Rush Limbaugh Concedes He Was Wrong To Reject Polls In 2012
By MATT SHUHAM Published OCTOBER 24, 2016, 4:13 PM EDT
Conservative shock jock Rush Limbaugh warned Trump supporters not to assume polls showing the GOP nominee losing were “rigged,” admitting that he thought the same in 2012 only to be proven wrong.
“I wish that I could sit here and tell you that I, without question, think the polls are rigged. I have thought so in previous elections,” Limbaugh said Monday on his radio show. He admitted he was cautious about dismissing unfavorable polls because he mistakenly did the same thing in 2012, underestimating President Barack Obama’s support.
“In 2012, honest to God, folks, I thought Romney was gonna win by five or six. There weren't any polls that said that. I thought they were all using an incorrect turnout sample,” Limbaugh said. “The way I was looking at it was the 2010 midterms in which the Republicans won landslides. It was the Tea Party. The Democrats lost 700 seats all told nationwide in the 2010 midterms. And I said, ‘You know what? They're not using that turnout in the 2012 presidential polls.’ Turns out they never do.”
One problem with polling that factors in turnout is people sometimes lie about who they voted for in the previous election—nobody wants to admit to voting for a loser—and such discrepancies can bias polls. “If that’s the case this year,” the Los Angeles Times’ David Lauter wrote in August, “then weighting for the vote history would result in slightly too many Republican voters in the sample, which would probably boost Trump’s standing by a point or two.”
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rush-limbaugh-i-was-wrong-polls-2012
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