Gravis Marketing Bias: Since last Tuesday, political junkies have been doing this with a Gravis Marketing poll that got 96 percentage points of a Maryland Congressional race wrong. A January survey carried out by Michael Smigiel, leading Rep. Andy Harris, reported a loss of 67 percentage points, or 78% to 11%, by 29 percentage points in their key Republican rivalry.
Philip Bump of the Fix explained the falls in detail last summer since Trump carried out a Gravis survey, which is said to have been shown by Hispanics to be very famous. The problem lies mainly in the fact that many voters do not rely heavily on fixed lines to administer automated telephone questionnaires with very low response rates.
I suggested the possibility that some people may try to rig the poll of polls using money as long back as August. My theory was that now that poll averages are getting more attention than individual polls (a legitimate shift in emphasis), it is easy to make a candidate’s average poll look better by establishing a polling organization with no track record and reputation and producing manipulated surveys (so that it will never have any credibility). Pollsters would manufacture surveys to provide the illusion of a more accurate picture of public opinion in order to give the candidate with the highest support an unfair edge in the election. Republicans are favored by the new pollsters who only want to be thrown into an average because there is no scarcity of money and no scruples involved.
I started my August list with Foster McCollum White Baydoun, for which Nate Silver forecasted an 11 percent pro-Republican house effect. Our Purples and Ask America strategies were also addressed. Because Alex Castellanos, the CEO of Purple Strategies and a well-known political operative, is the man behind the most current (albeit decades-old) race-baiting ad campaign (the white hand’s ad). Dino, who formerly worked in public relations for the energy firm, now conducts independent polls (fair and balanced being used in the Fox News sense).
New Technique Direct Result
Rasmussen, on the other hand, is a one-of-a-kind individual. Their new technique, in my opinion, is a direct result of their ability to impact public opinion in favor of Republicans despite their statistical bias (3,8 percent in 2010).
Following that lengthy introduction, Gravis Marketing has been added to the list. Even some of the top pollsters in the industry haven’t heard of them, which says a lot. They have the same effect as if the House of Representatives were controlled by Republicans. Silver’s averages differ from those of other aggregators in that Silver only removes a portion of the house influence from his averages. Political geeks have been yukking it up since last Tuesday over a Gravis Marketing poll that predicted a Maryland congressional race incorrectly by 96 percentage points — yes, 96 percentage points. In a Gravis survey done in January, Michael Smigiel, a Republican primary opponent of Rep. Andy Harris, held a 29-point lead against Harris; nonetheless, Smigiel lost by 67 points, 78 percent to 11 percent.
The margin of error in this example was really astounding. We all know that polls aren’t always reliable (remember the Michigan Democratic primary?). Anywhere if it was completed three months before the primary day, there’s no way it was even close to being accurate at the time. Despite the fact that Smigiel was a former Maryland state delegate, the $1,900 he hired Gravis to conduct the survey for him was one-tenth of his entire campaign spending. Harris spent around 15 times as much money as Smigiel.
As Daily Kos Elections pointed out in 2012, this Gravis poll was not a true ballot test, but rather an “informed ballot” survey that implanted negative information about Harris in respondents’ brains before assessing their support. Gravis’ client displayed it as an ordinary poll, thus it was covered in this fashion, even though it shouldn’t have been.
Gravis’ Track Record
Despite this, Gravis’ track record indicated that it was unlikely to be off by much. Despite having an eight-point advantage over Rep. David Joyce in the Republican primary in Ohio, Joyce won by a whopping 20 points in March. This was obviously not a well-informed vote. In Gravis’ polling immediately before the Democratic primary in New York last month, Sen. Bernie Sanders came within six percentage points of Hillary Clinton’s advantage; he lost by 16.
In a Gravis poll taken immediately before their primary in 2014, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was 14 points ahead of Matt Bevin (now Kentucky Governor). Their polling once again revealed a more competitive race than any other poll. Mitch McConnell, the current majority leader, defeated Bevin with ease. Gravis misjudged the power of Sen. John Cornyn when he ran against Rep. Steve Stockman in the Republican primary (R-Texas). Cornyn led in one poll by 15 points, but he led in another by 46 points. At the time of the election, he had a 40-point lead.
Then-Slate reporter David Weigel reported the Kentucky and Texas primary polling failures two years ago with the bold headline “The Worst Poll in America.” That could be a tad overblown. Gravis gets a “C” from FiveThirtyEight’s data junkies out of more than 300 polling firms – not fantastic, but better than Strategic Vision or the Pharos Research Group, which get “F”s and are omitted entirely from the site’s calculations. Other Gravis surveys have shown to be accurate in the past. In Republican presidential primaries in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware last week, the Florida-based business came close to matching the actual vote shares of winner Donald Trump and runner-up Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
According to Gravis managing partner Doug Kaplan, congressional primaries are “very tough to poll.” “Every poll is in good faith,” he said, citing the fact that the firm had helped Smigiel and Lynch win contests when their polls showed them in the lead.
Gravis polling’s Dependability
Gravis polling’s dependability was called into question after a string of double-digit misses. I’m sure you saw that in the samples I gave. Candidates who were thought to be secure in the general election were presented as more vulnerable than they were due to erroneous polls. There is a pro-drama bias in the news media, and it even affects the political press.
Because of this common blunder, The New Yorker, the Guardian, and, yes, even The Washington Post, occasionally and with disclaimers, continue to quote Gravis surveys. For example, as in Delaware’s primary, Gravis polling is sometimes the only game in town. Despite Kaplan’s emphasis on the genuineness of the polls, Gravis’ survey methodology is untrustworthy. The Fix’s Philip Bump addressed the issues in depth last summer when Trump was citing a Gravis poll as proof of his support among Hispanics. The essence of the problem is that automated phone questionnaires with low response rates are conducted using landlines, which many voters do not have.
At the very least, when adopting Gravis surveys, the media should be informed of the firm’s discrepancies and dubious methods. They should also avoid referencing Gravis just because one of its surveys fits a captivating narrative. The word “interesting” has been misused far too frequently.
Gravis Marketing is now in first place for the 2014 Strategic Vision Award for Botched Polling. In the most recent Texas polls, Sen. John Cornyn leads Rep. Steve Stockman 43–28. Cornyn overcame Stockman, one of the laziest candidates in recent Texas history, 59-19, despite a 25-point deficit. The remaining votes were split evenly among the anti-Cornyn candidates.
Mitch McConnell led Matt Bevin by 14 points in Gravis’ final Kentucky survey, 48 to 34. I saw Bevin at CPAC, and he emphasized the point that he was blazing across the state, in stark contrast to Stockman. Bevin received 35% of the vote, a little increase over Gravis’ forecast. McConnell and Gravis were separated by a stunning 25 points, with McConnell receiving 60% of the vote. The poll that offers revolutionaries hope does so with its embarrassingly wrong survey.
