There were several polls from We Ask America today whose results seemed so out of line with other polls that it warranted more examination. For the presidency in Virginia, it had Romney +5%, when the most recent five polls had Obama up +3%, +5%, +4%, and +7%, with even Rasmussen showing it to be a tie. For the Virginia Senate race, We Ask America had George Allen up over Tim Kaine by +9%. The most recent five polls there have Kaine up by +2%, +1%, +6%, 0%, and +1%, respectively. Now things can change although nothing special has happened in Virginia lately. Kaine didn't invoke any zoo animals or anything like that. Now consider this story, admittedly from a left-of-center source, but there is no reason to doubt the specific facts it gives. It appears that We Ask America has deep ties to the Illinois Manufacturers' Association and the Republican Party.

It would be wonderful if all pollsters were completely honest and neutral, but we know from past experience this is not always the case. In 2009, Nate Silver found strong evidence that Strategic Vision was making up the numbers because they were not statistically random. He also raised serious issues about Research 2000, which was then working for Daily Kos, which dropped and sued it. None of this is to say that We Ask America is making up numbers, but the combination of numbers that are so far out of line with other pollsters combined with deep ties to the Republican Party, is very suspicious. For this reason, I am now regarding We Ask America as a partisan pollster. All We Ask America polls have been removed from the database.

I could have looked like a genius if I had listened to GREGG DURHAM before I made predictions for the Feb. 2 primary.

Durham, a former state spokesman who is now chief operating officer of Xpress Professional Services Inc., a for-profit subsidiary of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association that does things including polling, told me to watch for JASON PLUMMER of Edwardsville to be the GOP nominee for lieutenant governor.

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Best known for our polling division (We Ask America™), XPS boasts an award-winning video & audio production unit that has been at the forefront of political and public-opinion campaigns for years. With offices in Springfield and Oak Brook, Illinois, XPS serves clients throughout the U.S., including candidates, political action committees, non-profit organizations, issue-based groups, businesses and individuals who want to understand what people are thinking…and perhaps change their collective mind.

I am not writing to disparage We Ask America. I know nothing about them. I have expressed my concerns about Rasmussen before, but I am even more concerned about new pollsters coming out of the woodwork and creating favorable narratives for one party. I am reminded of the gaudy numbers for Scott Brown from Pajamas Media and Merriman River Group during his election, not to necessarily disparage either of those outfits either. I just cannot remember this phenomenon happening in previous cycles. In previous cycles, we seemed to get fairly consistent and credible polling information from a narrow group of seemingly reliable pollsters.

Something feels wrong here. Certainly, polling seems very different and more partisan than it ever has before. I hope that people with more expertise and bigger soapboxes than me will continue to vet these pollsters carefully and call them out if something is amiss. (snip)
UPDATE: So I did some research on the identity of We Ask America. Its website only discloses that it is a division of "Xpress Professional Services, Inc." But it does not tell the reader what exactly that means, which turns out to be quite significant.

Xpress Professional Services, Inc. is a subsidiary of the Illinois Manufacturer's Association, which is an anti-union, anti-tax, and anti-Health Care Reform industry advocacy organization.