Mitt Romney double digit lead in unskewed data from Reuters/Ipsos poll
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during a Juntos Con Romney Rally at the Darwin Fuchs Pavilion, on September 19, 2012 in Miami, Florida.
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Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
The new Reuters/Ipsos poll of thepresidential race released today shows a five percent lead for President Obama over Mitt Romney. The survey, that includes a massive over-sample of Democratic voters, has Obama leading by a 48 percent to 43 percent edge. Among registered voters, the survey has a margin of error of 2.9 percent. This poll appears to be doubly skewed, by over-sampling Democratic voters and under-sampling independent voters. Unskewed, the data from this poll would indicate a Romney lead of 54 percent to 44 percent.
To obtain these results, the Reuters/Ipsos poll is based on a sample that includes many more Democrats than Republicans and a very small sampling of independent voters. Using the parameters of last week's Reuters/Ipsos poll as a basis for a good estimate since this latest one didn't release any internal data, the partisan makeup of the sample is believed to be similar and estimated at 52.5 percent Democrats, 37.6 percent Republicans and 9.2 independents among the 2,078 registered voters and 1,437 likely voters surveyed for the poll. The survey clearly under-sampled independent and Republican voters.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll reported a result of Obama leading by 48 percent to Romney at 43 percent. Extrapolating from that data and the basic numbers of the last Reuters/Ipsos poll, at good calculation of the support of the candidates is Democrats supporting Obama by a 88 percent to 10 percent margin while Republicans favor Romney by a 90 percent to 8 percent margin while independent voters break about 48 percent Romney to 39 percent Obama.
The Rasmussen Reports partisan data measured from hundreds of thousands of voters by Rasmussen Reports, which measures the partisan percentages at 37.6 percent Republicans, 33.3 percent Democrats and 29.2 percent independents. The difference means theReuters/Ipsos poll over-sampled Democratic voters by 19.2 percent and under-sampled independent voters by 20 percent.
When the data from the Reuters/Ipsos 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 Obama's approval to disapproval rating is different. With Republicans weighted 37.6 percent, Democrats at 33.3 percent and Independents at 29.2 percent, the results calculate to Romney leading by 10 percent, 54 percent to 44 percent over the president.
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 week, 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.
