Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Polling Madness: With A 51% Democratic Sample, Obama Can Only Get...50%??

Give Reuters credit for trying, in light of polls put out by the New York Times and the Washington Post - hardly conservative bastions - that showed Obama's approval rating at a sliver over 40%.  Hey, someone's got to allow their reputation to take (another) hit for the team, right?

For the first time since early July, more Americans approve of the job President Barack Obama is doing than disapprove, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll that shows his approval rating now at 50 percent.

The poll, taken March 8-11 on the heels of reports that 227,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in February, indicates that Obama’s rating has risen by 2 percentage points during the past month.


Just what Democrats had expected, what with the Republicans waging a war on women, shredding themselves with partisan infighting, and just being on the wrong side of every issue that's important to the American people.

And then you get to the part when you see the sample skew...

The Reuters/Ipsos telephone poll of 1,084 adults included 554 respondents who identified themselves as Democrats, 421 as Republicans, and 109 as independents. The total respondents included 937 registered voters.

So that's 51% Democrats, 38% Republican, after an election where the two parties were split 35%/35% in terms of voter turnout.  And the best Obama could pull down was...a measly 50% approval? In a poll that included unregistered voters (over 10% of  the total), who tend to respond overly Democratic in these types of surveys?

So he can barely hold his own party together, and is not picking up a single Republican or Independent voter. In a poll tilted wildly in his favor. Which means that the Times and WaPo surveys - which have the president as low as 41% and no higher than 46%, respectively - are closer to reality, albiet also likely leaning left.

And this is the guy the media tell us is inevitable in 2012.

Pollsters and politicians think we are, well -

“The first lesson you learn as a pollster is that people are stupid,” said Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling firm...

- but based on the polling date above - even the crooked ones - looks like the problem they have with us is that we are nut stupid enough.

We'll see.

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