Battleground Watch

Plenty of erstwhile Romney supporters have complained that while polling consistently shows the race close, they remain troubled that a) Obama consistently leads in a predominant number of the polls and b) polls even show Obama pulling away. While there is a definite ‘pro-Obama’/'double standard on Romney’ bias in the media coverage of the candidates, pollsters are generally regarded as more reliable since they are easily fact-checked for biasing samples and also rely on their accuracy to stay in business.  Despite these checks and balances, it does not stop many pollsters from aggressively biasing their polls to serve partisan political purposes.  Here’s the Newsweek flashback from 2000.

September 16 —  Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore leads Republican rival George W. Bush by twelve points, according to a new Newsweek poll conducted Sept. 14 and 15. Among registered voters, Gore holds a 50 percent to 38 percent advantage, statistically unchanged from his 47-to-39 percent edge in last week’s poll.

Now everyone easily recalls that the narrative of the 2000 election was George Bush’s unbelievable ability to close a 12-point gap over the final 6-weeks of the election, right?  No. That’s not what happened? You mean Newsweek was consistently biasing its polls in favor of the Democrats?

If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Additionally Newsweek and pundits also likely would say one poll may be an outlier but these results are consistent with prior polling so it much be accurate.  Wrong.  A consistently biased poll will achieve consistently biased results. We see this in today’s polling every time the party ID split reflects a turnout similar to and often surpassing 2008′s Democrat wave (D +8) that will most certainly not even remotely be repeated this November.

Finally, it is important to note that inaccuracy in reporting can only go on for so long before market forces bankrupt you or render you non-consequential.  Maybe that is why the President hates free markets?