SurveyUSA, a national political survey company, conducted a poll on September 2 and September 3 of 1,000 U.S. adults. SurveyUSA claims that Donald Trump is beating Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden in head-to-head matchups. Corporate media is running with this survey to show that Donald Trump is the real deal, America’s next President. The Republican Party is dancing in the streets. The problem is the results of the survey are absurd, and yet no one in corporate media is questioning it.
What is the problem with the survey? The most obvious is that it doesn’t pass the smell test when you look at the results. This should be the very first clue that something went wrong in the surveying techniques. Specifically, SurveyUSA shows Trump winning 25% of black voters and 31% of Hispanic voters. This is absurd. In the elections of 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012, blacks voted for the GOP candidate 9%, 11%, 4% and 6% of the time, respectively. Yet, SurveyUSA wants us to believe that black voters have suddenly decided that Trump is worthy of 25% of their support. Even more absurd is the Hispanic result. SurveyUSA found that 31% of Hispanics will vote for Trump. In the elections of 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012, Hispanics voted for the GOP candidate 35%, 44%, 31% and 27% of the time, respectively. Yet, SurveyUSA wants us to believe that Hispanics favor Trump 31% of the time when he is the most well-known Hispanic hater in the world who calls them rapists and murderers and wants to deport them and their families.
Why is SurveyUSA’s poll whacked? One reason is the way SurveyUSA asked the question. “In 2016, America will elect a President. If the election for President of the United States were today, and the only two names on the ballot were Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, who would you vote for?” What is the obvious problem with this question? They don’t specify whether the candidate is a Democrat or a Republican. This is a huge problem because many voters cast their vote by party, not candidate. Thus, it’s not about the candidate, it’s about the party. This especially is true when the voter does not have enough information about the candidates. SurveyUSA should have asked the question: “If the election for President of the United States were today, and the only two names on the ballot were Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican candidate Donald Trump, would you go to the polls and actually vote?” “If you would vote, would you vote for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton or Republican candidate Donald Trump?”
Even more devastating to SurveyUSA’s flawed polling is what can barely be read in the fine print:
This survey was conducted using blended sample, mixed-mode. Respondents reachable on a home telephone (62% of registered voters) were interviewed on their home (landline) telephone in the recorded voice of a professional announcer. Respondents not reachable on a home telephone (38% of registered voters) were shown a question on their smartphone, tablet or other electronic device. Cell respondents, as is typically the case, vote more Democratic than do landline respondents. Among just the universe of cell-phone respondents, Clinton defeats Trump by 16 points; Sanders defeats Trump by 12 points; Biden defeats Trump by 17 points; and Gore defeats Trump by 17 points. The more cell-phone respondents a pollster includes in its “mix” of voters, the more Democratic the poll results will be.
What is SurveyUSA saying in the above tiny print disclaimer? Of the people who responded to their survey, 62% were reached on a landline. Yet, if SurveyUSA had primarily used cells phones to conduct the survey, Trump would have lost by 16 points. In the U.S. more than 90% of adults own a cell phone. Why would SurveyUSA have limited its survey to 38% of cell phone users? This especially is true when they admit that the results of their survey would have shown Trump losing by 16 points if they had used only cell phone users.
Ring of Fire also would like to ask who are these 620 people out of 1,000 people that SurveyUSA was able to reach that actually still own a landline and answer it for polling companies? Talking about a skewed audience. There is no way to get accurate results with the way polling companies are now trying to acquire information. The reason, because the vast majority of people use cell phones for communication, and those that do have landlines are not going to pick them up and answer a survey company question, unless the person is lonely, bored, or needs to be locked up in an asylum. Remember, everyone now has Caller ID. This means that the person actually picking up the phone to answer the survey knows they are about to participate in a survey. The type of people who will do this represent a very skewed portion of the population.
The bottom line is to ignore all polling. Be vocal in your opinions, and get out and vote. If you do, then without a question we will once again have a Democrat as President of the United States.
Watch David Pakman’s take on this:
