CNN Is Just Making Up Poll Numbers Now
It trumpets across its news page that, among registered voters, Obama is leading Romney 52-45. Looking deeper into the poll, however, we learn that these numbers include "leaners." In other words 52% of registered voters either support Obama or are "leaning" towards him. Now, there is nothing wrong with documenting voters who are "leaning" towards a candidate. But, you know, you have to document it! Knowing the percentage of voters who support a candidate and those who are currently "leaning" towards that candidate is what we call relevant information.
According to the sub-sample, though, Republicans and GOP-leaning Independents make up about 45% of CNN's overall sample of registered voters. (Hey, that's Romney's vote share!) So, around 55% are Democrat or Democrat-leaning independents. By this, not only is the poll a heavily skewed D+10, but Obama is underperforming at only 52%.
Maybe there is some large number of Independent voters in the poll who lean neither way, but we don't know, because CNN won't tell us. At this late stage in the campaign, if you don't show your work on a poll, then I'm just going to conclude you're making it up.
breitbart.com |
