I was beginning to hold out hope that the Associated Press was tiring of its partnership with the polling firm GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications.
No such luck. The latest AP-GfK poll on the presidential race of 1,007 people of whom 878 are registered voters shows Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney 48% to 44%. That four-point lead is down from 10 points in May and six points in June. The August poll only ended up with Obama in the lead because of extraordinary overweighting of Democrats and a ridiculously small percentage of people who describe themselves as strong Republicans.
Ths graphic from the "topline" report tells the tale:
By contrast, Gallup and Rasmussen show significantly different party identification nationally.
Gallup's latest result is 29% Dems, 26% GOP. Its 11 polls on the topic this year have Democrats with an average advantage of just over 2%.
On August 1, Rasmussen showed Republicans with a tiny lead of 34.9% to 34.0%.
Obama's advantage would have evaporated and turned into a slight Romney lead with a representative sample.
But it wouldn't be a presidential election season without poll cooking by AP-GfK, would it?
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
