Discussion for article #229828
Is the problem crappy polls, or fools who take every poll seriously?
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Perhaps the investigation should be of the polls where people voted.
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I think the problem is that a lot of organizations see political polls as a means to get publicity for themselves and/or build a public narrative that somehow works to their advantage, so they get into the business for the wrong reasons. Polls are supposed to be objective research tools.
The question is which polls were off. The ones conducted by the media, campaigns and think tanks… or the one we had yesterday?
Ok, I’m done with this election. On to other stuff. Have fun with continuing this conversation about last night. But I’m moving on.
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Especially when the gov’t of the state is doing everything it can to prevent some people from voting.
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Yes, Larry, I am sure those Gillespie internal polls that showed him so far behind that he pulled down his TV ads must have been rigged by the vast left wing conspiracy.
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Mark Warner is a DLC/Third Way candidate who likes to punch left. That crap worked in the 90’s when he ran for governor, but who is going to get off their butt to vote for that guy in 2014? McCauliffe ran on a full-throated, liberal, populist platform and won handily for governor. So yeah - Warner polled well because he’s not a Republican in a Blue-ish state, and he’s very well known. Doesn’t mean he inspires people to vote for him.
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Here’s an idea. Automatically register every US citizen who turns 18 to vote and include a $25 tax rebate on their federal tax statement, which the government prepares for them and says how much they are owed or owe. At the same time, they will be placed in a $600 million lottery that gives out 1,000 equal-size tax-free prizes. Only one catch, if you fail to vote you are ineligible for the prize and you forfeit your rebate. Thus, nobody has to vote, but it comes with lost opportunity costs.
McCauliffe won handily? Huh…50,000 votes out of 2,000,000+ cast.
Terry had a close to a double digit lead just before the election and won by 2.5%…sound familiar?
I’m with you Robert. Good riddance to this year’s cast of mediocre characters. Braley, Hagan, Nunn, Udall, Grimes, Coaxley and all the rest.
BuhBYE!!!
Sounds like Larry is gunning to head up the “Investigation”.
I think you missed the part where the Republicans are trying to keep people from voting, not encourage them to do so!!
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Sabato is finding it harder and harder to hide that he is a GOPer. Through and through. And that is aside from his personal friendship with George Allen. He has always found the best scenario for the GOP while pointing out how “the Democrats may be/are in trouble” in his pre-election analyses. For years he has done this.
Exactly. This is very typical of Sabato. Ignore GOP information that counters his created meme.
Or is the problem vote suppression? I guess we’ll just never know, because, you know, Republicans would never want an investigation into that.
Perhaps he could persuade SCOTUS to recount in the GOP’s favor…not like it hasn’t been done before.
You’re right. I forgot about the actual results … I remember the thought at the time being the Obamacare roll out was pinned as the blame for the close call - but it could just be typical Democrat, off-year crappy turnout.
Before we all paint Mark Warner as some sort of lily livered, not-worth-talking-about Democrat, let’s please remember that he INVENTED the modern formula for Democrats winning state wide in Virginia in the 90s when the state party was in shambles and without a single Democratic state wide office holder. And that formula - which has been used by Webb, Kaine, McAuliffe, and every other Dem winner since - was to work hard to reduce Democratic losses with conservative whites in the coal country of SW Virginia, and crushing the GOP in the cities and Northern Virginia. Obamacare has been blamed for reducing Dem margins in the last two cycles, but I think another unspoken factor in VA as well as WV and KY, is coal. The Dems need to be for clean energy and concern for climate change, but we also need to have something constructive to say economically to people who live in coal country or we will lose more of the states in that region.