An Interesting Election Day Analysis - Independents

I was stumbling through some polling data and I noticed a trend I've been writing about in my poll tracker: http://loudmouthelephant.blogspot.com/2012/09/lme-presidential-poll-tracker-database.html

- Mitt Romney is doing well with independents.

But why is this significant considering I projected Obama to win the election? http://loudmouthelephant.blogspot.com/2012/11/cnns-joke-of-poll-and-my-election.html

I'll answer that by looking back to 2008 exit polling data: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1

In 2008, Obama won independents 52 - 44. Party line votes were nearly split (Obama won 89/9 D/R - McCain won 90/10 R/D), but as shown, independents, or 29% of the vote in 2008, went for Obama.

CNN's Joke of a Poll and My Election Prediction

As you can see from the title of this post, there are two relevant issues I'm writing about today: CNN's final poll, and how I think the election will play out. They're relatively unrelated, but I figured I'd get them both out in one post.

First, the CNN poll: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2012/images/11/04/top16.pdf

This final CNN poll is truly a joke. It claims the that Obama and Romney are tied 49% to 49%, but that is with, according to the poll, Romney winning the independent vote my 22 points, 59% to 37%. You might be scratching your head in amazement. "How could this be?" you might ask. Well, it's really quite simple: democrats are oversampled by +11! (D/R/I = 41/30/29).

Getting to the Bottom of Skewed Polls - Part 1

This is labeled as "Part 1" because if more email correspondence exists between me and various pollsters, I will add them as further posts. Of course, if pollsters are afraid to respond, I will write about that, too. Sorry, Mr. Cooper... but this is my version of "Keeping Them Honest." :-)

There has been much written about the skewing or "oversampling" of democrat respondents in recent polls. I wrote about how I believe this is a form of psychological voter suppression being employed by the media: http://loudmouthelephant.blogspot.com/2012/09/voter-suppression-look-no-further-than.html. In short, the oversampling of democrats in polls allows the results to be skewed in favor of Obama, promoting a "Romney can't win this race" situation in an effort to get republican voters to stay home since their efforts would be futile. CNN wrote a "debunk" piece of my theory here: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/28/analysis-polling-criticism-unfounded/. And yes, I have been skeptical of these polls before usual the conservative pundits got on board.