fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
Saturday, Oct. 21, 2006 8:15 p.m. EDT
Newsweek Poll: Democrats Gain Congress
More than half of Americans, 55 percent, would like to see Democrats take control of Congress, according to a poll by Newsweek magazine released Saturday.
The poll of 1,000 likely voters found that 55 percent would choose a Democrat to represent their district if the vote were held now, and 37 percent said they would vote Republican.
This includes 31 percent of white evangelical Christians, an increase of 6 points among that strongly Republican group over the 2004 elections.
"Similarly, Democrats now lead among white Catholics, a group that went for President Bush in the 2004 presidential election," Newsweek said in a statement.
The poll, which had a margin of error of 4 percentage points, found that 44 percent of white Catholics planned to vote Democrat and 42 percent planned to vote Republican.
The poll found that 57 percent of those surveyed disapprove of Bush's job performance and just 35 percent approve. And it found that 67 percent are dissatisfied with the direction in which things are moving in the United States.
While 65 percent of those polled felt the United States was losing ground in Iraq, only 31 percent said the issue was the most important factor behind their vote this year for members of Congress.
Some 18 percent said the economy was most important while 16 percent said healthcare was most important to them.
But 74 percent said a top priority for Congress should be to make changes to allow the government to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices for seniors, and this included 70 percent of Republicans.
And 68 percent of those polled said raising the minimum wage should also be a top priority.
Of those sampled, 282 identified themselves as Republicans, 349 as Democrats and 330 as Independents.
(c) Reuters 2006. All rights reserved.
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Now, let's do a little analysis. Notice that the Democrat sample is significantly larger than the Republican sample, as is the Independent sample. If we take out the Independent sample, the remaining sample divides out 55% Dem, 45% Republican. Isn't that interesting?
If we assume that Democrats will all vote Democrat, and vice versa for Republicans, then it is also safe to assume that the Independent vote is equally split. If that's true, then the 55% advantage given to the Democrats is solely due to the oversampling. That would mean that in reality, if Republicans and Democrats were sampled evenly, the vote would be 50-50.
Why does Newsweek oversample the Democrat vote? The party affiliations spread across the country aren't split that way. As a matter of fact, the last election showed IN ACTUAL VOTES 52%-48% for Bush, if you want a national trend. So if we throw out the Independent vote as meaningless, the votes should split along party lines, and the parties should be represented fairly.
Newsweek shows their bias. It costs a lot of money to conduct a nationwide poll. Either Newsweek doesn't have enough skilled phone operators to call until they represent the samples accurately, or they deliberately oversampled in order to make the Democrats appear to have an advantage in the polls.
Thank God elections are still settled by counting ACTUAL VOTES. Of course, if the Democrats win, that will change.
Newsweek Poll: Democrats Gain Congress
More than half of Americans, 55 percent, would like to see Democrats take control of Congress, according to a poll by Newsweek magazine released Saturday.
The poll of 1,000 likely voters found that 55 percent would choose a Democrat to represent their district if the vote were held now, and 37 percent said they would vote Republican.
This includes 31 percent of white evangelical Christians, an increase of 6 points among that strongly Republican group over the 2004 elections.
"Similarly, Democrats now lead among white Catholics, a group that went for President Bush in the 2004 presidential election," Newsweek said in a statement.
The poll, which had a margin of error of 4 percentage points, found that 44 percent of white Catholics planned to vote Democrat and 42 percent planned to vote Republican.
The poll found that 57 percent of those surveyed disapprove of Bush's job performance and just 35 percent approve. And it found that 67 percent are dissatisfied with the direction in which things are moving in the United States.
While 65 percent of those polled felt the United States was losing ground in Iraq, only 31 percent said the issue was the most important factor behind their vote this year for members of Congress.
Some 18 percent said the economy was most important while 16 percent said healthcare was most important to them.
But 74 percent said a top priority for Congress should be to make changes to allow the government to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices for seniors, and this included 70 percent of Republicans.
And 68 percent of those polled said raising the minimum wage should also be a top priority.
Of those sampled, 282 identified themselves as Republicans, 349 as Democrats and 330 as Independents.
(c) Reuters 2006. All rights reserved.
*********************************************************
Now, let's do a little analysis. Notice that the Democrat sample is significantly larger than the Republican sample, as is the Independent sample. If we take out the Independent sample, the remaining sample divides out 55% Dem, 45% Republican. Isn't that interesting?
If we assume that Democrats will all vote Democrat, and vice versa for Republicans, then it is also safe to assume that the Independent vote is equally split. If that's true, then the 55% advantage given to the Democrats is solely due to the oversampling. That would mean that in reality, if Republicans and Democrats were sampled evenly, the vote would be 50-50.
Why does Newsweek oversample the Democrat vote? The party affiliations spread across the country aren't split that way. As a matter of fact, the last election showed IN ACTUAL VOTES 52%-48% for Bush, if you want a national trend. So if we throw out the Independent vote as meaningless, the votes should split along party lines, and the parties should be represented fairly.
Newsweek shows their bias. It costs a lot of money to conduct a nationwide poll. Either Newsweek doesn't have enough skilled phone operators to call until they represent the samples accurately, or they deliberately oversampled in order to make the Democrats appear to have an advantage in the polls.
Thank God elections are still settled by counting ACTUAL VOTES. Of course, if the Democrats win, that will change.
