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Sunday, May 07, 2006

The Latest AP/Ipsos "Bush And The GOP Suck" Poll

From Ankle Biting Pundits: (I could not link directlyu so I copies the whole thing)>

You'll likely be hearing (again) MSM crowing about this AP Ipsos poll which (of course) shows the President and the GOP's ratings the lowest ever. The poll shows the following:Quote:
Wrong Track - 73%/Right Track - 23%

Bush Approval Rating - 65% Disapprove/33% Approve

Who Do You Want To Control Congress - 51% - Democrats/34%- Republicans
Sounds bad, huh? Well, as we've said before you (and the GOP leaders) shouldn't use these polls as any kind of indicator as to what could happen in 2006, which is certainly how the MSM will spin it.

But here's what you won't see in the news stories. - the demography of the poll respondents

First, only 82% of respondents were even eligible to vote, and there's no indication of how many of them actually went to the polls in 2004.

1. Party Leanings - The poll is slanted 50-41% towards Democrats, even though the voters in the 2004 election were split evenly at 37% between Republicans and Democrats.

2. Religion - Next, a whopping 19% of respondents had "no" religion, while in 2004 only 10% of voters had "no" religion, and they voted overwhelmingly for Kerry (+36%).

3. Age of Respondents In this poll 31% of the respondents were between 18-34, even though the 18-29 year olds (a slightly smaller demo) only made up 17% of the electorate in the 2004 election. I think it's pretty safe to say that by including 30-34 year olds that number would still not have come close to the IPSOS sample.

4. Income Level of Respondents - This one is amazing. In this poll 17% of respondents made under $20,000 per year. In 2004, only 8% of voters were in this income bracket, and voted 63-36% for Kerry.

5. Geography - In this poll, only 19% of respondents were from "rural" areas. In 2004, 25% of voters were from rural areas, and voted 57-42% for Bush.

6. Race - In this poll, there were 69% white respondents and 13% Hispanic respondents. In 2004, 77% of voters were white, and only 8% Hispanic. Bush won the white vote 58-41% and Kerry the Hispanic vote 53-44%.

We're not saying the GOP is going to have an easy time in 2006. Lord knows they've done everything humanly possible to ensure a defeat, and it wouldn't be a surprise if they actually lost the House. But that's not the point we're trying to make. And we're not saying that the turnout model in 2006 is going to be the same as in a mid-term election in 2004.

Rather, the point here is that when you polls like this, which you really wonder if the purpose of conducting it was to get good results, or push an agenda. Nowhere in the news stories you see on this poll are you going to read about how there is no way to know if these respondents are even going to show up to vote, let alone hear about the demographic data we've outlined above.

But it's not hard to understand given that the AP/Ipsos poll has a history of slanting towards the Democrats. See here, here, here, here, and finally here

2 comments:

smialek316 said...

ONLY 82% responded to the poll??? That's a very good percentage!! You are not going to see a response percentage better than that on any other political survey!! The turnout at the last Presidential election was only about 70 something percent, so the organizers of the poll seem to be doing very well. Most of the time when people are contacted for a political survey or poll, they want no part of it ( I know because I helped to conduct such research in college), so if you can get 82% to respond, you are doing very, very good.

Moneyrunner said...

No, please learn to read: only 82% of the respondents were eligible to vote. Which means that 18% of the respondents could not cast a ballot despite their opinions.

You don't ask people how they will vote if they can't vote. Clear?