Magic Presto How DU moved a pollster 5 points to the left. [View all]

[grantcart]

Last edited Fri Nov 9, 2012, 03:46 PM - Edit history (1)

Don't have a lot of time but quickly two general points on the polling and prediction results. DU group wisdom was better than most of the punditry. North Carolina was largely written off as either a solid Romney or Lean Romney State. It was not. It was, until late in the night, a tossup state. It was the only toss up state that the President didn't win.

Here are the percents of difference in the 6 closest races (from CNN totals)

Florida .56 %
Ohio 1.92%
North Carolina 2.17 %
Virginia 2.96%
Colorado 4.3 %
New Hampshire 5.4%

We were right that North Carolina should have been ruled a toss up, within the MOE and not a lean Romney state, even though he did take it, the only swing state that went his way.

How DU Moved a pollster 5 points to the left

At a time when Romney was looking like he was going to lose every single swing state, and major media is recording that there is a sudden down turn in money coming into the Romney campaign a new pollster emerges and gives encouraging numbers showing Romney walking away in North Carolina, Virginia and Colorado. His numbers go into the averages, right wing bloggers rejoice and, apparently the money starts flowing into the Romney campaign again.

But many DUers call bullshit. And some ripples go out across the web. Astonishingly the owner, Douglas Kaplan (later to be known as Douglas "I am not a pollster" Kaplan) joins DU to defend his company. His responses are uninformed, weak and, remarkably, Kaplan is tossed off the site as an uninformed troll, not even meeting the admittedly low bar we have for trolls here.

Curiosity is raised and I launch an intensive long drawn out 27 minute investigation of Gravis while I am watching Matt Damon try to figure out for the 8th time why he was in Germany killing someone and why does everyone keep calling him Jason Bourne. Using the advanced investigative techniques that escape the New York Times and the rest of the media I take the extraordinary steps of clicking on Gravis Marketing. I then use the seldom used "Google" feature (if you are not familiar with it "Google" google and it will tell you more). This brings up a radio interview and I leave Matt Damon in his confused state and listen while doing paper work. When they get to the heart of the interview Kaplan remarks that the South Carolina's significance in the Republican Primary was because South Carolina "was the first state to leave the Union" and that's when I knew that this guy who presents himself as someone who has managed "national presidential and state campaigns" was in fact a buffoon of limited education or self awareness.

More investigation followed and on October 7th DU ran this thread to the head of the class stating, perhaps still a little too restrained and subtle for Major Media "DU Exclusive: Gravis Marketing exposed as a fraud" http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021489250

It goes out over the internet and various other sites pick it up.

And then a miracle happens.

Those states where Gravis Marketing shows Romney walking away before the DU expose suddenly jump back to the left by 5 points.

In fact Colorado jumps back in just a few days.

Let's look at the "DU Effect" on Gravis results (as sourced by polls listed with Silver)

North Carolina before DU (10/6) Gravis had North Carolina at 8.7% for Romney after DU expose Gravis pulled it down to 4.0 and the final result showed that the Pre DU Gravis was off by 6.7%

Virginia before DU (9/9) had Romney +5.3 and after DU expose Virginia was a tie (10/26) and the final result showed that the Pre DU Gravis was off by 8.2%

Colorado before DU (10/4) had Romney up 3.5% and AA supporting Romney over Obama and just one week later PRESTO (10/11) Gravis found a massive move to Obama who was now up 2.4% and the AA community had changed their minds back to supporting the President. Gravis' pre DU expose poll would be 8.8% the final result.

So to all of those FReepers, Cave Dwellers and Right Wing nut jobs that just rushed over and gave Kaplan a big embrace, we caught him red handed in the act and everything that we have said about Kaplan, and his past has been proven true. You can hire as many schmucks as you want to put lipstick on a pig but it is still just lipstick on a pig.

So while we got the pollster to jump back 5 points it should be noted that his pre DU expose numbers were 6.7 to 8.8% off the final result (Human events how do you like those numbers. Do you still consider that 'bullying'?)

Oh yeah and all of those toss up swing states that you reached in and got your hard earned money and threw it at the incredibly rich Romney so that he could appear to be competitive in for absolutely no effect?

He lost them all except NC, which was a cliff hanger.

We were right and you were duped.

Oh and one more thing, FOUR MORE YEARS.


Full index on Gravis Polls here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021568200