democratic presidential nominee hillary clinton and u.s. senate candidate patrick murphy wave at the crowd attending an early voting rally  in coconut creek, fla. on tuesday. | maria lorenzino /south florida sun-sentinel via ap two recent polls in florida painted starkly different snapshots of senate, presidential races by matt dixon 10/27/16 01:46 pm edt tallahassee <u+2014> during heated election cycles, political observers eagerly await the next round of public polling, numbers that can shape the perception of a race. but in most cases <u+2014> at best <u+2014> they offer an inconsistent snapshot of a campaign. take, for example, two public polls released wednesday morning looking at florida<u+2019>s two highest-profile races: the white house and senate. one was blasted out into the social media echo chamber by republicans, while the other showed much better news for democrats. story continued below the bloomberg politics poll found donald trump leading hillary clinton 45-43 percent, a departure from nearly every recent poll that had clinton winning. the numbers also found sen. marco rubio up 51-41 percent over democratic challenger patrick murphy, a much larger lead than more recent polls. both results were good news for republicans. but a separate florida atlantic university poll took a different snapshot of both races. it had clinton up 46-43 percent and rubio topping murphy, 46-42 percent, which was more in line with other recent public polls. the two polls were released the same day, but offered very starkly different results. inevitably, though, both got headlines and helped build or cement a media narrative that already surrounds the races. the disparity offers a glimpse into the inconsistent nature of public polling, or those conducted for the purpose of making them public. because public pollsters often do not spend the sort of money traditionally used by the internal polling done privately by campaigns or outside interest groups, they can vary widely in their results. <u+201c>having campaigns who are willing to actually invest the resources into good polling and good data is important,<u+201d> said david johnson, a longtime republican political consultant. a good statewide poll can cost between $10,000 and $15,000, but that<u+2019>s a hefty price tag for universities or other public polling firms. <u+201c>you have to pay to get good data,<u+201d> said kevin sweeny, operations director for the florida justice association. <u+201c>it is hard to hit hispanic and african americans through a garden variety poll, and a lot of people are not interested in spending money, but would rather get skewed polls that drive the pundit-dominated narrative.<u+201d> spending more money can also help hire polling firms that use professional, trained callers, who are not often used for universities that want to get students experience working the phones. <u+201c>quinnipiac uses college kids that are rotating in and out,<u+201d> johnson said. <u+201c>you have to have trained interviewers if you are going to believe it.<u+201d> <u+201c>all of our interviewers are well trained prior to their first shift and then work together with seasoned interviewers for their first few weeks of polling. supplemental guidance and additional training continue for all interviewers throughout their employment,<u+201d> said doug schwartz, director of quinnipiac university poll. a gap in institutional knowledge can also exist between polling companies who swoop in for a few days to occasionally poll and those who do regular tracking polls and understand the nuances of florida, a large, diverse state of nearly 20 million people. <u+201c>they come in here for one or two nights, once or twice a month, and they call a very broad base of people, many of whom aren<u+2019>t on the voter history file,<u+201d> said ryan tyson, vice president of political operations for associated industries of florida. public polling most often allows those being polled to self-identify their party affiliation rather than using the voter file, which outlines a person<u+2019>s registration and voting history. using the file allows pollsters to create a sample that mirrors the state<u+2019>s political makeup and past performance. <u+201c>they end up showing samples that are +d [democrat] 3, +d4, +d5, and we don<u+2019>t have any basis for believing any of that,<u+201d> tyson said. democratic consultant steve schale says that campaigns build a model headed into an election cycle based on how they think the electorate will perform. that includes a pre-determined percentage of republicans, democrats, and those with no party affiliation. public polls often lacks this step and do not tie partisan affiliation to any expectation of how people will actually vote. <u+201c>what a lot of public pollsters do is they let the party id number float, so it basically just comes down to who answers the phone,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>it<u+2019>s why you can see one ppp [public policy polling] poll with one result, and the next ppp poll with something very different. tom jensen, director of public policy polling, said "we were the most accurate pollster in florida in the presidential race in 2012." he said his polling showed obama up by 1 point in its final two polls when most surveys had him trailing. obama won by less than 1 point. the difference in partisan makeup from poll-to-poll was on display with the most recent florida numbers. the florida bloomberg poll that had rubio up 10 points and trump beating clinton included a sample with 42 percent who claimed to be republican or lean-republican versus 39 percent who identify as democrats or lean-democrat. of those polled, 17 percent said they had no party affiliation. in the fau poll that had clinton winning and the senate race much closer, the sample was 35 republican, 35 democratic, and 35 no party affiliation. the racial makeup of a poll is also important. florida<u+2019>s quickly growing hispanic population is expected to be roughly 15 percent of the electorate, while blacks will be roughly 12 or 13 percent. <u+201c>one thing public polling has not caught up to is florida<u+2019>s diversity,<u+201d> schale said. <u+201c>if the combined hispanic african-american portion is much below 30 percent, it<u+2019>s just really too white.<u+201d> another significant factor in public polling exemplified by the new florida numbers is the method of reaching out to people. fau used robocalls, or polling someone with an automated message, which can be cheaper than in-person polling, but can lead to inconsistencies. of the 500 likely voters polled by the school, none were called on their cell phones, which is an increasingly important <u+2014> although expensive <u+2014> part of the industry as landlines become obsolete. <u+201c>some make random calls into a universe, while some actually take the time to dig through the data,<u+201d> sweeny said. <u+201c>it<u+2019>s also helps to do live calls. some just do robo-call or, even worse, online polls. a lot of people won<u+2019>t put real money behind polls.<u+201d>: monica escaleras, director of fau's business and economics polling initiative, says there are studies that backup the accuracy of polls that use robocalls. she noted the system removes some of the subjective elements of using live callers because respondents hear the questions in the same order in the exact same tone. "this eliminates surveyor bias," she said. "also, the automatic surveys can present survey question options in a random order, ensuring that each possible response is presented in an unbiased order." the bloomberg poll relied on live interviews with 953 likely voters and used both landlines and cellphones. their numbers, however, did include what<u+2019>s called an <u+201c>oversample<u+201d> of the hispanic vote, which can skew the top-line numbers. the term has gotten much attention in recent weeks as donald trump<u+2019>s campaign has alleged that polls have been oversampling democratic-leaning voters in order to skew them towards clinton. it is part of what he has started calling a <u+201c>rigged<u+201d> election system. trump has used emails hacked from clinton campaign chairman john podesta to make his case the oversampling equates to rigged polling. the emails were released as part of one of several documents made public by wikileaks. "wikileaks also shows how john podesta rigged the polls by oversampling democrats, a voter suppression technique, and that's happening to me all the time,<u+201d> trump said monday. those who poll for a living have brushed off the claims from trump. including a larger demographic group in a poll is a better way to gauge how they are viewing a race or policy position. <u+201c>it is really a tool that pollsters use if they want to get a real good look at how one group is thinking,<u+201d> sweeny said. <u+201c>it<u+2019>s just another tool in the tool kit.<u+201d> an oversampling of hispanic voters could help explain why rubio is up 10-points, which is a larger lead than many other polls. he is polling much better than murphy with that demographic. bloomberg pollsters did not respond to questions about their polling methods to politico florida. ultimately, the quality of a poll encompass many things, but johnson says there is one underlying dynamic that trumps them all <u+201d>you get what you pay for." <u+201c>you can use a fly-by-night artist who says they will charge x amount of dollars and say <u+2018>it<u+2019>s a lot cheaper than a national firm,<u+2019> johnson said. <u+201c>but you have no idea who they are calling.<u+201d> marc caputo's must-read briefing on what's hot, crazy or shady about politics in the sunshine state.
public polls shape races, offer inconsistent results
matt dixon