Tuesday, March 01, 2011

"60% Support Bargaining"? Cooking the Books

The NYT/CBS poll will be flogged by all the usual suspects.

Too bad. The most significant suspects in this case are the poll-designers.

...First, the partisan split in the sample gave a ten-point advantage to Democrats. Their sample for this poll had a D/R/I split of 36/26/31, an absurd sample for political polling. In December, Rasmussen’s general-population survey put Republicans ahead, 36.0% to 34.7% for Democrats.

...Next, 20% of the poll’s respondents claim to come from union households. However, only 11.9% of American workers belong to a union, according to a report published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics last month

...Finally, 25% of respondents are either public employees or share a household with a public employee. Federal employees comprise less than 2% of the workforce at around 2 million. Overall, the US has 22.22 million government employees out of an employed workforce of 130.27 million, according to the Current Employment Statistics survey at the BLS. Government employment accounts for 17% of all workers

The most meaningful number is "registered voters" who self-describe as "independent." THEY move election results, and THEY are 70/30 unsympathetic to the Public Trough Gang.

6 comments:

J. Strupp said...

Don't you find it rather interesting that almost all conservatives use Rasmussen's polls results? Are they more accurate or are they the right kind of accurate for you folks?

I just find it a little concerning that everyone on one side of an issue seems to use the same pollster to make their argument.

Anonymous said...

Hey, Struppster, if it fits his world view...

Beer, Bicycles and the VRWC said...

Rasmussen is a Democrat. He just happens to be an honest one.

Anonymous said...

Not quite, Deekaman, not quite.

Beer, Bicycles and the VRWC said...

Whilee there is evidence of some Conservative leanings, there appears to be little in the way of party affiliation. Regardless, his methodology is much more sound than the referenced "steaming pile".

J. Strupp said...

Haha yeah there's some evidence all right.