Romney camp on polls: They're wrong

About all those recent polls showing Mitt Romney slipping nationally and in battlegrounds? Don't trust them, the campaign says.

The Hill reports this morning that frustrated Republicans, including Romney officials, say that most of the polls are built on a faulty assumption - that Hispanics, blacks and young voters are going to turn out with the same enthusiasm as they did for Barack Obama in 2008.

Said Romney pollster Neil Newhouse: “I don’t think [the polls] reflect the composition of what 2012 is going to look like.”

Those who follow the polling business know that turnout estimates are the proverbial thumb on the scale for pollsters. Estimate a higher turnout of a Democrat-friendly demographic, and that's going to bump up the polling numbers of the Democrat running for office. To that end, one website, www.unskewedpolls.com, is re-weighting mainstream presidential polls with a nod to the demographic assumptions of Rasmussen Reports, which is widely regarded as a conservative pollster. The result: Romney leads in them all by 3 to 11 percentage points.

But:


A new poll from the conservative Civitas Institute finds the ticket of Obama-Joe Biden leading the Romney-Paul Ryan ticket 49-45. It's the first poll to include the vice presidential candidates. It's also the first Civitas Poll since February that shows Obama leading, although the July poll was a virtual tie (Romney 49-48).

Of the 11 battleground states, North Carolina has been considered Romney's strongest, thanks to a persistently high unemployment rate and Republican-friendly military bloc in the east. A caveat: The poll of 600 registered voters was conducted Sept. 18 and 19 - in the immediate aftermath of Romney's 47 percent video. So we might be seeing a bit of a corresponding polling thud.

Interestingly, Romney didn't seem to lose independents in the wake of the furor, gaining five points among them (44 to 49 percent) from the July Civitas poll. But he did lose both registered Republicans (87 to 81 percent) and Democrats (24 to 16 percent). 


Peter St. Onge

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