Naughty, Naughty Newsweek distorts its poll (or thinks it does)
When we reported the Newsweek poll the other day, which shows an 11-13 point Bush lead, depending on how you count, we said we were “very suspicious of this poll, because of its large shift and because of its source.”
Today, Scott Rasmussen confirms those suspicions, and says the real result is more like 4-5% Bush lead. Speaking of the Newsweek poll, and a similar one by TIME, Rasmussen says:
Those polls appear to have the mirror image problem of a Los Angeles Times poll in June reportedly showing Kerry with a huge lead. That LA Times survey included too many Democrats in their sample. Today, it seems likely that Time and Newsweek included too many Republicans.
Time reports that Republicans will vote for Bush by an 89% to 9% margin; Democrats for Kerry by an 80% to 9% margin; and, unaffiliated voters for Bush 43% to 39%.
Four years ago, 35% of voters were Republicans, 39% were Democrats, and the rest were unaffiliated. If you apply those percentages to the Time internals, you find Bush up by about 3 percentage points. If you do the same with the Newsweek internal numbers, you find Bush with a six point lead.
I think there is no question that Newsweek and TIME have an agenda: at a minimum they want to sell magazines by betting on a “Kerry comeback” story line against Bush and the SwiftBoatVets, and at a maximum they want to create the momentum for Kerry themselves. Remember that it was Evan Thomas of Newsweek who said that the elite media would boost Kerry/Edwards by “maybe 15 points.” Framing the story as a Kerry comeback in the next weeks gives Newsweek just the angle to try to deliver the 15 points promised by Thomas.
Newsweek thinks it’s oh so clever by framing the issue this way: the huge Bush lead followed by a Kerry surge. How they would hate it if there is not, in fact, the surge they expect.
Stay tuned.