Gallup's Shame

[donsu]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/17/04339/5885

Update: OK-good. It’s recommended. Now, let’s take some action. DCG provides an excellent list of talking points to use when contacting the media—or even your friends and co-workers—about the Gallup poll. Let me go ahead and add my own talking point:

--Gallup openly attempts to bias media in favor of Republicans. Gallup admits that their LV model skews Republican, yet encourages media outlets to use the Likely Voter model instead of the Registered Voter model. Media outlets interested in balance should not play along with Gallup's pro-GOP game.

Further, slinkerwink provides an excellent list of media outlets to contact. When contacting people, be calm and cool like dcg’s talking points suggest. Let’s take a bite out of polling crime.

* * * *

I am cross pointing this from MyDD in its entirety, in the hopes it will reach the recommended section. From that point, hopefully it can reach some larger media. The level of Gallup's polling corruption over the past three months is staggering and needs to be exposed.

Gallup, even without their new poll, is without question the top outlying polling organization in this election. Since they began doing state polls on the 2004 campaign, one twelve occasions Gallup has had a poll in the field for at least one day when at least one other non-partisan polling firm has had a poll in the field. On eleven of those twelve occasions, Gallup's results where the most pro-Bush of the other non-partisan operations. On the other occasion, Gallup was actually the pro-Kerry outlier: (source)
(* = three way trial heat):

(here start the stats)

No other polling outfit, not even Zogby or Strategic Vision, is even close to being in favor of one candidate in state polls as frequently as Gallup has favored Bush during this election. Even the one time Gallup favored Kerry, it was still an outlier.

Looking at national polls, one finds almost exactly the same story. Since late July, Gallup has, save once, been the outlying poll. Here's how the last four Gallup national polls stack up against other non-partisan polls taken during the same time period (source):

(here start the stats)

This last one is the most profound outlier of any national poll this year, leaving Newsweek and Time in the dust (maybe that is what they were trying to accomplish). Then again, maybe they aren't leaving Time in the dust, since CNN and Time are affiliated news organizations and frequently do joint polls.

It is pathetic and unacceptable for a "non-partisan" polling firm to be produce the outlying poll in favor of Bush in fourteen of its last sixteen polls. The odds of this happening at random are around one in 14,000. Considering those odds, the far more likely explanation for all these outliers is that Gallup's polling methodology is inherently structured in favor of Bush. Whether or not it is intentional, I do not know. However, I do know that Gallup's polls are connected to the largest news outlets in America of any poll, both in terms of print (USA Today is the largest circulation newspaper in the country) and cable news (CNN has more viewers than Fox, they just watch for shorter periods of time). I also know that sensational headlines sell. I further know that Gallup's chairman is a Republican donor.

This is a shameful state for the oldest and most respected polling organiztion in the country. Shame on you Gallup. Let USA Today know that Gallup always favors Bush by large margins, and that we have the numbrs to prove it.
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[Inland]

1. Another symptom of the same problem

You would think that simply being wrong would be bad for business for a polling firm, but Gallup has learned what the cable news and publishers and even Bush himself has learned---being right or wrong doesn't count for shit. Nobody ever lost a dime telling the right wing what it wants to hear.