Are Republicans Being Over-Sampled

Are Republicans Being Over-Sampled

Check this article out from Huffington Post.  Are the national surveys favoring McCain/Palin lately because the GOP voters are being over-sampled.

Gallup’s tracking poll, USA Today and CBS News all show the Republicans with some kind of lead over the Democratic ticket. But, interestingly, all three polls were also conducted using a higher sampling of Republican voters than in July, raising a question of methodology.

In a year in which Democrats have a lead of 11 million registered voters over Republicans, and have been adding to that advantage through a robust field operation, are pollsters over-sampling Republicans?

I have thoughts about the huge Democratic registration advantage myself.  In states like Pennsylvania (even in the County I work, Dauphin County, home of Harrisburg, PA, is for the first time majority Democratic in decades), Florida, Colorado, and Michigan, there are bigger numbered new registration for Democrats than Republicans.  Heck, even in Kentucky.  How about New Hampshire.

A big chunk of these new registered Democrats are young people, first time voters.  New generation voters in the fact, many do not have land phone lines, they have cell phones.  Pollsters aren’t reaching them.  How old are pollsters lists.  Are the even including new registered voters?

Now comes this story of GOP over-sampling.  Ok, so let me get this right, Democrats made not big, but HUGE gains nationwide in voter registration, but pollsters are increasing the sampling of GOP voters.

Theories?  One, they are just reaching more GOP voters.  Could be, but probably not.  Second, who are pollsters paid by?  Are they not paid by the media outlets?  Does USA Today pay Gallup for polling services?  So who benefits form a close race?  Well, the media definetly would by maintaining and possibly even growing viewership, that guess what, increases ad costs, which ultimately increases profits.  In addition, how do the pollsters get paid.  They get paid by the media.  If the race is close, the media continues paying pollsters more and more often.

Are these theories wrong?  Possibly.  But, think about the logic behind them.  Aren’t all businesses, USA Today and Gallup, Fox and Rasmussen, and others, aren’t they all driven by the bottom line?

If the theories are wrong, why the GOP over-sampling?  Are we in for a surprise on November 4th compared to what the pollsters are telling us?  Fact is, we can only hypothesize, but given how dysfunctional and poor the media coverage has been the Election cycle, how they pick and choose sides, how they slant stories to fit their whims, would you really be surprised by any of this?

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