AP Poll Overdoes Over-Sampling of Democrats Again

January 6th, 2006 6:01 PM

They’re at it again. Those happy collaborators at the Associated Press and Ipsos have brought forth their latest bit of fantasy. The headline? “AP Poll: Congressional Democrats Favored.”

In yet another sly attempt at bolstering Democratic hopes in glum times, the ever-dependable Will Lester and David Espo tell us that, “In an ominous election-year sign for Republicans, Americans are leaning sharply toward giving Democrats control of Congress, an AP-Ipsos poll finds.”

In a mere three opening paragraphs they manage snide allusions to President Bush’s forty percent job approval rating, a surge in violence in Iraq and the Jack Abramoff trial. They caution that, “Republican strategists fear that fallout from the Abramoff scandal will give Democrats fresh opportunity for gains.”

Sounds pretty scary for the GOP, doesn’t it? Yes, but only if one is too lazy to follow the link to the poll data so graciously provided by the good folks at the AP. Why they include these links is perplexing since they almost always reveal that the polling is cooked to reflect their leftist agenda.

And this latest is no exception. The answer is revealed on the very first page of the poll:

REGISTERED  VOTERS

Strongly Republican .......................... 13

Moderately Republican ..................... 27

Definitely Independent/neither............ 8

Moderately Democrat........................ 32

Strongly Democrat ............................ 20

Refused/not sure.................................. 0

Total Republican ............................ 40

Total Democrat ............................... 52

Yes, that’s correct. They over-sampled Democrats as they so often do, this time by a whopping twelve points. And the answer to the all-important question, “And if the election for Congress were held today, would you want to see the Republicans or Democrats win control of Congress?”

Republicans ..................................... 36

Democrats ....................................... 49

Neither …………………................ 12

Not sure ............................................. 3

Message to the AP: The election will not be held today and even if it were, the fact that most Republicans will vote Republican and most Democrats will vote Democratic is not news, no matter how you cook it.