MYTH of "polls skewed toward dems" Real Clear Politics Archives debunks it

[Grebrook]

What is the usual Republican brush off of the generic poll and even the senate polls heading into the election? That the polls always gives Dems a +6 advantage, right? WRONG SUCKER.

The only "polls" that showed Democrats winning in 2004 were EXIT POLLS, not opinion polls. For example, Republican continue to brush off the idea that Rick Santorum will be defeated in Pennsylvania and that the polls are inaccurate. Ok, let's examine the facts. In 2004 (R) Arlen Specter defeated (D) Joel Hoeffel by a margin of 53%-42%. Now, what did the polls say about that one? Have a look for yourself (bottom of the page, the top is about Kerry v. Bush):

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Presidential_04/pa_polls.html

The polls were actually skewed TOWARDS Specter in that race. Almost every poll had him up over Hoeffel by 13-17%, and yet he only won by 9%. Now, if Bob Casey Jr. is leading Santorum by 10-12% on average, can we thus conclude that these polls are actually skewed towards the Republicans, and the dumb sack of fundamentalist shit is actually going down in a arc of fiery ruin and humiliation, losing by perhaps as many as 15-20%?

The presidential polls showed Bush winning over Kerry by ridiculous margins as well, some by as many 15%.

[On the Road]

1. The Average of the 115 Polls on the Site

shows Kerry in the lead by 0.7% Since the official results showed Kerry losing by 2.4%, the polls in this case appear to have favored the Democratic candidate by about three percentage points. I've never heard the claim of a 6% advantage, which seems to be way too high.

How much of that can be attributed to Republican shyness and how much to Republican registration purges is another matter.

[Grebrook]

2. Polls favored Kerry only in the beginning and middle. Toward the end Bush

was ahead by far in the polls.

[On the Road]

3. Hmmm....

I seem to remember Bush being ahead for most of the campaign and people here either not believing it or not understanding how it could happen. Kerry pulled even late and nudged ahead in some polls, leading pollsters like Zogby to publicly predict a Kerry win.

Maybe I paid more attention to polls favoring Democrats, but the average of those polls kind of surprised me.