Saturday, January 05, 2008

Obama Ahead In All NH Polls Except CNN Poll - Did CNN Bias Impact Their Poll?

Several Polls have been conducted after the Iowa Caucus and all of them have Senator Obama ahead save for one poll: The CNN / WMUR / UNH Poll, which has Obama and Clinton tied at 33 percent, with Edwards at 20 percent.

Why is the CNN Poll the only one that does not have Obama ahead? It's a good question as last year, many pollsters had Senator Clinton in front in national polls, except a June 5th USA Today / Gallup Poll, which had Obama tied with Clinton. Frank Newport of Gallup, Inc., stated that he actually called for a new poll with a different sample size because he could not believe that Obama was tied, and wanted to be consistent with other polls. So what kind of sample configuration did they use this time?

Well, the introduction to the PDF file reads "Interviews with 672 likely New Hampshire primary voters in
New Hampshire conducted by telephone on January 4-5, 2008." When I read "most likely" voters, that is older voters. But the file data does not tell us what the age range was. But my guess is that the average age was skewed up over the other polls, thus explaining how Clinton could tie Obama.

But even with that, the CNN / WMUR / UNH Poll reports that 60 percent of the people responding said that Senator Obama was the most inspirational candidate and that 72 percent had a favorable response to him, versus 46 percent and 18 percent respectively for Senator Clinton and 58 percent and 13 percent for former Senator Edwards.

Wow. That seems to be the foundation for a potential landslide in Obama's favor in New Hampshire.

But still the question of how the CNN / WMUR / UNH Poll could come out with a Clinton / Obama tie and not an Obama lead is active. In the search for the answer, I found this note in the PDF file, which you can get by clicking on this link.

The data have been weighted to adjust for numbers of voters and telephone lines within households, respondent sex, and region of the state. In addition to potential sampling error, all surveys have other potential sources of non-sampling error including question order effects, question wording effects, and non-response.

To "weight" data is to change it by adding a mutiplier, thus effecting the final outcome of how the data reads. What's very disturbing is that the data file does not explain how the data was "adusted" and what was effected. That's scary and my guess is that that weighting process is at the center of the "tie" we see in this poll, versus the other polls. Take a look below.

But before you do, consider the constant CNN bias that has been exacted against Senator Obama and for Senator Clinton, as well as the CNN personalities like Larry King, who support Hillary Clinton, yet claim to report the news without bias. Also, ask why both CNN and ABC are only mentioning the results of the CNN / WMUR / UNH Poll, and not the others?

I'd call this a massive bias against Senator Obama, and the mainstream media trying to control what you the voter thinks. But in an Internet World, that's hard to do, plus, it should be considered illegal.

Here are the polls:


RealClearPolitics.com Average

Obama 33.2
Clinton 31.2
Edwards 19.2
Richardson 5.0

McCain 32.7
Romney 27.8
Huckabee 12
Giuliani 9.5
Paul 8.5
Thompson 2.2

Concord Monitor (January 5)

Obama 34
Clinton 33
Edwards 23
Richardson 4
Kucinich 3

McCain 35
Romney 29
Huckabee 13
Giuliani 8
Paul 7
Thompson 3

See full results here.

***

CNN/WMUR Poll (January 4-5)

Clinton 33%
Obama 33%
Edwards 20%
Richardson 4%
Kucinich 2%

Sampling error: +/-5% pts

McCain 33%
Romney 27%
Giuliani 14%
Huckabee 11%
Paul 9%
Hunter 1%
Thompson 1%

Sampling error: +/-5% pts

See full results here.

+++

American Research Group (January 5)

Obama 38%
Clinton 26%
Edwards 20%
Undecided 8%
Richardson 3%
Gravel 3%
Kucinich 1%

Barack Obama leads John Edwards among men 42% to 21%, with 19% for Hillary Clinton. Among women, Obama leads Clinton 35% to 31%, with 20% for Edwards. Clinton leads Obama among Democrats 34% to 32%, while Obama leads Edwards among undeclared voters (independents) 49% to 21%.

McCain 39%
Romney 25%
Huckabee 14%
Giuliani 7%
Paul 6%
Undecided 6%
Hunter 1%
Keyes 1%
Thompson 1%

John McCain leads Mitt Romney among men 42% to 21% and McCain leads Romney 35% to 30% among women. McCain leads Romney 44% to 19% among undeclared (independent) voters, with 18% for Huckabee. Undeclared voters are now 27% of the total Republican vote.

See full results here.

+++

Rasmussen Reports (January 4)

Obama 37%
Clinton 27%
Edwards 19%
Richardson 8%
Kucinich 3%
Gravel 1%

See full results here.

McCain 31%
Romney 26%
Paul 14%
Huckabee 11%
Giuliani 8%
Thompson 5%
Some other candidate 2%

1 comment:

  1. Zennie,

    Thank you for your tireless dedication to help educate folks about the voter process, especially the polls.

    ReplyDelete