature on the nature of push polls, and I expect I am not the only commenter here who is familiar with it from work or being involved in campaigns; this poll does not demonstrate any of the classic signs of a push poll, nor to my eye are there any such signs implied or just subtle. If anyone here wishes to disagree, well, you will anyway, but everyone here is just as free as I was to look through the poll and try to pick through it all and point to such signs.
3) It was not within the ambit of this poll, but it appears possible (my guess likely) that there is a material difference between the sort of person who self-IDs as weak or lean D on the one hand and the sort of person who self-IDs as weak or lean R on the other.
Partly I think this goes to the nature of how the two parties work and have always worked, that is: the R party as a coalition of Rs with various conservative interest groups, some of them even single interest groups, who rarely if ever vote D, at least in California; versus the D party as a coalition of Ds with progressives and liberals, who incline D but one cannot assume they will not vote R, and interest groups, some of them even single interest groups, some of which are going to vote for whichever side commits to support their interest.
An example of this is skilled laborers. Certainly unionized skilled laborers would seem more likely to vote D over R, but there are many non-unionized skilled laborers, and not just in California, who identify strongly with single interest groups who generally favor Rs.
But again, quite apart from this not being mentioned in the discussion (because, again, its beyond or outside the ambit of the poll), I very much doubt the same phenomenon applies, not at all is too strong but at least as strongly, to anyone who self-IDs as R, no matter the strength of that self-ID, because generally one is not an R or even considering voting R at this point, especially in an electoral environment in a generally lean-D state, in a year where Rs remain more disliked than Ds, unless one has a general default to vote R.
So, you cannot just add up 25 plus 19 plus 11 and get 51 D registered voters; some of those weak and lean Ds are going to be registered independents, especially in the lean category. But if add up 14 plus 9 plus 12, you may very well get in the total of 35 something a lot closer to the percentage of registered Rs among registered voters.
Allahpundit points to the 2008 split of 42-30; this poll could reflect that split, or something even more inclined toward the R side (though I doubt the latter, given the probability that the enthusiasm gap is playing out in a Californiaish way that differs at least somewhat from say a Pennsylvaniaish way).
4) Allahpundit also notes the 9 number for independents versus 28 for them in 2008. Pollsters are in consensus that there is actually a greater percentage of independents this year than in 2008. That would suggest that the rest of the independents beyond 9, whether at 28 or some higher number, are to be found in the weak and lean categories, and that 9 simply reflects the percentage of independents who were not leaning one way or the other in terms of D versus R. The total percent number available for independents to be found in is at least 58.
I expect Allahpundit is reviewing so many polls in such a little space of time these days that the subtleties can escape him, but this poll is definitely, to borrow from Sesame Street lingo, not like the others. I acknowledge he did pick out the notably-higher-than-national-average approval rate for Obama, but even then may go too far into the deep end on future prospects for California Rs: this is, after all, where Nixon and Reagan came from, and never is an awful long time; rather, it could well be that the Governator has had something to do with the Obama approval-disapproval splits, both in comparative performance and in his frequent public statements in support of particular Obama policies. If Whitman were to win and the Republicans take over Congress, that is bound to change … one way or other.
shooter (32dc25) — 9/27/2010 @ 1:59 amI put these brief extra comments on the Allahpundit post separately for obvious reasons:
A) As to the Kentucky poll, someone should call up SurveyUSA and tell them Hot Air is accusing them of suddenly turning D, because it will come as a huge surprise. 538.com identified SUSA as a slight lean-R bias in the 2008 election (Silver was not being critical, just observing.), and nothing has happened to change that assessment. The real news is that Conway has been cutting into the female vote and those earning over fifty grand a year; neither should be any surprise. The real question is whether there is any more room for Conway to grow his support. He had lots of room a month ago, given his advantage in approval-disapproval and in Kentuckians then not knowing much about him, but Kentucky only has under 4.5 million and somewhere closer to a third of that in voters, so its not as if his growth potential was unlimited. The poll reflects only 4% undecided, which, yes is within its margin of error; but NO poll exists which puts Conway in the lead, and those 4@ are not going to break uniformly for one candidate or the other, or even all vote.
The same DIScomfort Allahpundit has with the California poll should be COMFORT with the Kentucky one. The way I see it, given the extremely low incident of cell-phone-onlies and newly-homeless in Kentucky, unless Rand Paul suddenly decides to go back on the Rachel Maddow Show, that race is done.
B) Allahpundit is showing too much enthusiasm for the Chronicle non-endorsement. Firstly, no one reads the damn thing anymore. Secondly, since when has anyone this side of 2004 taken a newspaper endorsement seriously. Thirdly, if you go through the details, they attack Boxer for not being liberal enough and not holding to her promises to be liberal, whereas they totally dismiss Fiorina as a complete waste of time. If anything, this might influence centrists to go to the polls to vote Boxer; as Obama has shown by his repeated hippie-punching, the choice for progressives and liberals is vote D or not vote at all, and those folks always vote, no matter how much they gripe.
shooter (32dc25) — 9/27/2010 @ 2:24 amPutting out a poll like this can actually help Carly…I say that because if the Republicans think they are behind, they will be more determined to show up and vote.
Terrye (368a41) — 9/27/2010 @ 4:00 amKishnevi, You may be right. I won’t try to argue with you without the data to back it up, which I don’t have. But, the wording in the article leads me to believe it isn’t two separate questions, one of which had a 2-to-1 margin of difference.
The sentence that begins with “On the other side” reads to me like an obfuscated way to say, “among those who oppose the law, 1 in 5 do so because they think the federal government should not be involved in health care at all.”
Again, without the internals, it’s pure conjecture. But I suspect they’re comparing apples to bowling balls and touting how heavy their oranges are.
So, four in 10 adults out of the total survey pool think the new law did not go far enough. One in 5 adults out of the 40% in the survey who oppose the legislation do so because they think the federal government should not be involved in health care. No explanation for the remaining 80% of respondents who oppose the legislation is given in the article. But they’re touting the 40% number against a micro-segment of the opposition and claiming overwhelming support for more government intervention in healthcare.
If that’s the case, it’s deeply dishonest analysis of the data – which they haven’t released…which adds to my skepticism.
dbnrnet (9b5710) — 9/27/2010 @ 4:22 amTwo word: demon sheep.
Heh.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 9/27/2010 @ 6:30 amOn an entirely different front
And just like we all expected, yet another threadjack from Mr. Professional Political Campaign operative.
Patterico – I expect the one you picked out was at the extreme of obvious, but I actually saw a whole hell of a lot more than one.
I will go back and pick them out.
And yet, ten hours later, nothing. How typical.
Dmac (84da91) — 9/27/2010 @ 6:52 amI heard on the radio that the Los Angeles Times had done a poll–and that Brown was ahead of Whitman and Boxer was ahead of Fiorina.
My reaction? Another one of those skewed half assed Los Angeles Times polls that have consistently been left of reality. My gut says that the races will be close–after all we have a gazillion lefties in California. But I’m not at all certain that the Times polls are accurate. They’ve got a long track record of being off the beam down on Spring Street.
OTOH I was out at UCLA a couple of days ago and picked up a copy of the Daily Bruin–the student newspaper. Surprise–it was better written and more professional than the Dog Trainer, and was thicker. What happens to journalism majors when they leave UCLA and go to work for the Times? Do they forget everything they ever knew?
Mike Myers (3c9845) — 9/27/2010 @ 6:53 amBtw, i suggest a new slogan for this plog.
Patterico’s Pontifications: I Read the LA Times, so you don’t have to!
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 9/27/2010 @ 6:58 amSo many words, so little substance. Aggressive partisans !!!!!!!!!!!!!
JD (c98857) — 9/27/2010 @ 7:22 amOn the healthcare poll you are discussing, isn’t the writer comparing apples and oranges?
If one side thinks the bill didn’t go far enough, the counterpart shouldn’t be “people who think government shouldn’t be involved in health care at all”, it should be “people who think the health care bill went too far”.
There may be people who think govt has a role (the FDA managing drug testing, SOME regulation of insurance companies to keep them in line, etc.) but didn’t want it expanded.
These people are not counted in the results and the writer cherry-picked a more extreme conservative position so he could cite that 2-1 ratio.
Phil (4937b7) — 9/27/2010 @ 7:29 amit could well be that the Governator has had something to do with the Obama approval-disapproval splits, both in comparative performance and in his frequent public statements in support of particular Obama policies
doubtful.
the Governator has managed to irritate/anger everyone, just about, and has extremely low approval ratings and very low credibility with anyone.
aphrael (fe2ce4) — 9/27/2010 @ 7:31 amHis disapproval ratings rival that of Teh One, no, aphrael?
JD (c98857) — 9/27/2010 @ 7:40 amPleasen do. I just went back and looked and there has been none since the time you complained over the weekend and I deleted it. And that one was just an accident by someone who pretended to be you on a sock-puppet thread, and then failed to change the name by accident.
You are portraying this as a sock-puuppet epidemic on serious threads and it is not. I do not tolerate that. Only on threads explicitly labeled sock-puppet threads, for fun.
Patterico (967323) — 9/27/2010 @ 8:33 amWell unfortunately the Field Poll is pretty damn accurate-and they have here slipping in the past weeks by some 3%. [ Now in total behind by 6%]
Old hand for Pete Wilson-said-umm you don’t want to know what he said.
Basically in California -as it has such a large population even 1% you are talking about a large number.
What happened to Fiorina in the last couple of weeks.
Well-sure there were the local ads-but being a female Republican candidate did she perhaps get associated by proxy to someone else nationally?
Did Republican bloggers-instead of promoting their strongest candidates like Fiorina who had Boxer on the ropes-promote their weakest link?
Christine O’Donnell.
Add to all of that-the lesson of the 2000 election.
Californians watch the East Coast results. A loss that is well publicized- like Ohio or Florida-[actually later wins] suppresses voter turn out.
Now imagine the opposite effect like I don’t know the media having to report the turn around of a state that hasn’t gone Republican in decades.
The former seat of the sitting Vice President going to the party opposite.
Say you have candidates within the margin of fraud-something like that might have helped Republicans on the ground in Western states overcome that margin of fraud and pull their candidates across the finish line.
But now it’s that much closer in ____________ so it’s that much harder out West.
btw-The Field Poll also showed that 59% of the electorate do not ID w/ the _____ Party.
madawaskan (565543) — 9/27/2010 @ 9:04 amI leave you with this;
Watch Barbara Boxer
We had her on the $#%@ damn ropes.
From the video linked-
America’s Best Days Are Behind Her
Watch it and weep.
madawaskan (565543) — 9/27/2010 @ 9:09 amIf you can’t win back California when it is suffering from ~14.4% unemployment-when are you going to win it?
Don’t think California is worth it-it must be sacrificed in the name of purity or whatever the hell the motive is, try this on for size-
California’s economy is the largest of any state in the US, and is the eighth largest economy in the world.
madawaskan (565543) — 9/27/2010 @ 9:14 amJD – in California? Obama still has slightly positive approval ratings in California. Schwarzenegger’s are significantly worse.
aphrael (9802d6) — 9/27/2010 @ 11:36 amGood for the LA Times. The right will vote. This poll is designed to encourage the left to come out and vote. However, it’s way too early. In two weeks this will be a forgotten outlier. They really needed these encouraging numbers three weeks from now, when there isn’t over a month for the faux trend to collapse. Now this poll is going to be ‘stepped on’ with results closer to the other poll numbers and then it’s down the memory hole (with the template saved for the next election cycle).
They can call out any Cali Pres. approval rating they want. On election day we’ll get the facts because Boxer = Obama = two idealogues with little in the way of experience or empirical results. When Boxer loses, that seals The One’s fate as well.
East Bay Jay (2fd7f7) — 9/27/2010 @ 2:14 pmwhen there isn’t over a month for the faux trend to collapse
It’s not clear that it’s a faux trend; the Field poll, which had much more reasonable crosstabs, had similar results.
Also: voting begins next week.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/27/2010 @ 2:22 pmWhen Boxer loses, that seals The One’s fate as well.
So if Fiorina loses, I expect you to give up on beating Obama in California in 2012. 🙂
Or is this a one-way equivalence?
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/27/2010 @ 2:23 pmAphrael – pont taken, but I meant their overall number, not just The One’s in CA.
JD (efa573) — 9/27/2010 @ 2:45 pmHey, whatever happened to shooter’s righteous pronouncement of proof of wrongdoing?
(crickets chirping)
I’m going to tie this can to his backside on every one of his posts from now on.
Dmac (84da91) — 9/27/2010 @ 2:50 pmJD: even by those metrics, Obama is doing better than Schwarzenegger.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/27/2010 @ 3:09 pmDmac, that was just last night. ISTM that a period of 24 hours is required before you can start with chirping crickets.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/27/2010 @ 3:25 pmIs that the rule? Guess I learn something new every day.
Dmac (84da91) — 9/27/2010 @ 3:34 pmSpeaking just for myself, yes: I assume that people are busy enough that presence on a website at 1am doesn’t imply presence during working hours the next day. 🙂
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/27/2010 @ 3:41 pmSure hope you folks get your way on this one.
Larry Reilly (ae99e7) — 9/27/2010 @ 6:44 pmWe need someone in that position who has been at the top, even a failure, who can speak plainly and honestly about the need to lay off lots of workers…….and why sending their jobs overseas is not only a necessity (e.g. to pay for Fiorina’s golden parachute) but the right thing to do.
It’s not failure is not an option among Republican leaders. It’s a necessity.
Mawy is off his rocker again.
JD (cc3aa7) — 9/27/2010 @ 6:53 pmHas shooter backed up his claim of serial sockpuppetry yet?
JD (eb1dfe) — 9/27/2010 @ 7:37 pmI got a funny email today:
Come to think of it:
DRJ (d43dcd) — 9/27/2010 @ 7:38 pmMinor correction, DRJ. The use of was implies past tense. Obama remains a fool.
JD (eb1dfe) — 9/27/2010 @ 8:03 pmAmerican workers want to work.
When I say that, I’m not talking about shooter’s dream of some sort of socialized amalgam of of disenfranchised fellow-travelers who think a paternal government has all the solutions.
I’m talking about real Americans who know how to do their jobs, who don’t rely on the government or their corrupt unions to tell them how to think.
I won’t argue that management has taken advantage of the workers in the past, present or future, but I do know this, the American worker indeed works for his or her family and the country.
The problem isn’t the American worker, the problem is a government that enacts laws that make it too difficult for a democratic and capitalist nation to compete against nations who treat their workers as slaves.
This nation is far beyond the days of “The Jungle,” yet, it continues to debate as if children are the workforce.
That debate says far more about the detractors than it does about the workers.
Ag80 (5c7ef4) — 9/27/2010 @ 8:16 pmSo East Bay Jay is celebrating that the LA Times is faking a poll for partisan benefit.
Well, that tells you who the LAT’s audience is, doesn’t it?
SPQR (26be8b) — 9/27/2010 @ 8:48 pm_________________________________________
Don’t think California is worth it-it must be sacrificed in the name of purity or whatever the hell the motive is, try this on for size-
California’s economy is the largest of any state in the US, and is the eighth largest economy in the world.
That ranking tends to be somewhat distorted since California occupies a larger land mass compared with the much smaller states of the East Coast or Southeast.
I know the even larger economy of Japan was in a slump during much of the 1990s (aka the “lost decade”), while the US and Europe were doing quite well, if not great. So whether California in the context of the US as a whole booms or flounders may have only a limited bearing on the country in general.
I know that if I were an East Coaster or Midwesterner secretly rooting against the “Golden State” and wanting to more easily compete against it, I’d smile at the idea of it becoming as leftwing as possible. The thought of California turning into a combination of Greece, Mexico and Spain all rolled into one should make such people chuckle.
On a micro-level, urban America (eg, Chicago, LA, Atlanta, New York) contains neighborhoods that have been relatively affluent for decades, while not too many miles away other neighborhoods have been in a recession (if not flat-out depression) for decades (eg, South-Central LA, Detroit, parts of Washington DC, Oakland, etc).
One thing I do notice, is that almost no city, state or country that has suffered from a lot of dysfunction and decline has also, at the same time, been dominated by too many conservative politicians and right-leaning sentiments. OTOH, I can think of a whole lot of cities, states and nations that have stumbled and fumbled around and also been full of a lot of sloppy liberal pols and lazy liberal biases. Of course, there are the exceptions to the rule, which then reflect the major role of good or bad demographics.
Mark (411533) — 9/27/2010 @ 9:30 pmNate Silver addressed this poll today here:
http://tiny.cc/ag4y6
His conclusion is that it is NOT skewed, but within the margins of the aggregate of polls.
He specifically notes that the folks who designed the poll and did the analysis point to page #1 of their cross-tabs, which show the split of registered D voters to registered R voters was 8%.
This a quote from them on the 538.com site:
Eight. Not twenty. Eight.
Game. Set. Match
shooter (32dc25) — 9/28/2010 @ 12:47 amShooter, your link, to the die hard democrat biased NYT, claims there isn’t enough evidence to reach a conclusion, and also that the more reliable indicators show the poll is wrong.
Sure, the article goes around and around trying to explain it can’t be proven that the bad poll is a bad poll. So what? It’s the NYT.
I have seen more wrong news in that paper than any other. Every debunked anti military smear seems to start there. Mccain’s affair, the supposed Boehner affair (said to be on hold until the perfect time for an NYT article to sway the election), that J-list scandal, and myriad other examples where the NYT makes Sean Hannity look like objectivity. It’s like quoting Democratic Underground.
That’s why you have to boast “Game. Set. Match” for us… you know your evidence didn’t make the case. I look forward to hearing you say that in November, too.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 9/28/2010 @ 4:44 amDid shooter ever back up its claim of serial sockpuppetry?
Isn’t it likely that they used registrations because party ID has swung towards Team R?
JD (fc59fb) — 9/28/2010 @ 6:10 amGame. Set. Match
Let’s see some proof for your ealier claims regarding sockpuppets. Now – all of it.
Dmac (84da91) — 9/28/2010 @ 9:33 amDustin: it’s worth distinguishing between the New York Times in general and Nate Silver, who got hired by the New York Times this summer and whose website is now hosted off of the NYT. Silver, a former baseball statistician, started doing poll analysis work in 2008, and his website (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com) was the most reliable predictor of the 2008 election results.
He’s admitted to a left-leaning political bias, but in general that bias stays out of his statistical analysis, and he’s been uncommonly good about explaining his methods.
Note that on the NYT site, there are two different sets of predictive tools – one the nate silver/538 set, and one the traditional NYT set. They offer very different results.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/28/2010 @ 10:30 amMoving beyond the question of whether we should automatically discount Nate Silver’s analysis because he’s now employed by the NYT, here’s his argument in a nutshell:
* The Whitman campaign posted a note complaining that Field’s profile of likely voters is 44 D / 35 R, while the LAT polls show a 14-20 point advantage.
Silver’s response is:
(1) among likely voters, the LAT poll shows a 14-point advantage, the 20 point advantage is among registered voters (and therefore not a fair comparison to Field, whose numbers were of likely voters)
(2) the exit polls from 2008 showed a 12-point advantage for Democrats
(3) there is a plausible theory for why California’s Democrats *might* increase their percentage (the combination of (a) prop 19, (b) long-term decline in republican affiliation in California, and (c) discontent with Schwarzenegger).
therefore, the 14 point margin in the LAT poll is not “manifestly unrealistic”; it’s within the range of acceptable variation.
He adds that he would “not bet against the Field Poll, which has a good track record.”
—————
I think the sum total of the disagreement is over the effect of (3): how plausible is it that Democrats might increase their percentage relative to Republicans in California? I think it’s implausible, you think it’s implausible … but it is it so clearly implausible as to be outside the bounds of reasonable theory?
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/28/2010 @ 11:23 amHe specifically notes that the folks who designed the poll and did the analysis point to page #1 of their cross-tabs, which show the split of registered D voters to registered R voters was 8%.
I think that’s a subtle mischaracterization.
At the end of Silver’s analysis, he appended an “update” with a comment from a spokesperson for the company that the LAT outsourced the poll to. The spokesman specifically points to the differentiation between registration and party ID, and says that the Whitman campaign is comparing Field’s registration numbers to LAT’s party-ID numbers, which is unfair.
That comment was not part of Silver’s analysis itself.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/28/2010 @ 11:25 am