Points to Ponder

If in fact the race is essentially tied in the national polls as both Rasmussen and Gallup say it is, actually Romney is up one point in both, how can Obama be winning in so many "swing" states?

Think about it, we know that Obama is ahead, probably way ahead in three very large states, California, New York and Illinois, that is a lot of votes. For Romney to be tied or slightly ahead nationally he has to make up the deficits in those and other heavily blue states somewhere, where is he doing it?

Only one large population state is firmly "red", Texas, and not so overwhelmingly so as California and New York are "blue". So where are all these Romney voters coming from? If he is behind in most of the swing states as the polls are showing, then he has to make up those deficits as well in order to be doing so well nationally, again where?

The states where Romney is way ahead, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Oklahoma don't even come close in population size to even second tier "blue" states like Massachusetts, Maryland and Washington.  So either the election must be much closer in all the states than the state polls reflect or the swing state polls must be way off.

My guess is that it is a combination of the two, Obama is not doing as well in the "blue" states as expected and that the "swing" state polls are not accurately reflecting Romney's strength.

Let us hope it is more of the latter than the former, but either way we will know soon...maybe.

Bottom line-Romney leading by 1 in a D+7 national poll....

NPR Poll Finds Presidential Race Too Close To Call

As I have been saying for months....

WHITE VOTERS POISED TO ABANDON OBAMA IN DROVES

The Hispanic Vote

Via-Jer's Notes

I have mentioned on several occasions that I do not believe the "Hispanic" vote will be nearly as important in the 2012 election as the media and the pundits make it out to be.

This is not to say that it is not an important voting block or that in the future Hispanics will not take on a greater role in the electoral process than they do now or ever have, they most certainly will. I am only saying that it is doubtful that they will  play as decisive a roll in 2012 as is being given to them by the chattering class. I also do not believe that the Democratic Party has or is going to continue to have a stranglehold on the Hispanic vote, but that is a discussion for another day.

To understand why I doubt the "political punch" of the Latin vote you must first understand where Hispanics have a degree of influence in the political process. It is somewhat like Blacks who make up 13% of the population but as a voting block have virtually no affect in a state like Wyoming where they comprise only 1.29% of the population.

Today's Polls 10/15/2012

Via-Jer's Notes

I thought I would post a Pennsylvania poll that looks interesting . Obama won Pennsylvania by just over 10% in 2008 and since all the polling shows the race there in single digits, it certainly possible for Romney to pick it up, even if it is a bit of a shot (not long) to do so.



The Morning Call
Pennsylvania

Result Obama +4
Obama 49%, Romney 45%

Turnout Model D+5  (D/R/I) includes leaners
47/42/10
2008 Turnout for PA D+7 (44/37/18)

Partisan Vote O-R
Democrats        82%-15%
Republicans      12%-82%
Independents  37%-47%

Of Note
Gender
Female  Obama 52% Romney 42%
Male     Obama 45% Romney 49%
Whites Obama 43%  Romney 50%

Notes

This poll looks very reasonable to me. Although I don't like when pollsters show "leaners" in their samples this one actually makes total sense. If you take the 3% increase in the Democrats ID from 2008 and the 5% increase in the Republican ID from 2008 you get 8% of the Independents leaning to one party or the other which is precisely the 8% less Independents shown in the polling sample compared to the 2008 exit poll  numbers. On the partisan vote numbers they look somewhat off to me since 90% of Democrats and 87% of Republicans voted for their parties candidate in 2008. That being the case there seems to be a great deal of voting across party lines from both parties which I don't think will be the case for Republicans.

Once again the key here is the Independents where Romney leads by 10%, in 2008 Obama carried the Independents in Pennsylvania by 19%  (58-39). That is a remarkable 29 point shift among Independents away from Obama. Since this is a very small sample made smaller by distributing "leaners" it could just be an anomaly but it certainly is striking and in keeping with trends everywhere showing Romney winning Independents.

The other numbers that stand out are Gender numbers note that Obama leads Romney by 10% among women  but he won Pennsylvania women by 18% in 2008 (59-41). Romney however leads Obama among men by 4% but in 2008 Obama won the male vote by 2%  (51-49).

Finally Obama is losing the white vote in Pennsylvania and this could be significant. In 2008 McCain won the white vote by 3% (51-48), in this poll Obama is down to 43% of the white vote if it drops much more it will require a black turnout equal to 2008 to sustain Obama's lead in Pennsylvania.

Take away, Pennsylvania is in play, will Romney try to go after it?

The Inevitability Narrative Confronts Reality

Via-Jer's Notes

Much was made last week when Suffolk Polling's director David Paleologo  said

“In places like North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, we’ve already painted those red. We’re not polling any of those states again. We’re focusing on the remaining states.”

How important is that? If true and I believe it is true, it changes the entire outlook on the remaining three weeks of the race.  In particular  it destroys the narrative that the Obama campaign and his media allies continue to try to portray of the nature of the race. The idea is to paint Obama as the inevitable winner and it is Romney who must take risks in order to somehow overcome the mighty One.

But if you do paint Florida, North Carolina and Virginia red here is what the race looks like.

This is why Ohio is so important and if this truly is the way it really is which I believe it is, then the whole psychological outlook on the race is changed. Obana is fighting to stave off Romney rather than Romney struggling to overcome Obama's nearly insurmountable lead. But as important as perceptions are is the money and resource aspect of this. Obama can not just "give up" in some of these key swing states. Although he can cut back on campaigning in them which he has in North Carolina already, but he can't just pull his advertising out of them, at least not now.

Romney however can redistribute some of his resources to states where Obama according to the inevitability narrative, should not have to fight him, States such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin where a Democratic candidate for President should coast. This will force Obama to have to compete there as well, depleting his resources and creating another perception problem. If Obama has to start seriously defending traditional "Blue" states the inevitability narrative will not only be gone, it may shift to Romney.

The irony in all of this is that the reason Obama finds himself in this electoral gamesmanship pickle to begin with is that certain polling operations have distorted his strength in the swing states to create the inevitability narrative. Obama has always been weak in North Carolina and the majority of the polling data has shown this.  But whenever it has looked like the state should simply be put in Romney's column, PPP or one of the other leftist polling outfits has thrown a Obama biased outlier into the mix, keeping it "competitive" when in fact it was lost to Obama long ago. This same scenario has taken place for months in all the swing states.  Not that Romney was ahead or will even end up winning some of them, but this need to maintain the "inevitability" meme has created a situation where the Obama campaign now is forced for appearances sake to defend territory which it ought to abandon to concentrate on the true battlegrounds.

Obviously Romney can not just abandon Florida and Virginia, but he can certainly put them down the priority list and concentrate his efforts on Ohio and make Obama play defense in places he should not have to defend, making him look weak. I seriously doubt we will see Obama in North Carolina again before the election and it will be interesting to see how much time he spends in Florida, if any. I suspect the next three weeks we will see the Great Lakes region and Colorado/Nevada being the focal point of the election.

  Hopefully Romney and his campaign will exploit this reality and not just "play it safe". Forcing Obama to campaign in "blue" states will not only deplete his resources, it will dishearten and further erode his base support which generally lives in a narrative world as it is.

Ohio Poll Magic And Reality

From-Jer's Notes

I thought I would take a bit of time to explain why I'm not really worried about the election and the best way to do this is to focus on the state which will be the key to the election-Ohio.

Despite all the talk Romney could win the election without winning Ohio, in a multiple of ways actually. But the fact remains that if he doesn't win Ohio the chances are that he is not going to win the other states that he needs to win without Ohio. Though I will say that if it is razor thin in Ohio that might not necessarily be the case, for example Romney may win Wisconsin and Iowa with razor thin margins and offset a razor thin loss in Ohio. Regardless Ohio is important.

So let's take a minute to study Ohio's polls since the debate. Unfortunately I do not have Rasmussen's internals where Obama leads by 1% so I'll leave them out.

Let's start with the  NBC/Marist poll which shows Obama up by 6%

Notice that since the debate Romney has picked up just 2% while Obama has remained at 51%. But the question is, are we comparing apples to apples in the two polls? Actually not at all. here are the party ID numbers from the above polls from NBC.

Notice that in the October 11 poll where Obama stayed the same and Romney gained 2% for an Obama +6 advantage, the party affiliation was D+11 (40/29/29) whereas the poll just a week before where Obama was supposedly leading by 8% had a party affiliation of D+5 (36/31/32). So on Oct 11, NBC/Marist had to poll 4% more Democrats and 2% less Republicans in order for Obama to lose only 2% in their poll. 

Not only did Romney pick up 2% on Obama in a week according to this poll he did it under longer odds (so to speak) than just a week before. It took an extraordinary shift in party affiliation by the pollster to achieve the result they wanted.

Now let's compare two other polls done basically at the same time in Ohio. In fact this first one interviewed more than the NBC poll and thus has a smaller margin of error.

It is from Gravis which actually shows Romney up by almost 1% among likely voters in Ohio.

So we have a poll (NBC/Marist) showing Obama up by 6% with a D+11 turnout model and you have Gravis showing Romney up by 1%  with a D+6 turnout model.

Amazing what happens when you take a 5% turnout advantage away from the polling. That extra  5% advantage in the NBC/Marist polls takes a race from a decisive victory for Obama in Ohio, where by the way he only won in 2008 by 4% with a D+8 actual turnout advantage and makes it a dead even race. The difference between a D+11 and a D+6 turnout in Ohio very probably could be the difference between a President Obama and a President Romney. Think NBC knows that?

To show how close this could be let's look at one more recent poll in Ohio from Survey USA, which gives Obama a 1% lead.

This poll too has a D+6 turnout model (Bottom line of chart)

So based on these polls we can make the following observation, the break even model turnout for Ohio is probably somewhere around a D+6, In other words if 6% more Democrats than Republicans vote in Ohio, then the race could go either way. If more Democrats vote as in the absurd NBC/Marist scenario then Obama will win and if Democrats have less than a 6% advantage, Romney will win.
This is backed up by the actual vote in 2008 when Obama had a D+8 and won by 4%.

So the question becomes will Ohio have a D+6 or above turnout or less? Well we do have  indications that the early voting which favors the Democrats in Ohio is not nearly so lopsided in 2012 as it was in 2008. Add to that the party enthusiasm gap between the parties has basically reversed since 2008. But the real question is. is it possible for Romney to seriously cut into that magical D+6 in Ohio? After all in 2008 Obama had that D+8  can Romney and the Republican possibly shave tree points off Obama's turnout lead?

Well as it turns out it is not only possible it is very likely,  since you see in 2004 Bush won Ohio with a R+5 turnout. That's right in one election cycle the turnout in Ohio shifted 13 points from Republican to Democrat and we are to believe that with all that has happened, with all the angst that Republicans and Independents have towards Obama that he is not going to lose three percent of his turnout base in Ohio?

In 2008 Obama won Independents by 8% . Note the last chart above, Romney is winning Independents by 9% in Ohio  a net shift of 17% against Obama. Reality is that Obama is losing the Independent vote, Republicans are eager to vote him out, and Democrats are not nearly as enthused to vote for him as they were four years ago. All of this adds up to a Romney victory in Ohio and the Presidency.

I won't say take it to the bank, but I'm seriously considering taking it to Intrade and making a few bucks. 

Today's Polls 10/11/2012-UPDATE

I have not had time to do much poll analyzing but I thought I would post today's polls from RCP. I have highlighted the ones that could be significant for various reasons which with one exception, an important one, Rasmussen National show thigs really trendinging Romney;s way. We'll have to see how Rasmussen trends the next few days to see if it is significant.

I also have been keeping my eye on the Hispanic numbers especially in states where it matters and they are also trending more towards Romney than the media narrative would have you believe. Not that Romney will win the Hispanic vote, but it is not as bad as they have made it out to be. I plan on writing more on that later.

UPDATE
I Added the RCP Map from today. Last week pre-debate this was 269-181 Obama. Big shift with a lot more steses now in play.(they always were). 

J

Real Clear Politics’ Latest Polls
Race: Romney vs. Obama, National

Gallup Tracking: Romney 48, Obama 47
IBD/TIPP Tracking: Romney 47, Obama 46
Rasmussen Tracking: Romney 47, Obama 48
Monmouth/SurveyUSA/Braun: Romney 47, Obama 46

Race: Romney vs. Obama, States
Florida (TBT/Herald/Mason-Dixon): Romney 51, Obama 44
Florida (NBC/WSJ/Marist): Romney 47, Obama 48
Ohio (Rasmussen Reports): Obama 48, Romney 47
Ohio (NBC/WSJ/Marist): Obama 51, Romney 45
Ohio (Gravis Marketing): Obama 45, Romney 46
Colorado (CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac): Romney 48, Obama 47
Virginia (NBC/WSJ/Marist): Obama 47, Romney 48
Virginia (CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac): Obama 51, Romney 46
North Carolina (Rasmussen Reports): Romney 51, Obama 48
Nevada (Suffolk/KSNV): Obama 47, Romney 45
Wisconsin (CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac): Obama 50, Romney 47
Michigan (Detroit News): Obama 49, Romney 42
Michigan (Gravis Marketing): Obama 46, Romney 44
Pennsylvania (Philadelphia Inquirer): Obama 50, Romney 42
New Jersey (Philadelphia Inquirer): Obama 51, Romney 40
California (SurveyUSA): Obama 53, Romney 39
Massachusetts (PPP): Obama 55, Romney 41

Race: Senate
Massachusetts Senate (Rasmussen Reports): Warren (D) 49, Brown (R) 47
Massachusetts Senate (PPP): Warren (D) 50, Brown (R) 44
Virginia Senate (WeAskAmerica): Kaine (D) 41, Allen (R) 46
Virginia Senate (NBC/WSJ/Marist): Kaine (D) 47, Allen (R) 46
Ohio Senate (NBC/WSJ/Marist): Brown (D) 52, Mandel (R) 41
Florida Senate (NBC/WSJ/Marist): Nelson (D) 52, Mack (R) 39
Virginia Senate (CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac): Kaine (D) 51, Allen (R) 44
Wisconsin Senate (CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac): Baldwin (D) 48, Thompson (R) 46
Nevada Senate (Suffolk/KSNV*): Heller (D) 40, Berkley (R) 37
Pennsylvania Senate (Rasmussen Reports): Casey (D) 49, Smith (R) 45
Michigan Senate (Detroit News): Stabenow (D) 50, Hoekstra (R) 38
New Mexico Senate (Rasmussen Reports): Heinrich (D) 52, Wilson (R) 39
California Senate (SurveyUSA): Feinstein (D) 54, Emken (R) 35

Today's Polls 10/8/2012

Via-Jer's Notes

Most of the excitement today has been about the new Pew Poll which shows Romney suddenly leading 49 to 45. I have never had much use for the Pew polls so although I would like to believe it is true, I don't really trust it. I suspect it is a set up to show later in the month that Obama has regained momentum. I have found Pew over the years to be the most biased of all polling companies and I doubt they have changed their stripes.

The other major poll today I find much more interesting even though it still shows Obama ahead is:


Politico/GWU Battleground Poll

National

Result
Obama 49% Romney 48%

Turnout Model D/R/I (includes leaners)
D+4 (44/40/16)

Romney keys
Independents 51-35
Suburbia 55-43
Whites 56-41
Hispanics 38-60

Obama's Job approval 
in Florida  38%
Suburbia 44%
Independents 35% (48% strongly disprove)

Notes of Interest

Even though, in my opinion, they slightly over sampled Democrats the more telling distortion was that they over sampled those who call themselves "strong" Democrats (30%) to those who call themselves "strong" Republican (23%). Although this probably does not make much a difference in the "horse race" between Obama and Romney it skews the issue questions. Even at that the Republicans were more enthusiastic to vote than the the Democrats 86%-75%. Also and far more significant, 85% of this poll was conducted prior to the debate!

Note too Romney's keys. there is absolutely no way Obama could win an election losing the Independents by 16%. I would say though that the way they divided up the Independent "leaners" there is no way to be sure that this is a true representation of Independents. Since the 16% represent only those that self identify as those who do not lean towards one party or the other you need to add back in the "leaners"  to see how they would vote as a block. But indications are that it would be even stronger for Romney since 10% lean Republican and only 6% lean Democrat. If you put the "leaners" back into the Independent column the actual D/R/I would be 38/30/32 so in fact the actual slightly oversampling of Democrats is more than it is made to appear.

So this poll which only shows Obama up by 1% which was conducted  mostly before the debate, over samples "strong" Democrats compared to "strong" Republicans in a nation in which conservatives out number liberals two to one. Additionally by oversampling Independents then dividing them up and "making them" Republicans and Democrats they are able to show a D+4 sample instead of the D+8 poll it truly is. Clever. But even with all of that the best you get is Obama by 1%!

The reason for this is obvious, no matter what they do with the party affiliation numbers they can not overcome the very important fact that this poll shows that Obama is not popular in the suburbs and is losing there badly. Considering he won the suburbs by 2% in 2008 if he actually is loosing the "burbs" to Romney by 10% that is huge. Just from a demographic stand point that would put states like Pennsylvania in play (which I believe it is) because the suburbs of Philadelphia went for Obama big in 2008. It will also have a big affect in areas like the I-4 corridor of central Florida which is always a key in Florida elections.

Finally if Romney is anywhere close to getting 38% of the Hispanic vote, election over. I doubt he is, this probably is based on too small a sample, but still.

I don't see anything in this pol that is good for Obama or bad for Romney, we will have to see how things unfold but I believe there is the beginning of a Romney surge.

Today's Polls 10/05/2012

Via-Jer's Notes

There are no new national polls today other than the daily tracking polls which remain basically unchanged, Rasmussen Obama +2 and Gallup Obama +5 though the Ipsops daily poll shows Romney cutting  Obama's lead by half since debate to Obama +2 from +4 pre-debate.  Any movement in these as the result of the debates will really begin to show beginning Sunday and into first part of next week because they are multi-day averages.

However a host of polls were done Thursday and released today in individual states which do reflect movement as the result of the debate. They were all done in swing states and most show movement towards Romney. Here are a list of them and how they have changed since their last poll.

Ohio
Rasmussen Obama +1 (unchanged)
We Ask America Romney +1 (Romney +9)

Virginia
Rasmussen Romney +1(Romney +2)
We Ask America Romney +3 (Romney +6)

Florida
Rasmussen Romney +2 (Romney +4)
We Ask America Romney +3 (Romney+6)

Nevada
Gravis Obama +1 (first poll)

The one that intrigues me is the Gravis poll in Nevada for a couple of reasons. First it puts the race there as a virtual toss up and of the two "western" swing states I thought this was more likely to go Obama than Colorado. The other reason is the demographic breakdown which shows Obama only leading among blacks 58.7% to 34.1% and winning the Hispanic vote only 62.8% to 37.2%. This, especially the black vote, does not seem realistic and probably is just an anomaly that is the reason for the close vote overall, but it sure is interesting. However it does make me interested to see future polls out of Nevada.

All in all these polls look good for Romney and in fact on the RCP average it has moved Ohio back into the Toss Up from lean Obama. The truth is I think Romney will win Ohio fairly easily, if there is one key swing state I have been worried about it is Virginia, but today's polls seem to be trending Romney's way there...for now.

Post of the Day 10/04/2012

Via-Jer's Notes

I have meant to do this since it came out on Tuesday when it came out but other things have gotten in the way.

As I have written on several occasions  I believe that Obama's approval ratings are and will be a far greater indicator of  how the election will go than the "horse race" polls. So here is where my theory stands based upon Obama's Gallup approval ratings for the entire month of September. I use the ethnic numbers for several reasons  mainly because it is the one matrix that should give Obama the greatest advantage due to the historic turn out of minority voters for Obama in 2008. Regardless of which set of demographics you use  however(except partisan turn out), if you plug in Obama's approval ratings into the 2008 election the results will be very close to the same

In September Obama's approval 
Among Whites 39%
Among Black 88%
Among Hispanics 66%

We do not know what it was among the 4% of other ethnic groups so for what follows we will leave his vote among them the same as it was in 2008.

Obama's Vote based upon his approval ratings and 2008 turn out

Whites 74% x 39% = 28.86 of the vote
Blacks 88% x 13% = 11.44 of the vote
Hispanics 66% x 9% = 5.94 of the vote
Other  60% x 4% = 2.4  of the vote

This would give Obama 48.64 % of the vote. Third Party candidates would have to get 2.73% or more of the vote to drop Romney below Obama's total. Since Ross Perot no third candidates have received over 2%.

Will Obama only receive 88% of the black vote? No he will probably receive somewhere in the low to mid nineties, but that will be offset by lower turnout.

The same is true of the Hispanics, though I do not believe that Obama will do as well as the pundits predict with Hispanics. Yes he will win big with Hispanics but it will be concentrated in places where it does not matter, like California and Texas. The Cuban American community is backing Romney in Florida which will negate the Hispanic affect here and since New Mexico is going Obama and Arizona will go for Romney, the only "in play" states that the Hispanic vote could have a real influence are Nevada and Colorado. If Obama is depending on the Hispanic vote to push him over the top in these two states, he is probably in serious trouble elsewhere. As things stand now I suspect that Colorado will go for Romney and Nevada will go for Obama. I do not expect an enthusiastic Hispanic turn out for Obama, the Univision documentary on Fast and Furious and the failure of Obama to pass "comprehensive" immigration reform are going to dampen their enthusiasm.

If Obama is not going to have the turnout among Hispanics and Blacks that he did in 2008 and whites are running away from him, where is he going to pick up the votes? Asians? Actually I have not seen any polling but I suspect that Obama is down with them too.

This is why no president has ever won an election with approval ratings under 50% , the numbers just don't add up. Perhaps Obama will be historic in this regards too, perhaps he will defy political math, but I seriusly doubt it.

Today's Poll 10/02/2012 Part two

United Technologies/National Journal
National

Highlights

Turn Out (D/R/I)
D+7 (36/29/30)

Notes

Using a turn out model of D+7 which is what it was in 2008 this poll shows a tied race. Since common sense and reality says that the turn out model in 2012 will be nowhere near as advantageous for Democrats as it was in 2008. This poll actually shows that Romney is ahead of Obama, probably by a considerable amount. Note also that Obama is at 38% with whites (can't win) down to Romney with Independents 49-41 (can't win) and losing in every age demographic over 30 years old (can't win).  Everything about this poll shows disaster for Obama.

I think polling here on out will begin to show this type of numbers if not worse for Obama. The media/pollsters gave the Obama inevitability meme a good shot after the conventions but if they want to maintain a shred of credibility from here on out they have to play it somewhat straight. They will use the debates to try to shape the narrative and as an excuse for their previous polling from here on out.

Today's Poll 10/2/2012

From-Jer's Notes

Quinnipiac University
National

Highlights

Results
Obama 49 Romney 45

Turnout Model  (D/R/I)
30/24/38 (1)

By Party Obama/Romney
(D) 94/5(2)
(R) 7/91 (3)
(I) 45/47 (4)


Notes

Another Poll with Obama below 50%, this is important especially since the demographics of the poll are again weighted to Obama's unrealistic advantage.

(1) This poll forecasts a D+6 turnout which is basically the same historic turnout as the Democrats had in 2008 (D+7).  Not only is this turnout unrealistic, again they have drastically under-polled Republicans (24%) they have greatly over sampled Independents (38%). This is becoming a common practice in these polls, they keep the party affiliations within some semblance of reality by lowering  forecasts of both party's turnout while increasing the number of Independents  beyond what is reasonably possible. This dilutes Romney's overall advantage among the two demographics where Romney actually holds the lead, Republicans and Independents.  Clever but reality is reality.

(2) Another poll that shows historic Democratic Party loyalty to their candidate (94%) a full 5% increase for Obama over 2008 (89%). So we are to believe that Obama has gained among Democrats ?

(3) Another poll showing Republican's less loyal to Romney (91%) than they were to McCain (93%). Right

(4) Once again Romney leads among Independents 47-45. Even with this slight margin, it is doubtful that Obama could win, in 2008 Obama won Independents by 8% (52-44). In what universe are these pollsters polling where Obama can have a double digit loss of Independents from 2008 to Romney and be ahead by 4%? It simply is not possible.

Today's Polls 10/1/2012

I had been planning on analyzing the polling  as we got closer to the election so this seem like a good time to do it.  Rather than attempt to analyze all of the polling I will just pick some that I find interesting for whatever reason. Depending on the day I may do more than one poll though not necessarily in the same post. Anything I  boldface in the Highlights are items I find noteworthy.
J 

ABC/WAPO
National

Highlights

Results
Obama 49 Romney 47

Turnout Model  (D/R/I)
33/28/34 (1)

By Party Obama/Romney
(D) 91/7 (2)
(R) 6/90 (3)
(I) 45/49 (4)

Notes

Obviously this shows that the race is much closer than the media has been portraying recently.  Some things to note on this poll 

(1) Although the turnout model is much closer to reality D+5 than some recent polling I believe it still represents an unrealistic Democratic advantage, my guess is that if the Democrats have a turnout advantage at all nationally it will be in the D+2 range.They also, as is usual this election season, under polled  Republicans (28) and over polled Independents (34).

(2) According to this poll 91% of Democrats will vote for Obama. This would be a larger percentage of Democrats voting for their candidate than has happened in decades. In 2008 Obama received 89% of the Democratic vote.

(3) This poll shows Romney receiving 90% of the Republican vote which would be pretty low for a Republican presidential candidate. McCain received 93% of the Republican vote in 2008.

(4) Probably the most important item in the poll is that Romney is winning the Independents 49-45. If Romney actually does win the Independents nationally especially by more than one or two pints it is hard to see how Obama can win.

Some other items of interest in the poll, Obama is only getting 40% of the white vote, he received 43% in 2008. It is my belief that 40% is the absolute lowest percentage of the white vote that Obama can receive and hope to win. Also of note is that only 84% of Obama voters said they were definitely voting for him while 5% said there was a "good chance" they would change and 10% said they were "unlikely" to change their mind. For Romney voters it was 88%, 1%, and 10%. If 5% of Obama voters say that there is a good chance they could change their minds-that is big.

There are other very interesting items in this poll which look good for Romney, Obama's approval on economy 47% and on foreign policy 49% both of which were asked of registered, not likely voters. 81% of those interviewed rated the economy as "not so good" or "poor".

All in all I would say this was a very good poll for Romney

Rove: Romney Is Winning Republicans and Independents & Media Has Him Down 9 Points

News To You?

MEDIA POLLS: THE NEWEST NEGATIVE CAMPAIGN AD

How Much Do You Love Me?

Via-Jer's Notes

People  have asked me why I believe that Romney will win, when all the polls seem to be going increasingly against him. First of all, as I have pointed out several times, the majority of polls are skewed to  unrealistic turnout models. But the more telling reason is Obama's approval ratings, or the lack thereof.

I wrote about this and the importance of turnout in elections awhile back where I pointed out:

Republicans will show up at the polls, perhaps in unprecedented numbers. But what about Democrats and others who voted for Obama? Will they show up? It is very doubtful that they will show up and vote in anywhere near the numbers that they did in 2008. I can say this without much hesitation simply by looking at Obama's approval ratings.

My contention is that when a President's approval rating drops among people who supported him, it must manifest itself somewhere. It does not mean that everyone who voted for Obama who does not approve of his job performance is going to vote for Romney...though some will. It also doesn't mean that his supporters who don't approve of the job he is doing just won't vote...though some won't. What it does mean is that as Obama loses voters, which he has it draws Romney closer.

So let's begin with a couple of safe assumptions. A minuscule number of McCain voters will switch and vote for Obama, I doubt few people would argue with that.  But there are quite a few Republican voters who sat out 2008 that will not sit out 2012. Party registration numbers and common sense points this out. As I have pointed out several times, 2008 was the lowest percentage of Republicans as a percentage of the electorate in decades 32%. The historic norm is 35% and I suspect that is probably a minimum to be expected in 2012. So there is that for the Republican side of the equation, however the real problem for Obama is on the Democratic side.

For purposes of this discussion I will just use ethnic polling  I could use other demographics but since ethnicity is the area which the media likes to focus on let's focus on it. But let's begin with this other safe assumption, that across all ethnic groups a certain percentage of people voted for Obama simply because he was the first black Presidential candidate and he will never have that advantage again, after all there is "only one first time".

The media and the left like to say that being a black candidate  hurt him among the "racist" white population, but the facts do no bear that out. Here are the percentages of the white vote for every Democratic candidate starting with Carter in 1980

Carter 36%
Mondale 34%
Dukakis 40%
Clinton 39%
Clinton 46%
Gore  42%
Kerry 41%

So How did the first Black candidate do with the "racist whites" in America, Obama received 43% of the white vote. More than any other Democratic candidate accept Bubba in 1996.  The majority of whites in America are not prejudiced against black candidates, they are prejudiced against Democrats.

What has changed is that whites are not as large a demographic as they were in 1980 when they were 88% of the electorate compared to 74% in 2008. But whites still make up the largest ethnic demographic in the electorate and this is why that 40% threshold is so important to Obama. Without 40% of the white vote Obama's path to victory becomes extremely difficult.

So we look to the Gallup to see how he is doing among the various ethnic groups. It is my contention that the approval ratings are a far better for forecasting the election than the horse race polls. This is why I have simply plugged in Obama's approval ratings into the actual turn out ratios from 2008. Here are the turn out ratios for ethnic groups in 2008.

Whites 74%
Blacks  13%
Hispanics 9%
Other  4%.

Now we take Obama's most recent week approval ratings and pug it in.

Whites 74% x 39% = 28.86% of the vote
Blacks  13% x 88% = 11.44% of the vote
Hisp.      9% x 62% =   5.58% of the vote
Other     4% x 60%  =   2.40% of the vote

Giving Obama a total of  48.28% of the vote. If you take out the normal 3% for third party candidates, Romney still wins the popular vote in a squeaker. The Gallup poll has another category which is simply White and Non White which shows virtually the same thing. Obama has a 75% approval rating among non-white voters 26% x 75% = 19.5 plus 28.6% (the white vote)=48.1%,

Why do I feel confident in this way of calculating the election results? Well as I said disapproval has to go somewhere and every disaffected voter that voted for Obama last time that votes for Romney is the equivalent of two votes for Romney and everyone that doesn't vote is like one vote for Romney in the scheme of things. These two factors I believe make Obama's approval ratings a better forecast matrix than regular polls.

But it is even worse for Obama.

It is well known that there are three categories of polls, those among "all adults" those of "registered voters" and polls of "likely voters".  Republicans do better in each of these narrowing fields of voters, Meaning a poll of  "Likely voters will favor Republicans far more than that of  one of "registered voters" and even more so than of "likely voters". Why does this matter? The figures above of Obama's approval ratings are of "all adults". The chances are very good that the approval ratings above overestimate Obama's actual approval among the people who will actually vote.

I also do not see blacks turning out for Obama in the numbers they did in 2008, probably closer to the 11% that is usual rather than the 13% he received. I suspect that the Hispanic vote will increase marginally to compensate for this with the "non-white" vote, but even that would not help since Obama will receive a lesser share of the Hispanic vote than from blacks.

Now is entirely possible that this won't matter. That the election will be so close that it will all come down to those "swing states" and like Bush in 2000 Obama will win the electoral vote while losing the popular vote, boy won't that be fun? But my bet is that it will be a wave election and in the end Romney will handily.

But if you are feeling bad about the polls, just keep an eye on the white vote and white approval numbers, if they stay below 40% nationally Obama remains in trouble.

Obama Isn't in Strong Shape

Via-Weekly Standard

Read article here

Polls, polls .../UPDATE

Via-Jer's Notes

I really am going to write about something other than polls...someday. But I thought that this particular situation merited a comment.

Two polls came out today for Iowa, both purporting to be "Likely Voter" polls the first is a Rasmussen poll which shows Romney +3 (47-44). which is pretty much in line with the last poll Rasmussen did in August which had Romney up by two.

On the same day that Rasmussen shows Romney up 3 among "Likely voters" NBC/Marist releases a poll of "Likely voters " showing Obama up....wait for it Obama +8 (50-42). 

Two polls same day 11 points difference! Obviously they both can not be correct. Since I do not have access to Rasmussen cross tabs, you have to pay for them, I checked out the NBC poll which among registered voters has a D+6 partisan breakdown (35/29/ 33) and among likely voters a D+5 (36/31/33) .

The only problem with this is that there are more registered Republicans in Iowa than Democrats. So I believe I'll go with Rasmussen, which I always do.

Oh and by the way in November 2008 there were far more registered Democrats than Republicans in Iowa, in fact there were over 96,000 more registered Democrats in Iowa in November 2008 than there are today. I wonder what happened?

UPDATE

The NBC folks did the same thing in their Colorado poll released today which they show Obama +5 (50-45) Their partisan breakdown among registered voters is D+3 (34/31/34) and D+2 for "Likely Voters" (34/32/32). The problem with this is that there are more registered Republicans in Colorado than Democrats, 100,000 more. There are more registered Republicans in Colorado than Independents yet they poll less of them than either Democrats or Independents, delusional.

Polls and climate models

Via-Jer's Notes

I am 95% sure with a margin of error of (+/-3.25%) that the polling for this election is skewed badly. Whether this is due to some leftist institutional bias or just some structural defect that permeates the polling community I'll let you judge, but regardless the polls are, to put it bluntly, crap.

To understand how bad this defect is you must first understand that polls are not really scientific in much the same way that climate models are not scientific. Like the climate models that forecast increased temperatures as the result of increased CO2 in the atmosphere they are only as good as the suppositions fed into them by the modelers. If the suppositions fed into the formulas are wrong, for whatever reason, then what comes out can not possibly be correct. The old garbage in garbage out scenario.

Now I have no way of knowing where the garbage going into the various polls is coming from, though I do have my suspicions, but it is obvious that what is coming out is garbage.

The supposition that pollsters make which like climate modelers may be based upon some other scientific formulation or criteria is what they project the turn out on election day to be. In essence the pollster is projecting who is going to show up at the polls and then fitting the information of their polls into that projection. For example when you see or hear a poll referred to as a D+5, that simply means that the pollster used 5% more Democrat

Let's take the three battleground state polls released by FOX yesterday as examples Ohio, Virginia and Florida. The first thing you must know is that in both Ohio and Virginia the voter does not register by party affiliation so there is no way of knowing at any given time the make up of the electorate. In Florida we do register by part or no party affiliation so that information is readily available. However party registration is not really a precise indicator of turn out at elections if it were in Florida as an example all the state wide offices and both US Senators would be Democrat since there are just under 4% more registered Democrats than Republicans in Florida. Despite this advantage all the state offices, both houses of the legislature, the vast majority of US House Representatives (19-6)and one US Senator are all Republican.

In most elections in virtually all states regardless of the party registration, the Republican voters tend to back their candidate with more loyalty than do Democrats. Even with the extremely motivated Democratic base Barack Obama only received 89% of the Democratic vote in 2008. Lest you think that was the result of racism that is the same percentage of Democratic vote that Kerry received in 2004 and two points higher than Gore received in 2000. John McCain on the other hand in keeping with a typical Republican loyalty trend irrespective of the fact that it was a very uninspired Republican base received 93% of the Republican vote.

These historical details are not unimportant when looking at polls and it is not like pollsters don't know this, which makes the polling done this cycle all the more egregious which brings me back to the FOX battleground state polls. Here is the important figures from the polls

OHIO

Obama +5 (49-44)
Turn out model D+6 (42/37/20)
Party Vote
(D)92-3 (R)89-6 (I)48-51

In the 2010 mid term the parties turned out like this 36% (D) /37%/ (R) /28% (I). In 2008 the turn out was 39 (D)/ 31 (R)/ 30 (I)

Putting aside the oversampling of Democrats which reflect a turn out far closer to 2008 than 2010 the next thing you will notice is that according to this poll 92% of Democrats are going to vote for Obama and only 89% of Republicans are voting for Romney while 5% of both parties are either undecided or are voting for someone else. Really?. Does anyone believe that Romney has less support among Republicans than Obama has among Democrats? I guess that according to this pollster at least, the Tea Party is dead. So Obama not only is going to turn out 6% more Democrats than Romney he is going to win his base by 3% more than Romney while loosing the Independents, Right! Oh and by the way the Governor and both houses of the state legislature in Ohio are Republican, boy those Ohioans must sure be fickle.

VIRGINIA

Obama +7 (50-43)
Turn out modelD+5 (38/33/26)
Party Vote
(D)94-3 (R) 87-5 (I) 42-41

There were no exit polls in Virginia in 2010 since there were no state wide contest so we do not know the most recent party turn out results. In 2008 it was 39(D)/33(R)27(I). So according to this FOX poll the turn out in 2012 is going to be about the same as 2008, Do you believe that?

Here again we see that according to this poll , Obama's base is going to support him 7 points higher than Republicans are going to support Romney. Come on what universe are these pollsters living in. And despite all historical precedent to the contrary, like in Ohio, twice as many Republicans are going to vote for Obama than Democrats are going to vote for Romney. But even this does not capture the absolute absurdity of this poll. According to this poll not only is Obama slightly winning the Independents in Virginia, somehow, someway there are 17% of Independents not voting for either candidate. According to this poll 10% of Independents are undecided 3% are voting for Virgil Goode and 4% just sort of disappeared. 99% of Ohio's Independents are decided but 10% or is it 14%(?) of Virginia's are not? Not to mention the 5% of Republicans that can not seem to make up their mind for these pollsters. Can anyone say Shenanigans?

FLORIDA

Obama +5 (49-44)
Turn out model D+5 (42/37/20)
Party Vote
(D) 88-7 (R) 87-9 (I) 45-43

In 2010 the exit polls for Florida were (D) 36 (R) 36 (I) 29 in 2008 it was (D) 37 (R) 34 (I) 29. So not only is this pollster oversampling Democrats 5 points higher than the most recent election they are oversampling them 2 points higher than 2008! But that is not the worst of it, they are saying a higher percentage of Democrats will turn out than there are registered Democrats in Florida just under 40 % of the electorate.

Here too we see that Obama is going to do better among Republicans than Romney will do among Democrats, In 2008 12% of Republicans did vote for Obama in Florida but 12% of  Democrats voted for McCain. We also see that in this poll that a great many Independents (12%) are either undecided (9%) or voting for someone else (3%).

Historically the undecided vote breaks overwhelmingly for the challenger, there is no reason to believe that will not happen in this election particularly with the Republican undecided. According to this poll  of likely voters in Ohio 2% of Republicans would vote for someone else, 2% are undecided and 1% would not vote. In Virginia 3% vote for someone else and 5% are undecided. In Florida 2% will vote for someone else and 2% of Republicans are undecided.

These polls besides not reflecting the reality of the recent trends in the electorate are using turn out ratios that are simply trash, garbage in garbage out.