Ann Coulter: Polls Since 1976 Always Wrongly Favored Democratic Candidate in Last Month of Election

Could polls be skewed to convince the American public that one candidate will surely win (so therefore all of you for the other candidate might as well stay home)?

Well you may remember the suspicious election day exit poll of the last election that said that Kerry was going to win Ohio big and therefore the entire race. It was "accidentally released" mid day. The effect might have been to keep Bush supporters home. In fact, Bush won Ohio, significantly, and therefore the race. The poll was dead wrong.

Ann Coulter has discovered the pattern has been consistent since 1976 - in favor of the Democratic candidate. In my opinion, it smells like the same thing is happening this year. The polls said that Biden beat Palin, yet the debate was the most watched VP debate ever, and had 7 million more viewers than the presidential debates. After the last debate, the NYT said that Obama was ahead by 10 points, but Gallup and Rassmussen said it was only 3 and 4 points. That's a huge - read statistically significant - difference.

One way it is done is by the underlying assumptions. Most polls assume that there is a ratio in America of Democrats to Republicans which is something like 3:2. Therefore when they get the raw data, if they have more Republicans answer than a 3:2 ratio to Democrats, they adjust the Republic opinions to make them a smaller factor in the poll.

But in this election season (read the spring primaries) was there a reason for so many more Democrats registering to vote than Republicans? Sure, Obama v. Clinton on the Dems side and McCain versus nobody on the Republican side. I didn't even vote in my primary - I was out of town and didn't get an absentee ballot. But I am interested in the general election.

The other big difference is between registered voters and "likely" voters. Republicans, conservatives, and middle aged people are more likely to vote than Democrats, liberals, and young. This isn't an insult, it is just a fact. This will effect who will win an election. Go to a college cafeteria and take a poll and you're going to get a vast majority of Democratic Obama supporters. Take a poll at the factory, or in the office and you're going to find more Republican McCain supporters. But the percentage of people who will actually vote is higher in the factory or office than in the college cafeteria.

Here are some of Ann Coulter's findings:

"Reviewing the polls printed in The New York Times and The Washington Post in the last month of every presidential election since 1976, I found the polls were never wrong in a friendly way to Republicans. When the polls were wrong, which was often, they overestimated support for the Democrat, usually by about 6 to 10 points.

In 1976, Jimmy Carter narrowly beat Gerald Ford 50.1 percent to 48 percent. And yet, on Sept. 1, Carter led Ford by 15 points. Just weeks before the election, on Oct. 16, 1976, Carter led Ford in the Gallup Poll by 6 percentage points -- down from his 33-point Gallup Poll lead in August.

Reading newspaper coverage of presidential elections in 1980 and 1984, I found myself paralyzed by the fear that Reagan was going to lose.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan beat Carter by nearly 10 points, 51 percent to 41 percent. In a Gallup Poll released days before the election on Oct. 27, it was Carter who led Reagan 45 percent to 42 percent.

In 1984, Reagan walloped Walter Mondale 58.8 percent to 40 percent, -- the largest electoral landslide in U.S. history. But on Oct. 15, The New York Daily News published a poll showing Mondale with only a 4-point deficit to Reagan, 45 percent to 41 percent. A Harris Poll about the same time showed Reagan with only a 9-point lead. The Oct. 19 New York Times/CBS News Poll had Mr. Reagan ahead of Mondale by 13 points. All these polls underestimated Reagan's actual margin of victory by 6 to 15 points.

In 1988, George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis by a whopping 53.4 percent to 45.6 percent. A New York Times/CBS News Poll on Oct. 5 had Bush leading the Greek homunculus by a statistically insignificant 2 points -- 45 percent to 43 percent. (For the kids out there: Before it became a clearinghouse for anti-Bush conspiracy theories, CBS News was considered a credible journalistic entity.)

A week later -- or one tank ride later, depending on who's telling the story -- on Oct. 13, Bush was leading Dukakis in The New York Times Poll by a mere 5 points.

Admittedly, a 3- to 6-point error is not as crazily wrong as the 6- to 15-point error in 1984. But it's striking that even small "margin of error" mistakes never seem to benefit Republicans.

In 1992, Bill Clinton beat the first President Bush 43 percent to 37.7 percent. (Ross Perot got 18.9 percent of Bush's voters that year.) On Oct. 18, a Newsweek Poll had Clinton winning 46 percent to 31 percent, and a CBS News Poll showed Clinton winning 47 percent to 35 percent.

So in 1992, the polls had Clinton 12 to 15 points ahead, but he won by only 5.3 points.

In 1996, Bill Clinton beat Bob Dole 49 percent to 40 percent. And yet on Oct. 22, 1996, The New York Times/CBS News Poll showed Clinton leading by a massive 22 points, 55 percent to 33 percent.

In 2000, which I seem to recall as being fairly close, the October polls accurately described the election as a virtual tie, with either Bush or Al Gore 1 or 2 points ahead in various polls. But in one of the latest polls to give either candidate a clear advantage, The New York Times/CBS News Poll on Oct. 3, 2000, showed Gore winning by 45 percent to 39 percent. "

Read the entire article here.

This discrepancy could be in play again this year with some polls saying that there is only a 3 point difference while other polls say 10 point. And some major media is saying the Dems will have a super majority in Congress. I don't know what the truth is. The economic crisis on Wall Street is not going to help the Republicans but then again, 18 days is a long time in American politics.