Mitt Romney vs. Barack Obama: Fox News presidential poll skewed
U.S. President Barack Obama smiles as he greets people after speaking during a campaign rally at the Farm Bureau Live arena, on September 27, 2012 in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
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The Fox News poll released today continues the trend of skewed polls that over-sample Democratic voters to produce results favorable for the president. The poll reportsPresident Obama leading over Mitt Romney by a margin of 48 percent to 43 percent. But this is based on a sample that includes eight percent more Democrats than it does Republicans for an electorate that is made up of two percent more Republicans than Democrats. This eight percent over-sampling of Democrats gives Obama a four percent lead in survey data that should show by a smaller two percent margin instead. As with many recent surveys, such as the CNN/ORC poll a two weeks ago and the las tWashington Post/ABC News poll, the skew turns a Romney lead into an Obama lead in the overall poll result for the presidential race.
The Fox News commissioned poll, conducted by Democrat-leaning Anderson Robbins Research and Republican-leaning Shaw & Company Research, surveyed 1056 likely voters via land line and cell phone calls and has a margin of error of three percent.
The Fox News poll includes 1092 likely voters, of which 37 percent are Democrats, 33 percent are Republicans and 30 percent are independent or unenrolled voters. This sample is an improvement over that used in the September 12 Fox News Poll which featured a sample including 42 percent are Democrats, 36 percent are Republicans and 18 percent are independent or unenrolled voters. The model used for the partisan makeup of the electorate is that used for the QStarNews Poll which is 34.8 percent Republicans, 35.2 percent Democrats, and 30.0 percent independents. The difference means the Fox News poll over-sampled Democratic voters by four percent.
The Fox News poll reports that Barack Obama leads 90 percent to five percent among Democrats while Mitt Romney leads 86 percent to eight percent among Republican voters and Obama leading 43 percent to 39 percent among Independent voters. This four percent margin for Obama among the independents varies greatly from most other national surveys of the presidential race that show a Romney lead of 10-14 percent among independents. Those numbers lead to the overall five point lead of 48 percent for 43 percent for Obama.
When the data from the Fox News poll is unskewed by weighting their reported percentages between Romney and Obama to the partisan affiliations showed by Rasmussen's extensive data results on that issue, the overall picture of the race is different. With Republicans weighted 34.8 percent, Democrats at 35.2 percent and Independents at 30.0 percent, the results calculate to Obama leading but by a smaller 46 percent to 44 percent margin over Romney. A large majority of the undecided voters, who usually break for the challenger in a presidential race involving the incumbent president, can be expected to swing toward Romney and lead to a likely Romney majority on election day according to this polling data. If 70 percent of those undecided voters break for Romney by election, the voting patterns indicated by this poll would be consistent with a 51 percent to 49 percent slim majority for Mitt Romney.
This survey is not the only such poll recently to be skewed by over-sampling Democrats to skew the results in favor of Barack Obama. Earlier this month, the latest CNN/ORC poll was similarly skewed. Last month on the Fox News segment “Campaign Insiders” today, Democratic pollsters Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen both confirmed their belief that major polls are skewed in favor of the Democrats by over-sampling of Democratic voters when the surveys are conducted.
So many of these skewed polls have been unskewed here in this column they are now averaged, in unskewed form, in the new UnskewedPolls.com UnSkewed Average of Polls that today shows Romney leading by 7.4 percent.
Let your voice be heard, take the QStarNews Daily Tracking Poll, just a few quick questions, and the full QStarNews Poll with many interesting questions.
Featured in The Blaze, the Drudge Report and mentioned on the Rush Limbaugh Show and others, everyone is visiting UnSkewedPolls.com to check out the UnSkewedPolls.com average of unskewed polls.
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