Why Polls Tend to Undercount Democrats

[Adam Griffin]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/30/upshot/why-polls-tend-to-undercount-democrats.html

[Adam Griffin]

Now that the Democrats are behind, it's their turn to whine about bad polling.

I don't think polls undercount Democrats in midterms. Aren't the results in midterms much more Republican than the polls predicted? I know that in 2010 they were way off. The GOP won some seats that weren't even close in the polls (for instance, the seat in Duluth and Boucher's seat in Virginia).

Last time, it was the republicans saying even in the final days they'd defy the odds and win the presidency (in a landslide) and the senate. Instead, the democrats swept everything. Now, it's the democrats saying they'll defy the odds and hold the senate (and depending on who you talk to, have house net pickups and make significant net pickups among the governors (>3)). Seems like we're going to see a very good night for republicans.

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False equivalency, guys. Unlike the Republicans' claims in 2012:

1) there is actually a trend in polling that backs up this for Democrats
2) several real pollsters are actually expressing agreement with the sentiment

But I wasn't necessarily saying that this would make the difference in Senate control. If we had a 2010-like discrepancy, however, then it likely would.

[Adam Griffin]

People seriously need to read the article before they comment. It's from the NY Times, not Daily Kos or unskewedpolls.com, and it has very good arguments.

Indeed. I started out with a neutral take on it, but I'm amazed at the level of stupidity from several people in this thread. It's obvious they haven't read the analysis, the data or the comments from pollsters who are saying this as well. This isn't some equivalent sole partisan hack making a claim based on nothing (I can see why Republicans would want to make the false equivalency, though, because they were stupid to believe that nonsense in 2012).