Let the Unskewing Begin!

Via RawStory:  ‘Polling can be skewed’: Four Trump surrogates go on CNN for mass denial of Trump’s lousy polls.

Many apparently did not learn the lessons of 2012.

FILED UNDER: 2016 Election, US Politics,
Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. Andrew says:

    Many apparently did not learn the lessons of 2012.

    in·sane
    inˈsān/Submit
    adjective
    in a state of mind that prevents normal perception, behavior, or social interaction; seriously mentally ill.

    gul·li·ble
    ˈɡələb(ə)l/
    adjective
    easily persuaded to believe something; credulous.

    These Un-skewed™ believers are between a rock and a douche nozzle.

    A completely incompetent businessman in Trump, who has a track record of being a failure, and someone who has no honor, and can not be taken at his word over almost anything.
    Who is lying with every sentence he says, but is telling this Un-Skewed™ group exactly what they want to hear. That is as far as his qualifications will go. Trump knows how to sell a pile of sh!t stuffed in an old, holey, sock to willing, gullible people.

    Republicans have shown you can make more money fleecing a group of people. Trump is just the next big name in this business. I feel smidgen bad it is same group of gullible rubes ALL the time.

    Oh, and the rock. That is the world which is passing the Un-Skewers™ by every day.

  2. Stormy Dragon says:

    I was half hoping that one of them would be Dean Chambers (the original unskewed polls guy) for extra irony.

  3. An Interested Party says:

    It’s not enough that they pass laws to try to make it harder for certain groups of people to vote, now they tell us that reality is not real when it comes to polls…I wonder how much more delusion they will be capable of now that their voter base is shrinking…

  4. Mister Bluster says:

    “Polling can be skewed.” Mitch Romney, 45th President USA.

  5. M. Bouffant says:

    The “smartest” among them have already decided that the polls are meaningless liberal crap:

    Social Media Patterns Show Trump Is Looking at a Landslide Victory
    Current polls show the race for President is much tighter than it really is. Ann Coulter warned us years ago in her best seller Slander that Democrats and the liberal media always use polls to manipulate and discourage conservatives from voting. Thanks to social media there is more and more evidence that the polls are way off and if things stay as they are, Trump will win in a landslide!

    It’s evident Hillary has a hard time filling a Union Hall while Trump regularly turns people away from his stadium and arena venues.

    Now this – Analysis from social media provides additional support that Trump is likely to win in a landslide.

    So how bad is it?
    Evidence from ‘The Truth Division’ shows that if you look at social media, Trump is killing Hillary!

    Facebook

    Trump: 10,174,358 Likes Clinton: 5,385,959 Likes

    Trump has nearly double the amount of ‘Likes’ that Clinton has!

    When comparing recent ‘live streams’ on Facebook:

    Trump Live Stream Post — 135,000 likes, 18,167 shares, 1.5 million views
    Clinton Live Stream Post —11,000 likes, 0 shares, 321,000 views

    Trump is crushing Clinton.

    Twitter

    Trump: 10.6 million followers
    Hillary: 8.1 million followers

    Trump has 30% more Twitter followers — and they translate into real votes. A recent study confirmed that 70% of his followers are real supporters, and 90% of those real followers have a voting history.

    Who knows if Hillary followers are even real?

    Youtube Live Stream

    Trump: Averages 30,000 live viewers per stream
    Clinton: Averages 500 live viewers per stream

    Trump has 5900% more live viewers than Clinton. That’s plain devastation!

    Instagram

    Trump: 2.2 million followers
    Clinton: 1.8 million followers

    Trump has 22% more Instagram followers.

    Reddit

    Trump: 197,696 subscribers
    Hillary: 24,429 subscribers
    Hillary for Prison: 55,228 subscribers

    Hillary for Prison’s Reddit feed has more than double subscribers of Hillary’s Reddit page, equating to Trump having 700% more Reddit subscribers.

    Hillary is proving that she is a terrible candidate. No one likes her and no one trusts her. Based on turnouts at campaign events and on social media, if the election were today… Trump would likely win in a Landslide!

  6. Andrew says:

    @M. Bouffant:

    The campaign for president this year has been take over by the largest troll this side of the internet. Obviously, trolls on the internet are going to flock to his orange glow faster than a person joins two sub-reddits both hating on Clinton.

    If we are basing popularity on the amount of people who are members of certain sub-reddits. Boobs should be POTUS and VPOTUS. But, populist ideas and all…

    Boobs 2016!

  7. Mister Bluster says:

    @Andrew:..Boobs 2016!

    Boobs a Lot
    The Fugs
    The Fugs First Album (1965)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPVgKoruWdA

  8. Mikey says:

    This despite the verifiable fact that good aggregation of the polls can correctly predict the results of election contests about 98% of the time.

    Of course when the polls are proven accurate once again, and Clinton prevails with a great majority of both the popular and electoral vote, it will be blamed on election “rigging” and the mainstreamliberalmedia somehow hypnotizing large swaths of the electorate to vote Democrat.

    Trump’s supporters are simply allergic to reality.

  9. michael reynolds says:

    @M. Bouffant:

    It’s almost sad, really. They think Twitter followers = voters?

    I guess we’d all better hope Katy Perry doesn’t run for office. 91 million followers. Nine times what Trump has. Hell, Bieber has 86 million. And Obama? 76 million. (Of course those are all Kenyans.)

    Trump is the 168th biggest account on Twitter, just behind Aziz Ansari and a hair ahead of Sherinna Sinna, who apparently is a musician who is also into comics.

    Yep. He’s also slightly ahead of Victoria Beckham but trails his soul brother from another mother, Charlie Sheen.

    President of the United States and keeper of 4,500 nuclear weapons, ladies and gentlemen. Bound for victory because he’s got more followers than Aziz Ansari.

  10. Liberal Capitalist says:

    @michael reynolds:

    Michael,

    What is even more interesting than the stats, was the article’s comments:

    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/08/evidence-trump-landslide/

    The echo chamber is strong with these trumpkins. All I could say to myself while reading was “…wow! “.

    On the other hand, there are some in the GOP that realize that this candidate was the biggest mistake that the party could have made:

    http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/rick-wilson-beat-trump-drum-article-1.2739979

    His point: If we’re going to have a defeat, then let it be massive. Then the party can have an ideological purge of all the old thinking that the trumpkins represent and move on to being the party that the GOP intended to be.

  11. @M. Bouffant: That may be the most impressive example of self-delusion “analysis” I have ever seen.

  12. al-Ameda says:

    I almost coughed up my grapefruit juice when I read that rawstory “analysis.”

    All I can say is, it’s no wonder Trump and his surrogates are already pre-emptively claiming that the election is going to be stolen from them. They have to, because although they probably do not believe that twitter followers and twitter activity correlates strongly to likely voters, they really do need to sell this notion to the ‘mainstream media’ to see if it gets them a “Trump Campaign Has Momentum Now!” narrative going.

  13. An Interested Party says:

    Speaking of Trump, I came across this and the analysis seems so spot on, especially for anyone who doesn’t want to take any responsibility for the rise of this joke of a presidential candidate…

    I have noticed a new school of Trump apologist — we might call them “Trump whisperers.” These are conservatives who tell us that they have listened to white working class people, and discovered they have something to say, and that we liberals have not been sufficiently respectful of their needs, and now that these salt-of-the-earth are all backing Trump, that is not the fault of conservatives (who have filled their ears for decades with the poisonous anger they still read back, though in earthier language) nor Republicans (who actually, with their votes, chose Trump), but ours, because we sat in our Ivory Towers eating Brie and Arugula and reading Alinsky instead of attending their plaintive cries.

  14. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @Liberal Capitalist: You can’t have an ideological purge without a counter ideology on which to base it. Exactly who is going to provide the counter ideology to the Objectivist/Conservative mess that provides what is passing for ideology in the current GOP?

    The difference between the GOP now and the Dems (viz a viz the left) in the 60’s is that there were credible voices for moderation in the 60s Dems. Who are those voices on the right? I’m not hearing them.

  15. Facebones says:

    @M. Bouffant: Jesus Tap Dancing Christ. Maybe they should ask Democratic nominee Bernie Sanders how to turn Facebook likes and retweets into votes.

  16. Scott F says:

    @Facebones:

    The commentators there have that covered:

    Huge rallies and double the social media following and presence isn’t an indicator Trump is going to win? Enthusiasm for a candidate doesn’t determine a candidate’s possibility to win?
    You remember a rigged system was they whole reason that Hillary beat Sanders. Sanders was the real winner of Iowa, California, and was the rigged “fall guy” to hand the nomination to Clinton. If you are relying on a rigged system to give it to Hillary, then you may be right.
    However, the enthusiasm and support for Trump is undeniable. GOP turnout up 67% this year, and Democratic turnout down 34% this year. Hard to explain how she gets elected.

  17. Facebones says:

    @Scott F: This is right up there with Pauline Kael’s “I don’t know anyone who voted for Nixon.” I can’t imagine why they see no Hillary support on Jim “The Stupidest Man on the Internet” Hoft’s site.

  18. grumpy realist says:

    @M. Bouffant: Ask any entrepreneur if Twitter “likes” translate into Moar Bizness and he will howl with laughter until his eyeballs fall out.

  19. gVOR08 says:

    A lot of the Romney poll skewing nonsense revolved around turnout models. This is an altogether weird year. I wouldn’t rust anybody’s turnout model. Looks good for H, but I won’t feel comfortable ’til Wednesday Nov 9.

  20. Barry says:

    “Many apparently did not learn the lessons of 2012.”

    They did – that those who were full of sh*t still had jobs.

  21. MBunge says:

    LA Times poll Friday has Clinton up +1. Reuters poll Thursday had her up +5. Bloomberg poll Wednesday had her up +6. Considering the Brexit polling had “Remain” ahead for almost the entire way, usually comfortable, no one should be counting chickens just yet.

    Of course, being behind by 6 points less than three months before an election is pretty terrible, but the media would usually be bending over backward to pretend the race was much closer than it really is.

    Mike