CBS poll 2/18 shows Trump up by double digits, NBC/WSJ poll 2/17 Trump behind Cruz

I just wondering why the huge disparity on polls only taken a day apart. I know it all depends on sample size, the way questions are presented, etc. But is there also an agenda behind each poll. The dates the polls were taken are pretty much the same (with a Feb 14-16 overlap). The NBC did have more respondents though (800 to 581). But why the huge difference in results? I believe both sources are somewhat left leaning so I'm not sure of the narrative they want to convey. Both are national polls.

"Donald Trump (35 percent) continues to hold a commanding lead over the rest of the field, with a 17 point lead over his closest rival, Texas Senator Ted Cruz (18 percent). John Kasich (11 percent) has now risen to a virtual third-place tie with Marco Rubio (12 percent). Trump leads among nearly every demographic group".
"This poll was conducted by telephone February 12-16, 2016 among a random sample of 2,007 adults nationwide, including 1,641 registered voters and 581 registered voters likely to vote in a Republican primary. Data collection was conducted on behalf of CBS News and the New York Times by SSRS of Media, PA. Phone numbers were dialed from samples of both standard land-line and cell phones.
The poll employed a random digit dial methodology. For the landline sample, a respondent was randomly selected from all adults in the household. For the cell sample, interviews were conducted with the person who answered the phone.
Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish using live interviewers.
The data have been weighted to reflect U.S. Census figures on demographic variables.
The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus two percentage points. The margin of error for the sample of 581 Republican primary voters could be plus or minus five percentage points. The error for other subgroups may be higher and is available by request. The margin of error includes the effects of standard weighting procedures which enlarge sampling error slightly."
www.cbsnews.com...

"In the poll, Cruz is the first choice of 28 percent of Republican primary voters, while Trump gets 26 percent. They're followed by Marco Rubio at 17 percent, John Kasich at 11 percent, Ben Carson at 10 percent and Jeb Bush at 4 percent".
"The NBC/WSJ poll was conducted Feb. 14-16 of 800 registered voters (which has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.5 percentage points) and 400 GOP primary voters (which has a margin of error of plus-minus 4.9 percentage points)."
www.nbcnews.com...

a reply to: UnBreakable
The news media is at odds over which Republican will be more easily beat by the Democrats?

RCP has consolidated averages.

Good for comparisons.

RCP Polls

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: UnBreakable
The news media is at odds over which Republican will be more easily beat by the Democrats?

That most likely is true, but if that's the case, the NBC results are curious. Cruz beats Clinton is national polls, Trump doesn't. NBC is even more left than CBS. You'd think that if nothing else, NBC would downplay Cruz even more to make their girl Hil even more assured over Cruz.

a reply to: UnBreakable


The WSJ only had 400 samples to come up with that number. Would they have went to 2000 if it would have meant they got the result they wanted?

I really don't understand how people can take polls seriously when they are portrayed to show how a percentage of the country feel when only polling a tiny...tiny.....tiny.....portion of the populous, yet portray it as a much larger figure?

a reply to: UnBreakable

Thats quite a difference.

Discrepancies like dont help to instill confidence in those who already question the validity of polls.

But maybe theres a reasonable explanation, lets take a closer look.

First I thought maybe one of the polls was state specific. Nope, both are national. CBS says "...Donald Trump continues to hold a double-digit lead over the rest of the Republican field nationally". The NBC poll actually says national right in their title.

NBC actually realizes that their results are skewed and tries to explain why. First they say, "This poll comes after other surveys — both nationally and in South Carolina, the site of Saturday's next Republican contest — show Trump with a commanding lead. But some of those weren't conducted entirely after the last debate like the NBC/WSJ poll".

Ok so they're saying that their poll was more recent and reflects people's most recent opinions. The CBS article says that "This poll was conducted by telephone February 12-16" while the NBC article says that "The NBC/WSJ poll was conducted Feb. 14-16".

I guess the voters felt differently during the 12th thru the 14th?

But wait, NBC tries to offer up yet another excuse, I mean explanation, "Another possible explanation for Trump's decline in the new NBC/WSJ poll is an increase in "very conservative" Republican voters from January's sample".

Hmmm, ok...

I'd also like to offer an explanation: maybe some opinion polls are fixed, to be used as a tool to influence the masses.

a reply to: seeker1963

I agree they manipulated the poll to show the result they want. If trump did't win most of them i wouldn't be surprised if they were simply rigged or it could be they still are. Build him up to knock him down. Idk but i do think Trump is the best shot we have.

originally posted by: CosmicSmack
a reply to: seeker1963

I agree they manipulated the poll to show the result they want. If trump did't win most of them i wouldn't be surprised if they were simply rigged or it could be they still are. Build him up to knock him down. Idk but i do think Trump is the best shot we have.

I used to like Cruz because he was one of the few political hacks who actually brought up the Constitution consistently. Not just when it was needed to make the people think that it still mattered in our halls of government. Now I look at Cruz as merely an evangelical television preacher who lives the life of sin while promising eternal salvation "If you can just find it in your heart to send me a dollar, your sins will be forgiven.".

Hard to take him seriously when his wife is an exec for Goldman Sach's?

I see Trump as a "Hail Mary" pass. Just as those on the left see Bernard. Either way, 4 more years of puppets for the globalists will destroy what little freedom and privacy we have left...

originally posted by: seeker1963
a reply to: UnBreakable

I really don't understand how people can take polls seriously when they are portrayed to show how a percentage of the country feel when only polling a tiny...tiny.....tiny.....portion of the populous, yet portray it as a much larger figure?

As the saying goes "there's lies, damn lies, and statistics".

a reply to: seeker1963

Yea it is sad, i love my country and i know it could be great, but all of our leaders suck. I don't know what to do because if we choice wrong this time i do not think we can recover with out violence and even with that our chances are slim.
I like Trump, but i am not a 100% to be honest, i admit the fact that he could be phooey. My first choose was Rand Paul but that not going to happen. Any other candidates in my opinion are not even worth looking at. Hillary, jeb, and sanders are massive no no. idk what we can do.

If the polls are taken by land line phone surveys; Only old people have that style of phone and skew the results to reflect MSM programming.

A random cell phone survey with enough of a statistical model would give much more reliable results.

Usually if there is such a difference in polls it is the way the questions are asked? It also makes a difference if you ask in a specific order. However, I looked at the full poll and read the questions. It was a multiple choice and the only thing I found different is this poll made them choose if they were not sure. Most polls will carry the IDK answer, especially national polls. There is something like 20-30% would not/might not independents on the GOP side. Make it just GOP and it sees a difference but in all of them Trump was still up.

The question is which polls aligned with the final results from the other races. Those would be the ones to pay attention to because their methods were obviously superior to others.

Polls where only 10people from one demographic were surveyed are worthless yet that has been presented here before.


So which of those polling groups got it right in the previous races?

There is a reason the believe that these polls may or may not both be not too inaccurate.

Look at Trump's behavior. He's getting pretty crasty at Cruz, threatening to sue over an ad using one of Trump's own old interviews and his own words. And, he's moving leftward in his rhetoric in a state with a truly open primary that would let even democrats vote for him if they wanted.

If you really felt you were secure in your massive lead, would you threaten an empty lawsuit and appeal with old leftist arguments in a fairly right-leaning state?

That doesn't mean that Trump doesn't have a lead, but it doesn't mean that he's not seeing numbers that are making him sweat a little in his campaign internals.