Stein--Pennsylvania Polling
A new poll out from Muhlenberg College/Morning Call yesterday in the state of Pennsylvania is looking pretty good for Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
The poll measured likely voters, which means they dropped all the "Not too likely to vote", "Definitely won't vote", or "Unsure" responses from the poll. That left 405 respondents who were "Definitely Voting" or were "Very likely to vote". Generally, polls that measure only "likely" voters are much more accurate than those that include all registered voters. All the voters in this poll were registered as well, of course.
The poll was taken during 9/12-9/16. Stein polled at 5%, which is great for a state the size of Pennsylvania.
The previous 5 polls taken between the dates of 8/25 and 9/7--Quinnipiac, CBS News/YouGov, Monmouth, Emerson, and Franklin & Marshall--showed Stein polling between 1% and 3% in the state.
That's a nice jump, and where we need to be for bigger states at a minimum.
Morning Call poll results. (PDF warning)
Comments
Even better for Stein's numbers
Independents were way underpolled (barely more than 10% of the sample).
Wow
Did not notice that!
Just to clarify for folks who may not be "in the know" about such things--independents typically make up around 40% of the electorate nowadays (at least nationally--not sure about PA specifically). Independents are where Stein (and Johnson for that matter) have the greatest support.
The media and a lot of these polls seem to be influenced by the Clinton machine to portray Clinton in the best possible light. Undercount Independents--even though they are now the largest voting block out there. Overcount Democrats. Don't count voters under 29 years of age, or 35 years of age, who are now the third party's strongest source of support.
For this poll, age wasn't messed with--but only 11% of people counted were independents, and 47% were Democtrats, versus 38% Republican. With Clinton showing an 8% lead in this poll, we can probably expect reality to be a lot closer.
Actually, I suspect that if independents were more polled
it might not change the relative numbers between Clinton and Trump (it would just lower than both). Hillary and Trump's Independent numbers are in ratio to their overall numbers (the final breakdown is a little tricky because it's only giving the breakdowns for the numbers without Stein/Johnson specified. When Stein and Johnson are specified as choices, Hillary and Trump lose an additional 13% of the electorate combined).
I would expect that Hillary and Donald would lose similar proportions, while third party candidates would rise.
This poll is at least decent enough cross section wise to be worth some analysis, although once again, the primary question is:
"Are you leaning more towards voting for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?" Regardless, I think that it's safe to say that if they actually took proper cross sections, Jill would be would percentage points higher since Indies are her strongest category.