If you remember, Quinnipiac picked up some grief earlier this week for a batch of polls, sampling Democrats at +9% over Republicans in Florida and +8% in Ohio.
In other words, the sample assumed that Democrats would have a 9% advantage in Florida turnout and 8% advantage in Ohio turnout -- the Florida number vastly exceeded the state's Democratic turnout advantage in 2008, which no one expects Obama to replicate.
Even more curiously, Democrats only have a 4% registration advantage in Florida, so the Quinnipiac poll assumes that Democratic turnout will be over twice their registration advantage.
The pollster pointed out that party registration is sometimes different from party ID, and that if a random sample shows a self-identification edge of +9% for Democrats in Florida, then that means you trust your sample.
Conservative radio host, Hugh Hewitt, pressed Quinnipiac's pollster Peter Brown on all this, and here's the key moment.
HH: I don’t believe that, because today, Democrats wouldn’t turn out by a nine pointadvantage. I don’t think anyone believes today, if you held the election today, do you think Democrats would turn out nine percentage points higher than Republicans?
PB: If the election were today, yeah. What we found is obviously a large Democratic advantage.
HH: I mean, you really think that’s true? I mean, as a professional, you believe that Democrats have a nine point turnout advantage in Florida?
PB: Our record has been very good. You know, Hugh, I…
HH: That’s not responsive. It’s just a question. Do you personally, Peter, believe that Democrats enjoy a nine point turnout advantage right now?
PB: What I believe is what we found.
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