“When you’re debating the polls, you’re losing”

The words in the title are not mine, actually.  They are the words of the wingnuttiest of them all, WTKK’s Michael Graham, who really, really doesn’t want Deval Patrick to win.

But of course he’s right – in fact, he wrote that post in 2006 after seeing a similar post by yours truly, in which I explained that

it turns that polling — real polling by independent organizations, not a campaign’s leaked internals — works.  It actually works pretty darn well….

So the next time a campaign spokesguy or sympathizer tries to downplay polls showing his candidate way down by saying that the campaign’s internals show a much tighter race, smile, nod politely, and go about your business.

After quoting that comment in his post, Graham concluded with “He’s right, folks.”

Now, fast forward to October 13, 2010, on which date Suffolk released a poll (full details here) that has to have been a truly crushing disappointment to Team Baker.  Not only is Governor Patrick still holding the 6-8 point lead that many polls have been showing him with for months, but even more remarkably, Charlie Baker’s unfavorable rating now exceeds his favorable rating (33%-35%), while Governor Patrick’s numbers are about where they’ve been all along, or even slightly better (46%-43%).  Many predictions of the Suffolk results over at RMG had Baker ahead or significantly closing the gap.  Nobody expected the blowout that this poll represents.

And so, hilariously, this morning the utterly predictable spinning began.

Our internals show a totally different race!

dbernstein David S. Bernstein

Baker claims internal poll has him up 7 pts on Patrick, details later. #magov

Suffolk polled the wrong people!

CB_Gorka Rick Gorka

Polling registered voters is a poor decision with under three weeks to go, ppl who actually plan to vote provide a more accurate pic #magov

(That particular argument is total BS, by the way: 92% of the Suffolk respondents said they were “almost certain to vote,” and the remaining 8% said they would “probably” vote.)

Suffolk sucks anyway!

CB_TimOBrien Tim O’Brien

Suffolk U Oct 26, 2009 NJ Gov poll: Corzine (42%) Christie (33%), Chris Daggett (7%).  #magov

It’s a little embarrassing, really.  I mean, does anyone actually believe that Baker is suddenly up 7 points, when no independent pollster has shown him ahead at all?  Relatedly, does anyone else recall that, in 2006, campaigns repeatedly claimed that internals had them doing much better than independent polls, only to have it turn out that the independents were right after all?

And so I close with the words of my good friend Michael Graham from 2006.

Some 96.9 FM TALK listeners were frustrated with me the past two weeks because I refused to even entertain the argument “Hey–these polls are bogus! Healey can still win.”

Sorry, folks, but the whole point of the Natural Truth is to ignore nonsense like this, even when it’s nonsense I’d like to believe in. But it’s an unavoidable fact: Polls work (mostly). The candidate who’s debating the validity of the polls is a candidate who is losing.

And that’s the Natural Truth.  😉

Please share widely!

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