Yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume announced that the POLITICO/GWU Battleground poll coming out on Monday will show that Mitt Romney is ahead by 5!
I questioned how would Brit know this? Is POLITICO now such an arm of the GOP that they’re leaking their numbers directly to Brit friggin’ Hume?! Uhm, no.
Today, POLITICO released the poll and it shows the President leading Romney by 1, 49 to 48. The poll was conducted by Republican pollster Ed Goeas of The Tarrance Group and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners.
Thanks to this diary from NJID, we learned that the RW media was still relying on Brit’s numbers to say Romney is ahead in the poll by 5 despite, you know, the actual poll showing Romney was actually leading from behind.
NJID’s diary links to a story in The Weekly Standard that continues to push this delusion:
The bipartisan Battleground Poll, in its “vote election model,” is projecting that Mitt Romney will defeat President Obama 52 percent to 47 percent. The poll also found that Romney has an even greater advantage among middle class voters, 52 percent to 45 percent.
While Obama can close the gap with a strong voter turnout effort, “reports from the field would indicate that not to be the case, and Mitt Romney may well be heading to a decisive victory,” says pollster Ed Goeas.[…snip]
The Weekly Standard later updated its laughable article to note:
UPDATE: Politico reports on the poll's top-line: Obama 49, Romney 48 percent. But it is the noteworthy last paragraph from Goeas's memo that we're referring to: "In sum, this data indicates this election remains very close on the surface, but the political environment and the composition of the likely electorate favor Governor Romney….In that snapshot of today’s vote model, Mitt Romney leads Barack Obama by five-points – 52% to 47%….
See, what had happened was that the republican half of the polling firm decided to expand on the poll numbers by writing a memo to explain why even though Romney was behind, he was actually ahead! The "Battleground Poll," didn't do a “vote election model,” as The Weekly Standard said. The republican half of the polling outfiit, Tarrance Group, did one!
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