Polls Apart

Sunday  New Gallup tracker finds Obama losing another point among reg voters (still leads by 2%) and failing to gain among likely voters (trails by 2%).  A reminder that this is a 7-day poll so it includes two days of post-veep debate--with no change no far.

Saturday UPDATE #2  Gallup's tracker just out and finds Obama gaining one point with reg voters, so now leads by 3% there.  Race remains the same with likely voters, Romney with 2% bulge.  Obama did lose 2% in approval rating (which measures just the past three days), and now down to 48%,  but can't say for sure this reflects veep debate, as only one of the three days post-debate.


UPDATE #1:  Nate Silver, who has been charting Obama's alarming fall in polls, writes today that this has not yet hurt his party much in Senate races, and he still gives GOP only 16% chance of taking the Senate.

First poll in post-veep-debate comes from Rasmussen (yeah, I know), which reports that its daily tracker found no movement at all Friday, as Romney maintained same 1% lead.  Tomorrow will be a bit more revealing.  Gallup's tracker later today will include Friday but that's just one of seven days i its poll.

Earlier:  We are buried in polls about now. It's hard to keep them straight or figure out what exactly they are saying--and there's a new focus on their "internals" and samples to judge if they may be "skewed" or not.  This "skewing" is  a common rightwing charge whenever they don't like the results, but sometimes it's apt, as in the case at CNN last night when even CNN admitted, albeit belatedly and in small type, that their veep debate poll over-sampled GOPers.

But there's a separate issue that has gained force since the internet explosion: the "online" poll.  These simply allow visitors to press a button and join in, and results are related, just like real, "scientific" polls.  Of course, anyone with a bit of sense can judge that they are just popularity contests with no more validity than, say, polling your own household or family pets.   But "bit of sense" excludes many hosts and guests on Fox and other rightwing outlets, as well as most (it seems) conservatives on Twitter.

Last night was a perfect example.  The aformentioned 'wingers hailed Paul Ryan's smashing victory in "the CNBC poll."  He won easily,  seemingly giving him a big night and wiping out that pesky CBS scientific poll.  Naturally, libs quickly and accurately point out that this poll was a joke but this didn't stop the Ryanites.  They kept hailing it all night and now, all day.  Even though the poll itself, right where it reports results, announces that it is not scientific.  But of course--these people do not believe in science.

And this may NOT shock you--the dunces at Politico also cited the poll last night, gave it equal weight to the scientific CBS and CNN polls--and still have not corrected it.  

The final laugh:   even that poll, as of now- since voting is still open--shows a quite different result, with Ryan leading by only 1%.  Only that might keep GOPers from mentioning it much longer.