The Pro-Newt Insider Advantage

Pollster bias, the idea that a survey house’s polls constantly favor one candidate or party vs. another, remains one of the more controversial subjects in the polling industry.

Bias in polling is an important subject because polls not only tell us who is winning, but they influence news coverage. Voters, especially in primaries, like to vote for viable candidates.

An arguably flawed, though not purposely biased, CNN/ORC Iowa poll a few weeks ago illustrates this point. The poll gave Rick Santorum his most favorable Iowa numbers to date and favorable news coverage followed. The news coverage assisted his Iowa surge and fundraising prowess to make him a viable candidate.

Missed in this CNN/ORC drama was the potential bias of another pollster: Insider Advantage (IA). IA is a “nonpartisan” polling firm headquartered in Georgia and founded by Matt Towery.

Towery’s firm has constantly help to shape the Republican primary narrative by frequently polling the early Republican primary contests.

What you probably don’t know is that Matt Towery “ran [Newt] Gingrich’s political operation in the 1990s”. This potential conflict of interest is known by some, but is certainly not echoed enough by those who cover and recite Insider Advantage polling data.

Of course, Towery’s past relationship with Newt Gingrich would not be a big a problem if IA polls showed no bias in favor of the former Speaker of the House.

Just in the past 24 hours, Insider Advantage released a poll showing Mitt Romney turning a 2% South Carolina edge into a 11% lead over Newt Gingrich in an amazing 4 days. This would suggest the opposite of a bias.

These poll results argue that Gingrich’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s Bain record are backfiring. A new We Ask America poll also indicates that Mitt Romney is gaining steam in the Palmetto State over the past few days.

But let’s remember that IA’s poll a few days ago was the most pro-Newt Gingrich survey among the numerous polls produced in South Carolina.

IA’s first poll was 4% more favorable to Newt Gingrich than the average of all the other SC polls taken during the same period.

It’s certainly not unusual for any one poll to be slightly out of the mainstream. A poll with 500 voters has a theoretical margin of error of 4.4% for each candidate’s percentage.

Yet, this is not the first time that IA has been the most pro-Newt pollster. Iowa and New Hampshire also saw its share of pro-Newt Insider Advantage polls, which does suggest bias.

During the December 11th to December 13th period, four polls were released in Iowa.

Three of the polls demonstrated a weakening in Newt Gingrich’s position, while Insider Advantage illustrated no such decline. IA was, in fact, 12.3% more favorable to Gingrich than the other pollsters.

The same pro-Newt Insider Advantage lean again popped up just after Christmas in Iowa.

Romney was ahead of Gingrich in every other poll, but IA landed Romney in a tie with Gingrich. This tie made Insider Advantage 9.2% more favorable to Gingrich than the average of all the other polls during the same period.

And just like Romney’s 9% turn around in SC, IA found Romney gaining just four days later to take a 7% New Year’s Day Iowa lead over Gingrich. This change in their final poll allowed IA to be among the top in the final pollster accuracy rankings.

How about New Hampshire?

Insider Advantage was mostly silent in the Granite State, but its last poll exhibited the same pattern apparent in Iowa and South Carolina.

All other polls with end dates between December 12th and 19th staked Romney to a double-digit lead, but not IA.

Insider Advantage was the only pollster during this stretch to peg Romney’s support under 30% and was 12.6% more favorable to Gingrich than the average of all other polls ending between December 12th and 19th.

The consistency of these pro-Newt numbers means that it’s not just random statistical fluctuations.

Could it be some constant methodological problem? I doubt it.

Newt Gingrich voters are not more likely than Mitt Romney’s to be subject to wild swings by pollsters with different methodologies. Both Gingrich and Romney voters tend to be older Republicans who all pollsters tend to capture pretty well, and they have been two of the most accurately polled candidates in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

These facts and figures instead lead me back to the bias accusation.

Now, I’m not saying that I know for sure that Insider Advantage polls are purposely biased towards Newt Gingrich, but doesn’t it look awfully strange that their founder’s former boss has been the beneficiary of surveys that are constantly different than the average poll?

Insider Advantage somewhat shady history also lends credence to my suspicions. They have, for example, previously been hesitant in releasing important technical details on how their polls have been conducted even to the newspapers that sponsor their polls.

Insider Advantage has additionally been among the least accurate pollsters over the past ten years. And as in Iowa and South Carolina, they have previously had rapid and probably unrealistic changes in survey data in the week leading up to elections to become more amazingly more accurate in their final surveys.

For me, any one piece of this evidence would not be enough to say Insider Advantage is not a great pollster, but together the mountain of evidence is too high. I just don’t think Insider Advantage polls are worth the press they receive.

Update: See Brice’s figures with this data here.