{"id":14201,"date":"2012-10-22T17:50:06","date_gmt":"2012-10-22T17:50:06","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-10-22T17:50:06","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T17:50:06","slug":"caller_s_analysis_of_skewed_poll_samples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2012\/10\/22\/caller_s_analysis_of_skewed_poll_samples\/","title":{"rendered":"Caller\u2019s Analysis of Skewed Poll Samples"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Here is Ed in Fort Myers, Florida, as we head back to the phones. Ed, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, thank you, Rush. It\u2019s a thrill to talk to you.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Thank you, sir.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I hate to think where we would be if it weren\u2019t for you.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I think the same thing, I must tell you.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Ha-ha.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Ha-ha-ha-ha.<\/p>\n

CALLER: My comment concerns the oversampling in these polls and the way that\u2019s reported or described. If there were a poll that is 30% Republican, 40% Democrat, the description is a 10% oversampling of Democrats. But that\u2019s not really correct. If it were a hundred people in the poll, it would 30 Republicans and 40 Democrats, that would be 10 Democrats more than Republicans, and that would be 10 out of 30, which is a 33% oversampling of Democrats.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

RUSH: Oh, you\u2019re gonna go all engineer on us here?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah, he wrote that down, huh?<\/p>\n

RUSH: All right. Numbers are really hard for people when they can\u2019t see them, even me. You got 40% Democrat, 30% Republican, that\u2019s reported as a plus 10 Democrat advantage, but you say it\u2019s actually plus 30, in terms of percent?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Thirty-three.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Thirty-three. Okay, how do you get there?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, if there were a hundred people in the poll, there would be 30 Republicans and 40 Democrats.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right.<\/p>\n

CALLER: That would be 10 more Democrats than Republicans.<\/p>\n

RUSH: That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

CALLER: And that would be 10 out of 30, because there were 30 Republicans, and that\u2019s 33% more Democrats than Republicans.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Why do you take 10 out of 30 and not 10 out of a hundred?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Because there are only 30 Republicans. If they sample 30 Republicans and 30 Democrats, it would be zero. But they sampled 10 more Democrats than they did Republicans and there were only 30 Republicans in the first place. So that would be 33% more Democrats than Republicans.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, there\u2019s no question the math works the way you\u2019re doing it. The only question that I anticipate the audience having is, even though there are only 30 Republicans in the poll, we still have a sample of a hundred people here. We\u2019ve got 40 Democrats, 30 Republicans, that leaves 30 — we\u2019ll say independents, undecideds, which you\u2019re throwing out, they don\u2019t matter for what you\u2019re doing, right?<\/line><\/p>\n

CALLER: No, they don\u2019t matter because we\u2019re only talking about the difference between Republicans and Democrats. The difference being 10 out of 30.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay. All right, then here\u2019s the next question. If what you say is right, 33% more Democrats than Republicans —<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes.<\/p>\n

RUSH: — then how does that manifest itself in the results that the poll says?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, the poll is skewed by 33%.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay, so a poll that shows — let\u2019s get one. And bear with me here. I\u2019m way behind you on numbers. I\u2019m not good with numbers. Forty Democrats, 30 Republicans, and let\u2019s say the poll shows Obama 49, Romney 47.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah. Wait a minute, that\u2019s not the poll. That\u2019s the poll result, yes.<\/p>\n

RUSH: That\u2019s what they\u2019re reporting. The poll of 49-47 with a sample of 10 more Democrats than Republicans. <\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, it depends on how many they sampled, yes.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right. Well, I\u2019m using your number, 40 and 30.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes.<\/p>\n

RUSH: So I\u2019ve got 40-30, and then 30. So got 40 Democrats, 30 Republicans, you say there\u2019s 33% more Democrats. Okay, that poll — this is hypothetical — shows Obama 49, Romney 47. Does that mean, according to your calculations, that we have to take 30% away from Obama, away from 49%? What I\u2019m getting is, how does this —<\/p>\n

CALLER: I haven\u2019t actually thought that through, but I think it would be something like, if you\u2019re gonna compare only the results in the percentages of 49-47, then it would be 10 out of 60. In other words, if you did a proper poll, there would be 30 Republicans and 30 Democrats. We don\u2019t have 30 Democrats. We have 40 Democrats, which is 10 more out of the base of 30 for Republicans. If you say 33% more Democrats than Republicans —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah, but what I\u2019m trying to get —<\/p>\n

CALLER: — so it would be 10 divided by 70 as a percentage spread on the results of the poll. I know I lost you there.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, only because I\u2019d have to divide it on paper to get what that number is.<\/p>\n

CALLER: It\u2019s real simple. I sample 30 Republicans, and I sample 40 Democrats. How many more Democrats did I sample? Ten. Right?<\/p>\n

RUSH: No, no. I understand all this. What I\u2019m trying to get to is what does it mean when they also tell us that of these 40 and 30, that 49% prefer Obama and 47 prefer Romney, what does the 33% — does it change —<\/p>\n

CALLER: Oh, yeah.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, how? <\/p>\n

CALLER: It\u2019s going to change it in terms of a higher percentage for Romney in that case.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah, and the way people are doing it, in your example, if we got a 49-47 Obama lead with a sample of 10 more Democrats, then we\u2019re thinking it should be —<\/p>\n

CALLER: Probably 2%.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Two percent.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay. Out of the 49-47 it\u2019s really 51-46.<\/p>\n

RUSH: For your call to mean something here, we\u2019ve gotta know what your 33% calculation means to the final result that they are reporting —<\/p>\n

CALLER: It\u2019s going to skew it substantially. In other words, the 49-47 example that you picked would probably be somewhere around 51-46 in reality.<\/p>\n

RUSH: For who?<\/p>\n

<\/a>CALLER: The 49 being Obama. Excuse me. It would be the other way around. Sorry. I got that backwards. If they sample an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, the percentages would — the improvement in the poll would be beneficial to the Republicans.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, there\u2019s that 30% undecided we\u2019re not factoring here.<\/p>\n

CALLER: No, because —<\/p>\n

RUSH: The only reason I\u2019m asking you, you\u2019re trying to conclude or you\u2019re trying to get people to conclude that the polls are even more phony —<\/p>\n

CALLER: Oh, yes.<\/p>\n

RUSH: But I don\u2019t see how. I don\u2019t know what to make of the 49-47 —<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, if you had, you know, you do your own poll. You sample 30 Republicans, you sample 40 Democrats. Why did you sample 40 Democrats? You sampled —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, ostensibly because —<\/p>\n

CALLER: You sample 10 more Democrats than you did Republicans. Right?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right.<\/p>\n

CALLER: So that\u2019s a 33% more Democrat than Republicans. Than Republicans. It\u2019s not 33% of the total. It\u2019s 33% more than they did Republicans.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right. No, I understand all that. See, if you have Obama at 49, Romney at 47 with a Democrat plus 10 sample, then people will conclude that Romney might be ahead by 5 rather than down by 2. And they\u2019re trying to get that. They\u2019re just using the 10 greater. When you change the way this is looked at to 33% more Democrats, then people are gonna conclude that Romney\u2019s even further ahead, or better, that Obama\u2019s even further behind, and I just don\u2019t know that that works. Anyway, I appreciate the call and I think statistically you are correct, that that\u2019s the way to analyze the number differential, but I don\u2019t know how anybody can take that and then apply it to what the reported end-of-poll data is and make the adjustment.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay, before we move on, let me explain what the previous caller was just trying to say. It\u2019s a semantic argument only. In the example he gave where there are 40 Democrats and 30 Republicans sampled, the conventional wisdom now — the way of reporting that — is a Democrat-plus-10 sample, and in raw numbers, it is. His point was that it\u2019s much greater than 10 in reality, that it is a 33% increase in the number of Democrats sampled, not 10.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t change the outcome. It\u2019s simply his way of driving home how out of proportion the oversampled Democrat polls are. Nothing more than that. You have 40 Democrats and 30 Republicans, and it\u2019s reported as a Democrat plus 10. It is in raw numbers. But in terms of the percentage, that polling unit actually talked to 33% more Democrats than Republicans, which would help to illustrate just how out of kilter such a poll is with such a sample.<\/p>\n

When you won\u2019t find a sample like that in election returns. You will not find Democrats plus 10, say in 2010, in terms of people showed up. Turnout, if you will. So it\u2019s just a semantic thing. It doesn\u2019t change the outcome of the poll as reported. It\u2019s just a more accurate way of looking at the out-of-balance situation among those polled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Here is Ed in Fort Myers, Florida, as we head back to the phones. Ed, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi. CALLER: Well, thank you, Rush. It\u2019s a thrill to talk to you. RUSH: Thank you, sir. CALLER: I hate to think where we would be if it weren\u2019t for you. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nCaller's Analysis of Skewed Poll Samples - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2012\/10\/22\/caller_s_analysis_of_skewed_poll_samples\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Caller's Analysis of Skewed Poll Samples - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: Here is Ed in Fort Myers, Florida, as we head back to the phones. Ed, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi. CALLER: Well, thank you, Rush. 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