It's been said that polls can be used to prove just about any argument one wants to make. Combine that with the mainstream media's desire to see Barack Obama get re-elected, and the result is predictable.
Such is the case with a new Associated Press poll released Wednesday that claims Barack Obama's approval rating is at 60 percent:
President Barack Obama's approval rating has hit its highest point in two years — 60 percent — and more than half of Americans now say he deserves to be re-elected, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll taken after U.S. forces killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
There's only one problem with the poll - the sampling data is heavily skewed toward Democrats.
The AP did not provide a link to the poll data, and one has to go to GfK's site to find it, but once there, one sees on page 37 that the breakdown of Democrats to Republicans is 46 - 29.
With a huge 17 point difference in the smpling rate, it is no wonder Obama's numbers are so high.
Moreover, those polled were listed as "adults" rather than "registered voters" or "likely voters.
Is the AP "cooking the books" with its polls in order to prop up the President?
A March AP poll put Obama's approval at 53 percent, with a 45 - 33 percent sample rate of Democrats to Republicans, respectively.
Tom Blumer of Newsbusters writes:
The latest poll's sample is so laughably distorted that Sidoti and Agiesta should be ashamed of themselves as journalists for taking its results seriously. Instead, they've reacted like over-candied kids. Their report, to coin a phrase, spikes the football, and even tries to create a sense of further momentum
Jim Geraghty of National Review also noticed the heavily skewed nature of the poll and writes:
For contrast, the AP’s immediate preceding poll was 45 percent Democrat, 33 percent Republican; the likely-voter pool in October 2010 was 43 percent Democrat, 48 percent Republican. The poll’s total sample in October 2010 split 43 percent Democrat, 40 percent Republican.
With a poll sample that has a 17-percentage-point margin in favor of the Democrats, is anyone surprised that these results look like a David Axelrod dream?
Why would the Associated Press feel a need to offer such skewed data - especially knowing that political observers would quickly spot something as obvious as this?
Blumer provides the answer:
The sad thing is that the AP surely knows that folks like yours truly and others will see through the poll's outrageous distortion. It seems pretty obvious that they don't care. What's appears to be far more important to the self-described Essential Global News Network is convincing the relatively less-informed who will see or hear the fantabulous 60% headline and won't look any further that the President is hugely popular, that his popularity is growing, and that they might as well get used to having Barack Obama in charge until January 20, 2017 -- while of course betting that most readers and viewers will never see the dirty work done in the kitchen that brought about the phony results.
It's one more example of the Democrat-media complex at work. You can expect to see a lot more of this type of "polling" between now and November 2012.
-----------------------------------------------------------
If you like this article, you can follow Joe on Twitter @jnewby1956, visit his Facebook page, or click the Subscribe button to receive email updates when a new article is published.
Comments