by Mark Angelides
The Messed Up Media are so desperate to run down the President and , more importantly, show themselves to be the arbiters AND reflectors of truth, that they have taken to using the most biased information available if it backs up their point. The problem is that people don’t look at the raw data for the polls, and are therefore easily fooled.
The latest poll doing the rounds is from Public Polling Policy, who have done an attitude and opinions study based on current political happenings.
If you do have the time, take a look at the questions covered AND the raw data, the first 30 odd questions are all negatively geared towards President Trump. And they got the answers they were after. But closer examination and a proper balancing show a completely different story.
The Hill, for example, has cited these figures as being a positive move for Michelle Obama taking a run at the White House (the author does, however, point out that he personally does not endorse Obama). Doug Schoen’s article states:
“Just last month, Public Policy Polling found there to be “significant yearning for a return to the days of President Obama,” with 52 percent of voters saying they wish Barack Obama was still president, and only 39 percent preferring president Trump.
In fact, in a series of hypothetical match-ups between leading Democrats and President Trump, Barack Obama’s 52 percent represents the highest level of support, outnumbering Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren in particular.”
Now don’t get me wrong, I like Doug Schoen’s writing, and it is by no means his fault that the data he puts out is erroneous…the poll itself makes these conclusions. But if you dig into the raw data, there is a very different picture.
Q30 Who would you rather was President: Barack Obama or Donald Trump?
- Barack Obama 52%
- Donald Trump 39%
- Not sure 8%
This is the presented information. Now let’s look at who the people were who responded to the poll:
Q72 If you are a Democrat, press 1. If a Republican, press 2. If you are an independent or identify with another party, press 3.
- Democrat 41%
- Republican 31%
- Other 29%
So clearly there are more Democrats involved than Republicans. But it gets worse. Here’s the table for Trump’s versus Obama:
Look at how they have worked out this percentage. They have taken the five categories of voters, added together the % and then divided by five. It doesn’t seem a terrible methodology does it? But consider this… Where the respondents were asked who they voted for in 2016:
Q68 In the election for President, did you vote for Republican Donald Trump, Democrat Hillary Clinton, Libertarian Gary Johnson, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, or someone else?
- Donald Trump 39%
- Hillary Clinton 43%
- Gary Johnson 3%
- Jill Stein 0%
- Someone else 14%
So why does the Jill Stein vote get a share of that figure? The poll asked 887 people, so at best that means 7 or 8 people voted Green (at worst it was 1), yet in the table it is an equal fifth!
This is shoddy math. It is dishonestly presented, and it in no way depicts reality.
Just an extra bit for your enjoyment. The poll also showed that of the respondents who voted for Jill Stein in the 2016 election, 44% of them approve of Russia and Putin. Perhaps if there really is some Trump-Russia collusion, he could get the Green party on board for 2020?
They didn’t do the shoddy math you’re accusing them of.
(12+91+54+100+42)/5 = 59.8
(85+4+26+0+26)/5 = 28.2
They’d have Obomber beating Trump 59.8:28.2, with 11.8% not sure if they did the math that way.
I have to question their sampling of people though — where would you find 14% “Someone Else”s? Who is Someone Else in that context? Bernie Sanders voters who didn’t vote in the general election because they hate both Trump and Hitlery, perhaps? Doesn’t really qualify as “someone else” given they didn’t vote in the general election.
Either their “Someone Else” figure is inflated, or they’re dealing with people who aren’t truthful (ashamed of the choice they actually voted for?), or there was actually a massive turnout for “Someone Else” in the general election and all those votes were stolen.
I’m interested in the sampling methodology. For example, how many people did they solicit to participate in the poll, in order to get 887 actual responses? Suppose that they had to solicit 1,200 people. We need to know what the political affiliation and preferences were of the other 313 people in order to make an intelligent assessment of the poll’s results. Also, who would be more likely to blow off the pollsters? Trumpers or Obama supporters?
Of those 887 where do they live?, what education level do they have?, how about income? What was their vote in 2012 (remember that Reuters poll that over-sampled Obama vs. Romney voters 14%?)? How about methodology? Random dial? Self-identification? I really doubt it was face-to-face with verification of voting history and Party affiliation which is the gold standard.