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Romney, Obama, Rasmussen

Are polling companies using the right models for the electorate?

Why Is Obama So Confident?

The curious thing is that this take is not reflected in the national polls. A Washington Post poll of registered voters yesterday had Romney leading by a point; a CBS poll today shows Obama up by one. Note that registered voters traditionally skew their picture toward the Democrats by around a couple percentage points, since not all registered voters cast a ballot, and Republicans are usually more likely than Democrats to show up at the polls. That would suggest that Romney is actually up by a couple points.

So, what gives?

The best explanation I can muster is that the polls are assuming a much different, and more GOP-friendly, electorate than either party. ABC’s poll assumes that 78 percent of registered voters are white. That is … a whole lot of white people. The white share of the electorate has been dropping steadily for more than twenty years — from 87 percent in 1992 to 83 percent in 1996 to 81 percent in 2000, 77 percent in 2004, and 74 percent four years ago. Ron Brownstein’s recent reporting suggests that both campaigns expect an electorate that’s about 74 percent white. The same problem seems to appear in numerous other polls. Many of them don’t release their racial breakdowns, but those that do seem to imply electorates far whiter than the campaigns are banking on. As pollster Mark Blumenthal has exhaustively shown, Gallup has systematically underweighted the number of minorities in its polls, due to technical issues related to the difficulty of finding and weighting poll respondents.
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I predict a minor bounce of a couple of points. Then I predict that the left will begin crowing about how the bounce was lower than any Republican Convention since 1924 and it's all Paul Ryan's fault. And because the Republicans alienated women, blacks, hispanics, gays, the poor, the middle-class, the old, the young, and immigrants with all their lying about everything.
 
mikedenk said:
I predict a minor bounce of a couple of points. Then I predict that the left will begin crowing about how the bounce was lower than any Republican Convention since 1924 and it's all Paul Ryan's fault. And because the Republicans alienated women, blacks, hispanics, gays, the poor, the middle-class, the old, the young, and immigrants with all their lying about everything.
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Well, there has been thousands of provisions to roll back women's reproductive rights. That's not a lie. The GOP does have a plank in their platform that would make many forms of contraception and abortion illegal. The GOP has not at all been kind to gays and lesbians. They are fond of demonizing the poor with the food stamp rhetoric. I don't think such claims would at all be unfair or why any of it would be lie. Now, take the claim by Romney and others that Obama is gutting medicare (or stealing from medicare). That's been deemed by just about everyone to be a bald face lie.
 
BenBurch said:
And from early results, the GOP bounce is small. I still expect 4 points by Tuesday or Wednesday next week.
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Standing at +.05 favor Obama. That would be a 4.5 movement in the numbers. I'm not so sure. Time will tell.
 
RandFan said:
+.01 Favor Obama.
Rasmussen has Romney +4.
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Good ol' Rasmussen.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytime...ys-convention-bounce-appears-middling-so-far/

The Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. received mediocre television ratings — and the polling data so far suggests that it may produce only a modest bounce in the polls for Mitt Romney.

The most favorable number for Mr. Romney is from the Rasmussen Reports tracking poll. That survey showed him pulling into a 3-point lead against President Obama on Saturday. All of the interviews in the Rasmussen poll were conducted after the convention began, although only about one-third were conducted after Mr. Romney’s acceptance speech on Thursday night.

The Rasmussen poll represents a 5-point swing toward Mr. Romney from the polling firm’s final survey before the conventions, when it had Mr. Obama ahead by two points. But it does not read quite as strongly for him as compared to the long-term average of Rasmussen polls, which have had Mr. Romney ahead by about one percentage point on average over the past 60 days.
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Another poll (Reuters) came out on Sunday. It doesn't seem to be reflected in RCP or 538 yet:

Obama, Romney tied as Democrats go into convention

WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama enters an important campaign week tied with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found on Sunday, leaving the incumbent an opportunity to edge ahead of his opponent at the Democratic National Convention.

With the Democrats set to nominate Obama for a second term this week in Charlotte, North Carolina, the race to the presidential election on Nov. 6 is tight with 45 percent for Obama and 45 percent for Romney among likely voters, the survey found.

The findings were from the seventh day of a rolling online poll conducted for Reuters by Ipsos to judge voters' attitudes around the political conventions.

Obama campaigned in Boulder, Colorado, the state where he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination four years ago, while Romney was off the campaign trail in New Hampshire, about to begin preparations for three debates with Obama in October.
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I think the debates will matter more than the conventions this year. I don't see the polls moving much either way due to the conventions, and in any case a "convention bounce" is a temporary phenomena that will usually go away by election day. The debates, however, are closer to the election and will be more relevant to voters on election day than the conventions.
 
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows Mitt Romney attracting support from 48% of voters nationwide, while President Obama earns 44% of the vote. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate, and five percent (5%) are undecided.
 
Tied

Were just 4 points shy of Ben's prediction (+4 by Wednesday). I think Ben will be proven correct or very close. Of course I've argued many times that Romney would pass up Obama at least once.
 
Puppycow said:
I think the debates will matter more than the conventions this year.
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Agreed. Having watched most of the GOP debates I would say don't underestimate Romney. I'd also say don't bet the house on Romney winning the debates.
 
RandFan said:
Were just 4 points shy of Ben's prediction (+4 by Wednesday). I think Ben will be proven correct or very close. Of course I've argued many times that Romney would pass up Obama at least once.
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Yep, we will see +4. I'd put a nickel on it.

And I'll put another nickel on that being the peak for Romney unless something horrible happens in the next 60 days.
 
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