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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMagic Presto How DU moved a pollster 5 points to the left.
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
grantcart
(53,061 posts)nc4bo
(17,651 posts)I can't tell you how disappointed I am that NC couldn't come through a 2nd time for the Prez. So many worked so incredibly hard to make it so and we did come extremely close!! Well done my NC brothers and sisters!!
If there's nothing else to take away, we did it once, we'll do it again!!
And big thanks to Grantcart and all the other people who worked to expose fraud!!
grantcart
(53,061 posts)Maybe Gravis' numbers discouraged some. Maybe it encouraged others to fight back.
But of all of the great battles of the 2008 and 2012 campaign I find the stories coming out of NC to be the most heart warming.
And we changed NC forever, and in that sense we have won.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)So--
Congratulations
and Thanks
grantcart
(53,061 posts)Coexist
(24,542 posts)grantcart
(53,061 posts)central scrutinizer
(11,617 posts)Garbage in - shit out
[link:
grantcart
(53,061 posts)ananda
(28,782 posts)Matt Damon thanks you too!
BumRushDaShow
(127,283 posts)as a fraud and joined the fraud Gravis! Thank you!
grantcart
(53,061 posts)CoffeeCat
(24,411 posts)...and his horrifying agenda, flip flopping and vampire capitalism. This election also shredded any credibility that Dick Morris, Karl Rove, Rasmussen, Gallup and Gravis ever had.
I kept posting about the right-wing echo chamber, in the context of this election. Republicans and all right-wing radio programs and right-leaning websites were filled with followers who were absolutely convinced that Romney would not only win, but win in a landslide.
They believed this ridiculous meme because they were force-fed fake polls, magical math and absurd notions that had absolutely no basis in fact.
My favorite meme, "We've got the enthusiasm on our side! Obama's side has no enthusiasm!". Or how about, "Romney is winning with Independents. There is no way he can lose!" Oh, there were so many bizarre assertions that basically--were made up out of whole cloth.
YES, Romney was winning with Independents. That's a soundbyte, but those Republicans and Fox pundits knew damn well that there was more to the story. Obama was winning handily with women, Hispanics, African Americans and suburbanites.
I keep hoping that this may be a moment where some of these right-wingers realize that Fox News and types like Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh and Coulter have continually sold them lies and disinformation. It's become cult like. Consumers of this gobbledygook never question it. They just eat it up.
Maybe now--as these pundits have been revealed as charlatans--they will start questioning all of the propaganda. Maybe, just maybe--universal healthcare won't kill our nation. Maybe increasing taxes for millionaires and billionaires won't destroy the economy. Maybe, going to war--because Brett Bair and Sarah Palin talked you into it---really isn't such a great idea.
Fox News makes so much money bamboozling these people. I hope we're at a point in this country where consumers of this hate, rethink what they're listening to and watching.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)their viewers from them.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)In a poll commissioned by Tampa Bay Times and the Miami Herald last weekend had Romney leading Florida by 6 points. Obama won by over 1/2. Thats quite a large error.
tavalon
(27,985 posts)No, large lie. I'm done using weasily words.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)It was Mason-Dixon, not Gallup as I thought. Certainly there were a couple pollsters who were just spewing propaganda, like Gravis. MD actually is a polling company, and this poll was done for non-partisan news outlets. WHere they went wrong (and many of the other polls), was their LV model falsely assumed Dems had an enthusiasm gap, thus wouldn't repeat the minority and youth turnout of 2008. But OFA in fact had a strong ground game that didn't stop after 2008... they kept building the base in AA barbershops, Hispanic beauty salons,etc. The minority and youth turnout even exceeded 2008, which caught both pollsters and the GOP by surprise, and offset the losses Obama had with Independants.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)LaydeeBug
(10,291 posts)grantcart
(53,061 posts)LaydeeBug
(10,291 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)thevoiceofreason
(3,440 posts)They've updated and added another 500 to the President's total this orning, but that was the result in the local fishwrap this morning.
http://www.chron.com/news/politics/harrisvoting/
grantcart
(53,061 posts)thevoiceofreason
(3,440 posts)There will be a midterm uprising from the unwashed.
Our primary goal is to keep educating and registering Hispanics - there were some signs in Houston that such efforts in primarily Hispanic state representative districts paid off. It will also help us immeasurably if we could get an influx of presidential money in 2016, because facts are facts: Presidential races stir up excitement and Texas gets the royal shaft every presidential year - I'd be surprised if the last 4 democratic general election presidential campaigns spent $0.15 in Texas for every dollar given by Texans.
Maybe a SuperPAC for that purpose. Hell, since we have nonparty voter registration, it could go 501(c)(3).
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)grantcart
(53,061 posts)cliffordu
(30,994 posts)Another excellent piece, my friend.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)take 27 minutes to get to the bottom of it by going to their website and see what they were saying about themselves and it was a complete stroke of serendipity that my mouse went to their link and clicked on it. We should not fault any of the media for not being able to unravel such a masterful puzzle.
On a completely different note I was walking in the park yesterday. I saw a big rock. I lifted it up and there were several bugs scurrying around underneath that rock. This is a major discovery. Did you know that if you lift up suspicious looking rocks that you can actually find bugs underneath them?
cliffordu
(30,994 posts)CoffeeCat
(24,411 posts)I applaud you for your follow through. We are bombarded by so much spin, lies and dirty tricks from the right--and we tend to rail against it. However, rarely does someone "follow through." It's sounds so easy, but it's not. It takes time and commitment and a willingness to seek truth, as you get attacked for it.
You took these guys on. You knew Gravis was phony and you sought the truth.
You changed things.
Seriously, this is all it takes to fight the propaganda on the right. It takes going the extra mile. However, for whatever reasons, many of us just don't. The truth is--these concocted polls and lies from Fox News and dirty tricks--are being perpetrated by thugs. It's easy to back down from something that you view as bigger than yourself. Gravis was supposedly a national poll. Taking it on, might seem futile.
However, you did it. You really are a hero.
I think people like you--who refused to take the lies and crimes--were critical in Obama's win. This time, we refused to accept dirty polls. We refused to step out of a 3 hour voting line. We refused to accept tea partiers inside our polling locations. We refused to back down to voter suppression and intimidation.
This is the year, where Democrats decides that we were done being doormats for Republican bullies. You are an amazing example of that bravery--and you should be really proud of yourself!
grantcart
(53,061 posts)CoffeeCat
(24,411 posts)What does "google" mean, in he context of my response to the OP?
grantcart
(53,061 posts)Just got through with work and apparently I was about to say how much I appreciated your kind words.
Off to bed!!
reformist2
(9,841 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)nolabels
(13,133 posts)The billionaires and the others that would want to be and support them like the mantra of double down. You can bet they won't just give up because they lost this one. They will be back, just like the cockroaches they are. I figure it might take three or four cycles for them to give up, hopefully by then the world will be a much different place by then
countmyvote4real
(4,023 posts)Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)the dark underbelly of the RW.
RagAss
(13,832 posts)lexw
(804 posts)flamingdem
(39,303 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)You knew the polls were bullshit! Thanks for the excellent work.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)patrice
(47,992 posts)Bernardo de La Paz
(48,785 posts)Autumn Colors
(2,379 posts)quinnox
(20,600 posts)media I take the extraordinary steps of clicking on Gravis Marketing."