Shocker: Polling Tends To Overstate Support For Obama, Democrats
The Politico notes that polls tend overstate support for Obama and Democrats in general.
In theory, exit polls should match election results. But for all the care that goes into conducting accurate exit polls, errant results aren’t completely uncommon. Respected polling analyst Mark Blumenthal found that during the Democratic primaries this year, preliminary exit polls overestimated Obama’s strength in 18 of 20 states, by an average error of 7 percentage points, based on leaked early results.
The reason? Obama’s supporters were younger, better educated and often more enthusiastic than Hillary Clinton’s, meaning they were more likely to participate in exit polls.
I think it’s a bit stupid to assume that age and education level have anything to do with a willingness to talk to pollsters, but it is true that many people choose not to talk to pollsters. And those people who don’t like talking to pollsters tend to lean more to the right than to the left.
It’s kind of that “leave me alone” attitude conservatives foster.
So can this tendency to over sample liberals skew polls so badly that they can’t accurately predict election outcomes? It did in 2004:
In the end, Kerry’s vote was overstated in 26 states. The same was true for Bush in four states, according to a detailed post election analysis by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, who administer the exit poll for the NEP.
Important data to keep in mind as polls tighten with election day looming.
