We’re going to be hearing a lot about “skewed polls” between now and the election, because a lot of the big polls are showing Obama with a sizable lead, and as Rush said, “If that’s true, it’s over.”
So, Romney supporters will believe that the polls aren’t true because Romney supporters need to believe the polls aren’t true, so as to tamp down the desire to put a live grenade down their pants.
Luckily, there’s plenty of evidence, and plenty of precedent, to support that belief. Here’s Republican pollster John McLaughlin:
In a close race, the operatives are trying to manipulate the turnout through their paid and earned media. The earned media includes lobbying and trying to skew the public polls. Historically the most egregious case was the 2000 Gore campaign’s lobbying the networks’ exit pollsters for an early, and wrong, call in Florida.
…
The Democrats want to convince [these anti-Obama voters] falsely that Romney will lose to discourage them from voting. So they lobby the pollsters to weight their surveys to emulate the 2008 Democrat-heavy models. They are lobbying them now to affect early voting. IVR [Interactive Voice Response] polls are heavily weighted. You can weight to whatever result you want. Some polls have included sizable segments of voters who say they are ‘not enthusiastic’ to vote or non-voters to dilute Republicans. Major pollsters have samples with Republican affiliation in the 20 to 30 percent range, at such low levels not seen since the 1960s in states like Virginia, Florida, North Carolina and which then place Obama ahead. The intended effect is to suppress Republican turnout through media polling bias.
Sure enough, most of the polls have samples that are weighted crazily in favor of the Democrats. So, what do the polls look like with that bias removed? I’m glad you asked. Behold, I give you UnSkewedPolls.com, a site that gives you the results from all the big polls if they were de-skewed. Currently, the UnSkewed Polls average shows Romney with an almost eight point lead.
Time will tell if the unskewed polls are more accurate, but after hearing a steady stream of reports of Obama’s immanent victory, it gives you something to brighten your day.