One glimpse at the massive variance between the last two days polls in swing states suggests something very odd is going on.
- Pennsylvania Trump +2
- Ohio Tied
- Florida Trump +3
- Iowa Trump +2
- Pennsylvania Clinton +9
- Ohio Tied
- Iowa Clinton +3
Or graphically…
[Pennsylvania white voters: Trump, 40% Clinton, 40% Pennsylvania black voters: Trump, 0% Clinton, 91%;Ohio white voters: Trump, 43% Clinton, 33% Ohio black voters: Trump, 0% Clinton, 88% — WSJ/NBC/Marist poll]
Simply put, as The Daily Bell notes, given the post-Email-gate disapproval ratings…
A majority of Americans disapprove of the FBI’s recommendation not to charge Hillary Clinton with a crime over her handling of email while secretary of state, and a similar number in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll say the issue leaves them worried about how she would handle her responsibilities as president if elected.
Most also say the email controversy won’t affect their vote in the presidential election. But 28 percent say it leaves them less likely to support her, versus 10 percent who say it makes them more likely to do so. -ABC Poll
Pro-Hillary Clinton polls don’t make sense.
In fact, polling with such tiny samples doesn’t make sense anyway, but coming on the heels of other questionable polls favoring Hillary, this widely quoted poll only seems to raise further questions.
The poll, above, has been widely cited as presenting a negative picture of Clinton.
But as it attempted to question “younger” Democratic voters, perhaps the results could have been even worse than they were.
Maybe it is normal to seek out younger age groups, but certainly younger voters may be seen as even more emphatic in their preferences than older ones.
Alternatively, younger voters might have been less apt to pay attention to the questions, or more more malleable and eager to provide answers they felt would be seen as appropriate. In any case, emphasizing one demographic over another may be seen as injecting additional bias into the results.
It’s been pointed out that younger voters are often supportive of Bernie Sanders rather than Hillary, but these questions dealt directly with whether or not Hillary’s behavior changed voting decisions.
The answer was dramatically “no.”
In fact, according to the poll, two-thirds of Democrats approve of the decision not to charge Clinton and think the issue is unrelated to what she would do as president. Only three in 10 Democrats think she should have been charged.
We looked up the polling methodology HERE and found this.
Within each landline household, interviewers ask to speak with the youngest adult male or female at home; if no person of that gender is at home, interviewers ask to speak with the youngest adult of the other gender. Cell phone interviews are conducted with the adult answering the phone.
Some of those involved with Langer have faced polling questions in the past. HERE from the Huffington Post:
Emmy-Winning Iraq Polls May Have Been Tainted By Fabrication, Researchers Say
The Huffington Post Public opinion polls in Iraq since 2003 have been crucial to understanding the war-torn country. ABC News relied on polls for reporting that was awarded two Emmys — the first to mention public opinion polling.
But two researchers looking at Iraq polling data in 2011 found alarming patterns that they said suggested some results may have been fabricated by people in Iraq.
They wrote a paper describing their findings and sent it to the U.S. company in charge of the data collection, D3 Systems …
Representatives of Langer Research Associates, the company later formed that includes the pollsters who worked for ABC, and Lev & Berlin didn’t immediately respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment after business hours on Friday.
Questions have been raised about ABC and the other big media companies in the past. CBS and NBC have been accused HERE of oversampling Democrats in polls, leading to skewed results.
But ABC has also been criticized as regards polling. An April Newsbusters article revealed ABC news stations featured negative Trump polling but didn’t report polls that showed negative Hillary results. See HERE.
Meanwhile, a Reuters Ipsos poll HERE shows Hillary Clinton extending her lead Donald Trump to 13 percentage points. This is up from 10 points last week.
Given the amount of controversy regarding Clinton, the advances she managed to make are certainly astonishing. Trump actually is seen to have lost ground in the same poll.
Conclusion: It’s been shown that people may change their minds about candidates depending on the messages received from polling, among other ongoing results. And the results of polling can be dramatically influenced based on the demographics involved.
Generally speaking, mainstream polling raises questions regarding a regular, pro-Hillary slant, and that’s not going to change.
* * *
However, as Liberty Blitzkrieg’s Mike Krieger explains “People just want to kill the status quo,” and mainstream media-ites just don’t understand (or don’t want to)…
We are living in an era of justified general disgust. While this disgust manifests itself in all sorts of unproductive ways, the root cause is completely and entirely justified. People see so-called “elites” as the cause of their suffering and they are correct in that assessment. When I say elites, I refer to people who are in charge of crafting our public policy (politicians), those who bribe them (oligarchs) and the pundits who defend them (the mainstream media).
These three groups comprise much, but certainly not all, of what many of us refer to as the “status quo.” These crony capitalists, corrupt legislators and their media gatekeepers have been absolutely instrumental in creating the wretched, lawless and disintegrating socio-economic fabric that anyone with an open mind can clearly see around us. As such, it comes as no surprise to me that Trump has now taken the lead in two swing states, and is tied in a third. Actually, that’s not entirely true, I am pretty surprised about Florida.
…
All indications are that both Gary Johnson and Jill Stein will be on the ballot in a majority of states, so what does this mean for the general election? I’ll let you come to your own conclusions.
What really surprised me today is the continued cluelessness of even the somewhat enlightened, celebrated thinkers out there. In this case, I’m referring to Robert Reich, who I applaud for having done some very good work which I have specifically highlighted on these pages. As such, I was stunned to see the following tweet from him earlier today (my response included).
How is it possible? Are we watching the same race?
Hillary Clinton is the nominee. That's how it's possible. https://t.co/7gfZdnnU22— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) July 13, 2016
Robert Reich gets it more than most, yet still harbors an enormous blindspot. How is that? First, I think that most of his conversations in everyday life are with people from deep within the “status quo.” As such, he’s having discussions within an echo chamber of incompetent and corrupt people. The ones who aren’t incompetent or corrupt are simply in a state of complete denial as to the reality around them.
Here’s the thing Robert. The American public is far more pissed off than even you’d like to admit. Part of the reason you refuse to admit it is that this reality is truly terrifying. You’d have to acknowledge that people are so upset, they so want to blow up the status quo, that they’d even vote for the buffoon Trump to do it. While I’m not 100% sure we’re there yet, we’re much closer than most people care to admit.
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