Media Hyped Poll Showing Obama Debate Win Had Screwy Sample

Posted on September 27, 2008

Everybody is talking about this poll from CNN declaring victory for Obama’s debate performance last night with an article titled “Round 1 in debates goes to Obama, poll says.”

Noah Pollak reads the fine print of the article and takes a few notes from deeper down into the specifics.

Buried way, way down at the bottom of the story — hopefully, one surmises, past the point where anyone would read — is the following:

The results may be favoring Obama simply because more Democrats than Republicans tuned in to the debate. Of the debate-watchers questioned in this poll, 41 percent of the respondents identified themselves as Democrats, 27 percent as Republicans and 30 percent as independents.

I’m far from being a polling expert, but this is obviously a slanted poll. A 14-point split between Republican and Democrat respondents? And what percentage of those “independents” were leaners for Obama?

That’s bad enough, but the really egregious part is CNN’s blatant reportage of opinion as fact, which allowed the creation of a news story announcing Obama’s victory.

So much for that poll. The truth is that Obama had many, many gaffes.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

» Filed Under 1st Amendment, Debate, Elections, Liberal Media/Bias, News, Polls, Revisionism

Trackback URL

Comments

7 Responses to “Media Hyped Poll Showing Obama Debate Win Had Screwy Sample”

Jeff Molby on September 27th, 2008 2:26 pm

Did they edit the article since Noah’s post? It currently begins with:

A national poll of people who watched the first presidential debate suggests that Barack Obama came out on top, but there was overwhelming agreement that both Obama and John McCain would be able to handle the job of president if elected.
Most debate watchers agreed both McCain and Obama would be able to handle the job of president if elected.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey is not a measurement of the views of all Americans, since only people who watched the debate were questioned and the audience included more Democrats than Republicans.

That seems to be a very fair characterization of the poll results. As for the headline being exaggerated… you know as well as anyone else that that sort of thing is done constantly to attract clicks.

After all, what’s so “screwy” about their sample? Did you honestly expect them to poll people that hadn’t watched the debate? Did you honestly expect that the viewing audience would be split exactly 50/50?
joe on September 27th, 2008 6:35 pm

It’s a fair sample when you consider likely voters. Likely voter polls put Democrats as more likely to vote than Republicans. That’s why most tracking polls sample more Democrats than Republicans.
Lisa on September 27th, 2008 7:52 pm

Of course there will be more Democrats in the polls, there are more Democrats in the country. Democrats who will show up on election day, probably even more so this year.
irv on September 27th, 2008 8:10 pm

I didn’t watch the debate myself, since I dislike both candidates. During the debate I saw at least a half dozen tweets from a friend who is a strong Obama supporter.

My completely unscientific conclusion is that Republicans watched out of curiosity or boredom or a sense of duty, while Democrats watched out of a high school sense of team spirit, or adoration for their savior.

In that light, these poll results make perfect sense.
Ray on September 28th, 2008 12:30 am

That sample size reflects current party registration demographics and similar breakdowns are used by major polling companies. In an unrelated CBS News poll of people not committed to a candidate, 39 per cent said Obama won the debate, 24 per cent said McCain and 37 per cent called it a tie.
abel on September 28th, 2008 1:12 pm

Spin, spin, spin. Stop the aclu can’t stand the idea that McSame looked like a fool and Americans liked Obama’s response better. Here is a big Boo Hoo to you Stop The Aclu
DNC + RNC = ROT on September 28th, 2008 5:45 pm

Spoil what? Waste what? Steal what?

Barack Obama we do not doubt your intelligence. To be an effective leader one must also display honesty, compassion, & guts. Stand with Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, & Cynthia McKinney. NOT John McCain. Your choice – your move.