Has Fox news declared its bias with the 2004 polls? Should we discount them

[millwx]

The FOX/Opinion Dynamics polls do not push leaners at all.  In one sense, this is good because leaners have not made up their mind, that is why they are leaners.  On the other hand, not pushing leaners at all will generally skew results toward the right.  This is also why they hve teh highest percent of undecideds.

I still say the best way to run a poll is to push leaners and have seperate results with leaners and without and give a breakdown of how leaners break.

Yup.  Tedrick, you and I have had this discussion before.  Plain and simple... There is nothing "wrong" with the Fox/OD polls.  Personally, I strongly disagree with not pushing leaners.  But that is just a philosophical choice.  In this election cycle, at this juncture (though it has changed a bit in some states since the selection of Edwards) Kerry's support is "softer".  So, unpushed, some of his support will dump into the undecided bin.  The result, were the election held today (and barring major developments, which, of course, is possible, I expect election day to look much like today),  Kerry would pick up substantially more than Fox/OD shows.  But that's not because they are inherently biased or "wrong".  Their methodology simply "loses" a lot of Kerry voters to the undecided bin.

[millwx]

Bush Approval in June:
Annenberg                    June 16-30    50%
CBS/NY Times                June 23-27    42%
Fox News                      June 22-23    49%
CNN/USA Today/Gallup June 21-23    49%
ABC News/Wash Post    June 17-20    47%

If Fox is so biased, why is Bush's approval right in line with the others?  If you want bias, consider CBS/NY Times--there's a winning combo.

Actually, you're only looking at half a poll.  That's very misleading.  Fox/OD also does not push leaners in the approval ratings.  As such, it has a higher undecided here than any of these other polling firms (on average... I'm not necessarily speaking of June specifically... I don't have the numbers right in front of me).  The result is that Fox/OD's Bush unfavorables are, on average, considerably lower than other firms'.  I've posted on this before... in the favorability "gap" (favorable minus unfavorable) the long-term average shows Fox/OD running a few percent above everyone else.

Mind you, though, I'm not saying they're bias!  It seems very plausible, especially in a time of war (which we've been in for the majority of Bush's presidency) that those who hold an unfavorable view of his job performance are far less likely to voice it than those with a favorable view.  So, some of those unfavorables dump into undecided.  It's a function of them not pushing people to pick.  Nonetheless, the Fox/OD Bush favorability gap is larger than other polling firms' results.