Live Polls Show Obama With Bigger Leads In Ohio

Source: TPM

How tight is the presidential race in Ohio? It depends who’s polling.

Surveys of the Buckeye State have been all over the board in recent weeks as the election draws near. While most show President Obama with the lead, the size of it depends on whether the pollster was using human beings or robots to do the interviewing.

TPM compared the two methods and found that polls conducted by a live interviewer, the method widely considered to be the gold standard, have shown the President with larger leads than polls conducted by automated calls, which are prohibited from contacting people through cell phones. Since early September, live polls have shown Obama with an average lead of 4.5 percent in Ohio while robo-polls show him with an average lead of less than 2.

Ohio has been the most polled state of the presidential campaign since the national conventions, edging both Florida and Virginia for that distinction. The 44 polls conducted there since early-September include 22 done by automated calling, 16 performed by live phone interviews, five conducted online and one based on mail-in responses.




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