Latino Decisions, the leader in Latino political opinion research, has criticized the latest NBC-11 poll of Georgia voters, calling it
"seriously flawed," and leading to "wildly incorrect speculation."
The NBC-11 poll, conducted by Survey USA, was highlighted on the station's website under the headline: Hispanic voter buck assumptions, back GA GOP candidates. According to the poll, Hispanics favor Nathan Deal (R) over Jason Carter(D) by 40 percent to 29 percent. The poll showed that, overall, Carter was ahead by a single point, leading Deal 45 percent to 44 percent.
This is not the first time that so-called “mainstream” pollsters have misunderstood the Latino vote. Most famously polls in Nevada in 2010 all forecast Democrat Harry Reid would lose to Republican Sharon Angle, and that Latinos were backing Angle at surprisingly high numbers, given that, you know, she ran one of the most anti-immigrant campaign in modern history. In the end, all the pre-election polls in Nevada were terribly wrong. Rather than lose by a predicted 5 points, Harry Reid actually won by more than 5 points. Even though election forecasting guru Nate Silver predicted Angle would win with 83% confidence, his own post-election analysis suggested that his prediction could have been based on biased polls in Nevada, with bad Latino samples in particular. The Nevada example is just one of many in which English-only, automated voice robopolls with tiny samples of Latinos introduce significant bias. Specifically, these polls tend to produce Latino samples with three-to-four times higher the income and education levels than what census data on Latino registered voters reports.
The problems, as pointed out by Latino Decisions, included the survey size. There were only 38 interviews conducted with Hispanic voters, resulting in a margin of error of +/- 16 points, which means that the 11 point difference in the polling is within the margin of error. Also, the survey was done using automated robocalls which not only
tend Republican, but do not readily lend themselves to getting a representative sampling in the Latino community.
Survey USA also did the poll only in English.
Exclud[ing] any possible Latino voter who was more comfortable taking the survey in Spanish. According to the Latino National Survey, which interviewed 400 Latinos across the state of Georgia, using live callers, who administered the survey in English or Spanish, about 80 percent of the Latino adult population in Georgia is foreign-born. According to the LNS data, Latino respondents in Georgia preferred to be interviewed in Spanish at rates even higher than the national average.
And finally, the results don't pass the smell test. Deal is known for his anti-immigration stands, including a proposal to have hospitals check immigration status prior to treating patients, support for a bill to repeal birthright citizenship for children of undocumented parents, and votes to further militarize the border and build higher fences, making it very unlikely that Georgia Latinos, 80 percent of whom support a pathway for citizenship for undocumented immigrants, are going to vote for Deal.
Especially not at a 40 percent to 29 percent ratio.
Our conclusion? The poll reported by Survey USA for NBC-11 is not appropriate for estimating Latino vote preference in Georgia and, as a consequence, is definitely underestimating not just Latino support for Carter and Nunn and, by extension, their statewide standing.
Help elect more and better Democrats in November. Please give $3 to Daily Kos' endorsed candidates and strike a blow against Republican.