Unlikely Voter

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Continuing Politico’s apparent strategy of linking to obscure polls that say bad things about Republicans for shock and traffic value in this wave year, the site now reports Joe Miller to be in last place.

For several reasons, one has to discount this poll’s predictiveness of the coming election.

First off, according to Politico, the poll was commissioned by a Democrat-friendly site The Mudflats (which is apparently inaccessible at present due to attention drawn by Politico). Without seeing the details of question order, rotation, and other details so often not reported in the poll-ignorant press, we can’t even guess what kinds of bias were averted or not.

Second, Politico reports that the poll had no screening of respondents. That there was no checking for registered voter status even suggests the poll’s designers at The Mudflats either weren’t interested in or don’t even know the best practices of the industry needed to make horserace political polling predictive of elections.

Third, again, even with the latest court decision voters will not have Lisa Murkowski’s name in front of them without taking specific, unprompted action. Her voters have a higher hurdle than either Republican Joe Miller’s or even Democrat Scott McAdams’s.

Oh, and not really related to the poll, but fourthly: only Politico could take word that the NRSC is spending a half million dollars on Miller’s behalf, and turn it into bad news for him. Because seriously, after the Orion poll and now this, what’s next for Politico? Some guy in his basement reporting Barbara Boxer 18 points over Carly Fiorina? Brace for it.