Sunday, January 29, 2012

USA Today Desperately Tries To Downplay Romney - Obama Poll


I thought the Gingrich Campaign and bloggers like Right Wing Nut were desperate, but Susan Page of USA Today takes the cake for furiously trying to downplay the latest Swing States Poll results of head-to-head matchups of President Obama against GOP contenders Mitt Romney, Newt Ginrich, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.

In her headline, Ms Page claims Obama and Romney are tied, while Gingrish trails. Then in the lead paragraph, Ms. Page writes:

"Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney essentially ties Barack Obama in the nation's top dozen battlegrounds, a USA TODAY/Gallup Swing States survey finds, while rival Newt Gingrich now trails the president by a decisive 14 percentage points." 

(Emphasis mine, and you will soon see why.)

Finally in paragraph 4, we to the numbers of the Obama-Romney match-up, which Ms. Page describes thusly....

"In a head-to-head race, Romney leads Obama by a statistically insignificant percentage point, 48%-47%, the survey finds. Romney's support hasn't wavered from his standing in early December, while Obama's standing against him has risen by four percentage points."

I don't know about you, but in a contest, when one enity leads or beats another, even by one point, it's classified as LEADING, Leads or better yet BEATS.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Swing State Poll, it is a survey of voters across 11 battleground or swing states, which have been identified as historically being those which have decided many past Presidential elections. USA Today polls these states periodically, as does the Purple Poll. I find the Purple Poll more reflective, due to the fact they actually poll each state in the Battleground classification.

In any event, it struck me as prematurely desperate of Ms. Page to try and downplay so heavy-handedly, Gov. Romney's "insignificant" percentage point victory. But maybe they are really worried about Romney natural appeal to Independents, a voter base which has soured on Obama.

Stay Tuned.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gotta feeling Romney will be essentially tied until and maybe after he passes Obama by 10!

BOSMAN said...

You can be sure Doug that if it had been Obama up by 1, you would have Read the word won or beat in the first sentence.

I expect that WHEN Romney wins Tuesday, ALL THE MEDIA (including Fox News) will play it down and use phrases like, "expected win, "was inevitable" even though Gingrich was leading by 15 or more, a short time ago.

Doug NYC GOP said...

I think today was the first time I heard a news report use the word "surge" in reference to Romney, despite his many past surges.

Anonymous said...

When Romney wins big Tuesday, the spin will be that it was because Romney outspent everyone in Florida ads, that the Rupublican "establishment" were all out negative against Newt.

Anonymous said...

Todd Palin is a Democrat and so is Cain's wife.

Not very solid conservative creditentials... Sarah Palin is about the same amount conservative as Bill Ayers.

They are all anarchists... they just want power.