October 11, 2019
written by Net Advisor™
MANHATTAN, New York. Fox News releases their latest OPINION poll on October 9, 2019 covering a proposed impeachment of President Donald J. Trump.
Fox Poll Conducted by 3rd Party.
In fairness to Fox, the poll was not conducted by Fox personnel, but rather conducted for Fox News by Beacon Research and Shaw & Company Research.
Pollsters really should be politically neutral and look at just the data and carefully review the wording of questions, how and where people are sampled. Some say they are neutral, but some have a difficult time or have not learned to objectively look at facts verses opinion.
Manipulation of Polls.
There are many ways to manipulate polls. For examples, one could sample people in known voting districts across the country and come up with whatever result they are looking for.
Methodology.
Things that no one really looks at. Methodology generally should describe how the data was collected. In this case, the pollsters claimed that they randomly called 1003 people on the phone (229 landlines) and (774 cellphones). However, the pollsters also admit that they proportionally took representative samples from states by population.
We’ll guess what. About nine States such as California, New York, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Michigan cover half of the U.S. population. So the pollsters would likely by their own statement, made more calls to California than any other state. California tends to vote (D) since 1999. We give the state an exception for Arnold Schwarzenegger who ran in 2003 as (R), but he quickly backtracked all his politically moderate ideas and fell in line with the Teachers Union, Nurses Union, other California state unions, Climate Nuts, and state pension system – all ran by Democrats and control most of the state legislature.
Margin of Error.
The margin of error is the possible errors made by the pollsters. A margin of error of even +-3 between two data points means one number could be +-3 and the other could be +-3.
For example:
Pollster Question 44: “Do you think the nation’s economy is getting better or worse?”
Respondents allegedly claimed the following:
- 38% Better (With +-3 margin of error: High 39% Low 35%).
- 37% Worse (With +-3 margin of error: High 40% Low 34%).
- 20% Same (With +-3 margin of error: High 23% Low 17%).
- 5% Don’t know (With +-3 margin of error: High 8% Low 2%).
Clearly, the majority of respondents are economically clueless. It doesn’t matter what people think when the facts are already out there.
Data Shows Public Opinion Poll is a Mismatch From Reality.
Facts on the U.S. Economy:
NBC News reported last May that “Trump’s economy is roaring.” The liberal-leaning Atlantic reported last August, U.S. “jobs have grown for 106 consecutive months, the longest streak on record;” and the stock market is running at the “longest Bull Market in American History.”
Last May, the Washington Post reported that unemployment is at a 50-year low and “it might drop a lot further.”
Liberal-leaning PBS News Hour reported this month the biggest recent gains in high paying jobs occurred in accounting and engineering.
Afro-American unemployment are at record lows; Hispanic-American unemployment are at record lows; unemployment for women are the best since 2002. Even young people who sought summers jobs had the best opportunities in 50 years.
The U.S. has seen the best growth in domestic manufacturing jobs in 30 years. U.S. wage growth is now at a 10-year high. We’d argue the booming U.S. economy has helped global poverty levels which also fell to a record low.
We have voiced a little concern about the FED unnecessarily raising interest rates. But the FED has begun to reverse the rate hikes by lowering interest rates. If the FED stays on track with rate cuts, this will help keep the economy booming.
So when 62% of respondents in the above Fox poll said they thought the economy was worse, the same or they don’t know, clearly they are not paying attention to the economy.
We’d argue these respondents may be caught up in the 24-7 “Hate-Trump-Media” who some, not all, but some, are spewing out false and unsubstantiated statements for political gain. People are free to make their opinions, but it would be nice if media personal could at least try to be unbiased, look at events objectively and report as such like they used to decades ago.
Other Poll Issues: People Can and Do Lie.
A pollster would never have no clue whether a person on the other end of the phone is lying about their answers, party affiliation, which could skew poll results with their own personal bias.
But when pollsters over-sample one political party over another, then assumes everyone is telling the truth, one can get wild poll results that are in our view – baseless.
After the 2016 Vice President Debates, CNN did a poll oversampling Democrats 41% vs. Republicans 30%. This gave the public the illusion that Democrat VP candidate Tim Kane won the debate.
CNN also conducted a poll after the first presidential debate and claimed Hillary won the debate. The rest of the media seemed to have a different view on that.
Too Early to Poll?
Some polls are placed at inappropriate times where data has not been collected, analyzed or allowed time to play out a scenario.
For example, in March 2017, just three months in the Trump presidency, Newsweek cited a liberal-leaning McClatchy–Marist poll that ‘51% disapprove’ of Trumps work, and gave him an “F” grade. The U.S. economy was in the doldrums for over eight years, and in three months into a new Administration, it’s all Trumps fault?
As we stated above, the U.S. economy, personal incomes, wages and the stock market have shown a massive turnaround and this didn’t happen by accident.
Example of Defective Polling.
When the public has not had enough time to digest what is going on, polls may be more emotionally or politically driven. Once data has been established and a track record can be identified, more accurate polling data can show a stark contrast compared to polling too early without such data and a track record.
An on-line poll conducted by Survey Monkey said in 2017 that Americans trust CNN, Washington Post, and the New York Times over Trump. Not much than a year later, the same group essentially polled the opposite, discounting the media.
“Seventy-two percent of Americans believe “traditional major news sources report news they know to be fake, false, or purposely misleading,” according to a new poll from Axios and SurveyMonkey…”
— The Hill
In 2017, a poll by Politico and Morning Consult Wednesday found 46% of voters believe news media ‘fabricates’ stories about President Trump.
The media has suffered greatly due to creating “fake news” as opposed to reporting what actually happened.
- A 2018 Monmouth University Poll suggests that 77% of the public feel that major news outlets report “Fake News.”
This opinion poll is not just from Republicans and Independents either.
“61 percent of Democrats believe outlets spread misinformation, up from 43 percent from last year.”
All TV media have political opinion shapers. For some broadcast media, their anchors are no different than their opinion makers. As a result, the general public seems to have developed a greater distrust in the general media.
“69% of U.S. adults in the current survey say their trust in the news media has decreased in the past decade…”
“(This includes)…Republicans (94%)…Political Conservatives (95%)…75% of Independents…66% of Moderates…Democrats (42%) and Liberals (46%).”
How Might the 2020 Debates Go?
If there are three presidential debates in 2020, we expect the polling results to go like this. The media darling – the (D) will say the (D) candidate won the first debate. The second debate will narrowly be “given” to the (R) opponent. Because it’s Trump, the media is likely to bring their arm-chair commentators and just spew their political bias. The third debate will be given to the media (D) darling again. Then the general media will conclude, the (D) candidate will win the election.
We recently released a 2016 archive (with 2019 updates) on how the major media polls got it wrong during the 2016 election cycle. The only two that called it right were both discounted by all the other pollsters who were largely all wrong.
We expect the 2020 election cycle polling to be a repeat of 2016.
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