Registered Voter Polls – The Drive-By Media’s Other Favorite Trick

Friends, the election is less than 3 months away. Traditionally, by this time, who is "likely" to vote is fairly well established. Yet the Drive-By Media has managed to generally eschew polls of Likely Voters in favor of continuing to poll all Registered Voters. The problem with that is simple: A significant amount of those registered to vote do not actually show up on Election Day. Furthermore, and this is important, multiple studies show that polling Registered Voters instead of Likely Voters tilts the poll 2-4% in favor of Democrats, since Republican voters are historically more reliable voters. 

The standard argument is that six months to a year before elections, who is a Likely Voter is tough to determine, so they continue to use Registered Voters. But now that we're so close, and the polls are so close (usually within the margin for error) it becomes increasingly important to focus on the Likely Voter. Yet Drive-By Media sources keep publishing those Registered Voter polls. 

Even using those less reliable polls, they are only showing President Obama ahead of Governor Romney by a point or two. For those of you from Palm Beach County, FL, that means that when we poll those who are actually going to show up to vote, we're looking at Governor Romney tied or winning by about two points. And don't forget, as we've continually established, the same Drive-By Media sources are using fantasy party samples that give Democrats an advantage of anywhere from 6-8% of the sample in the less egregious cases and as much as a +11% advantage in some of the more ridiculous samples. 

Now no political scientist worth their salt is going to honestly predict that the Democrats are looking at a +8% turnout advantage like they did in 2008. Actually, if one is being honest based upon voter engagement, they would predict that the Republicans will see the turnout advantage. So to oversample Democrats is just plain sophistry. 

One might wonder why the Left would be so dishonest in their polling samples. It's a very reasonable question. The answer is actually quite simple. They want to SHAPE public opinion with their polls, rather than reflect it. Especially, as we've discussed, in light of the phenomenon of the Real Clear Politics (RCP) poll average. There are a few reliable polls out there that AREN'T using bad samples and Registered Voters. Rasmussen, for example, was incredibly reliable in 2008, and always polls Likely Voters. Furthermore, Rasmussen does a daily poll of over 1500 people and publishes a 3-day rolling average. Gallup does the same type of daily poll with a rolling average. They do use Registered Voters, but they also use a sample that is triple the 1000 or so voters that most polls do (Gallup uses 3000) so the size of that sample makes the margin for error significantly smaller. (Liberal polls like to use even smaller samples on a regular basis, which increases the likelihood of unreliability). 

These two polls especially along with smaller reliable polls in individual states like Purple Strategies manage to undo a lot of the false reporting of the Drive-By Media polls and bring down the President's less than accurate leads to almost nil. Many many voters use the RCP average as do many news organizations. When Liberal polling agencies skew their own polls they skew the average. It makes it look like the President is doing better than he is really doing.

So what does this do to the electorate? I mean, after all, it's not going to disenfranchise conservatives from voting for Governor Romney, right? That part is correct. But what it will do is reduce their likelihood of CONTRIBUTING to the Romney/Ryan campaign, both financially and with their time. That will make a difference in an election, friends. It's not just the vote, it's the investment of money and time to get OTHERS to vote for your candidate.

So friends, when you see these polls of Registered Voters, I recommend you throw them out the window. It's just the Drive-By Media doing their best to convince you the fight is going badly for our side. And here's the news you need to know: Quite the opposite is happening. Momentum is on our side, and we are on the verge of taking back the White House!