More Republican reality-denying. Now, its polls.

The Republican Party has a problem with reality: it denies it. I'm not saying that all Republicans do this. But G.O.P. leaders sure do, along with a much higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats.

Evolution and global warming are prime examples of G.O.P. head-in-the-sand'ness. Now political polls can be added to the reality-denying list. 

Nearly every national poll shows President Obama leading Mitt Romney. Gallup, Ipsos and Bloomberg all have the president up by six points. The RAND Corporation puts Mr. Obama up by seven and a half. Only Rasmussen has Mr. Romney up nationally among likely voters, by two points. Swing state surveys also give Mr. Obama the advantage, with new polls from The New York Times, CBS and Quinnipiac showing Mr. Obama up between 9 and 11 points in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

There’s still more than a month until the election. Mr. Obama could lose. Mr. Romney could win. Hanging chads could leave the result up to the Supreme Court. But at the moment it’s rational to conclude that Mr. Obama has a better chance of winning. Unless you’re on the Romney campaign, or you’re a right-wing pundit, in which case it’s only natural—in a stages of grief sort of way—to conclude that the polls are all wrong.

The good news for Democrats, and Obama, is that the more Republicans refuse to accept how poorly Romney is doing, the more likely it is that his campaign will continue on its current course.

So keep on engaging in your conspiracy theories, G.O.P. faithful.

Don't stop dreaming that purposeful sampling errors are the reason Romney is behind in both national and swing state polls. There will be time enough to wake up on the morning after election day.

Comments

[Hans Lethe]

Hi Brian,

I have missed your partial view or reality calling itself whole!
Since you like reality. Where do the polls in question rank in accuracy in predicting the results in 2008? Please list each, and then list who they say is winning. Perhaps past reality has nothing to do with this reality but I think that you must agree it would be interesting.

Secondarily when someone cries foul an honest recognition of their complaint would seem to be the first place to start the understanding, healing and mutual respect that you so ardently stand for. So what was it that the detractors of the poles were saying? Or do you not want reality based conversation? Perhaps its easier to say that others are not interested in reality or are not capable of dealing with it than honestly understanding their reality and respectfully talking with them.

You cry foul about the bomb throwing conservatives. What in "reality" was your blog other than: they stupid me smart? I know you can do better. Looking forward to it.

Love and miss you Hans

[Brian Hines]

Hans, did you read the New York Times piece that this blog post was about? It describes why the "conspiracy theory" of Fox News and other right-wing poll-deniers is off base. You also should follow, as I do, arguably the most sophisticated electoral analyst around, Five Thirty Eight. See:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

You'll see that Five Thirty Eight, which aggregates polls and combines them with other predictive data, currently gives Obama an 83% chance of winning the election (much higher, 98%, if the election were held today, which shows how strong the polls are for Obama and against Romney).

Yet Republicans are calling the polls flawed, because they don't like reality.

Re your question: in the most recent national election, 2010, Rasmussen polls were biased toward Republican candidates and inaccurate. Other pollsters were much better. See:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/rasmussen-polls-were-biased-and-inaccurate-quinnipiac-surveyusa-performed-strongly/

However, in 2008, Rasmussen did much better. See:
http://electoralmap.net/2012/2008_election.php#reportcard

This shows why it is important to look at aggregates of polls, because no pollster is most accurate all of the time. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don't.

So Republicans are making a mistake by denying the fact of Obama being decidedly ahead when polls are aggregated, as Five Thirty EIght shows. They're choosing to focus on one polling firm, Rasmussen, because they don't like the truth: so far, Romney is behind.