Why most polls done in NV are garbage--Jon Ralston

[Quiet_Dem_Mom]

In an earlier blog post, Ralston reports that the Democrats have a 125,000 voter lead over GOP in Clark County & 85,000 voter lead over GOP statewide.

(@RalstonReports on Twitter)

http://www.ralstonreports.com/blog/why-most-polls-done-nevada-are-garbage

One of my problems with what statistics guru Nate Silver of the New York Times does and what Real Clear Politics does is they average together polls without regard to the quality of the instruments. (I say immodestly that I told Silver in 2010 more than once that his sample was polluted by offal surveys and that Reid was still likely to win here.) If you average bad data with good data – and there rarely is good public data in Nevada – you will have a skewed result. (More on this, too, for my premium subscribers Sunday.)

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In 2008, when Democrats had that 125,000-voter edge, Obama won Clark County by more than 122,000 votes, or 19 percent. John McCain never had a chance after that and lost by 12 points. The edge is similar four years later, and while Mitt Romney has contested the state in a way McCain did not, the math isn't much different. Unless the Democrats turn out in record low numbers relative to Republicans, Romney cannot win unless independents overwhelmingly go for him. And none of those polls show that (indeed, even GOP-leaning Rasmussen shows Obama winning indies by 10).