Late October 2012: Bonus Politico Blogging: Shorter Mike Allen: I Am Sorry, But Not Very, That I Have Not Been Doing My Job for Like the Past Six Months

Yes, Diana Furchtgott-Roth Is Madame Poll-Unskewing Wingnut of 2016. Why Do You Ask?

Preview of Test

"How national pollsters are helping Hillary Clinton." IIRC, back when Glenn Hubbard hired Diana Furchgott-Roth for the CEA, I asked, "Why is Glenn hiring that wingnut?" Various people assured to me that she was not a wingnut.

Yes she is. This is highly, highly unprofessional. Any time your list of those putting their thumbs on the Democratic side of the scale includes Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, you have lost any standing to appear in polite society (Live from the Republicans' Self-Made Trump Hell):

Diana Furchtgott-Roth: How National Pollsters Are Helping Hillary Clinton: "National polls show wide variations... Clinton up by 9... essentially tied...

...One explanation for some of the differences in results is the weighting of Republicans and Democrats who are expected to turn out to vote.... Pollsters weight survey responses by a number of factors, including party affiliation. Most pollsters assume that more Democrats than Republicans will turn out to vote.... Of course, no one knows how many voters of each party will show up for this election, and all polls depend critically on assumptions about turnout by party. Although more Democrats voted in 2012 and 2008, the numbers were equal in 2004....

[In] Fox... Clinton leads Trump by 7... assum[ing] that 45 percent of voters will be Democrats, and 36 percent will be Republicans.... Quinnipac... Clinton... by 7... Bloomberg... by 9... it is assumed that Democratic voters top Republicans by 6 percentage points.... NBC-Wall Street Journal... Clinton leads by 11... share of Democrats voting... top[s] Republicans by 9 points....

Rasmussen... the candidates are tied... 37 percent of voters will be Democrats and 33 percent will be Republicans....

Naturally, the larger the share of Democrats assumed to vote, the greater the win for Clinton.... Reweighting can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy, as larger numbers for one candidate discourage supporters of the other candidate from showing up to the polls. The message often is that the election is over before it has begun, so there is little point in voting.... The best way to interpret polls is not as statements of certain outcomes but rather as informed views about future outcomes.  Individuals with informed views are often right, but they are sometimes wrong. So too with pollsters.

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