Romney, Obama, Rasmussen

[Foolmewunz]

Arizona isn't as uniformly deep red as is commonly believed. It's more like modern Virginia where you have two superposed and politically distinct electorates. Arizona has the "snow birds," Scottsdale and such, who are older, whiter, wealthier, and vote Republican. But it also has the imported working class (my brother among them), strongest in Tucson, who are younger and cosmopolitan, generally blue-collar, solidly Democratic. There are several other, smaller constituencies that can swing depending on what's going on (the young 2A community that might give up on Romney for Johnson, for instance).

Arizona back in play would suggest something about an "enthusiasm rift" appearing in the Republican party, in my uneducated opinion.

Makes sense. I checked out the demographics and there are about 10% more Republicans registered, but the big number is the Independents. While I don't believe that many people are really Independent, I think they answer honestly because while they always vote Red or Blue, they merely haven't registered as a party member. I know I never put myself down as Dem for just that reason.

If Ben's right and Montana so much as slips from "Likely" to "Leans", we could be seeing a lot of internal malaise. Other than two anomalies (Ross Perot's year, and the GOP's insane 1964 nominee), Montana hasn't gone Democrat since the end of the New Deal era.

Since this thread is all about Rasmussen (purportedly), does anyone know if the Pollsters(not specifically just Rasmussen) weight or don't weight all categories on their questionnaire? I realize you can say, "Well, Mississippi always has a larger turnout for party X, so add most of that, say Y% to get the accurate result." That works - and it's what Rasmussen fans complain about the other polls.

I'm thinking more in terms of Up/Down questions, like Presidential Approval or Congressional Approval or Direction of the Country. Since none of those are specifically on the ballot (although they are actually what the election is all about), I can't see someone saying "Well, the poll shows 41% approve of Obama, but Massachusetts always turns out heavily Dem, so let's call it 49%.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Heard a good one today: The Romney campaign is so dead, the Mormons have baptized it.

 

[MattusMaximus]

Heard a good one today: The Romney campaign is so dead, the Mormons have baptized it.

 

[RandFan]

Obama +4.3.

Many pundits said the polls would level out until the debates. I'm sorry but the trend has been ever increasing in Obama's favor and the debates are matter of days away. Particularly significant is the increase for Obama in the swing states.

Of course it's possible this could all turn around but it's really not looking good for Romney.

 

[Puppycow]

The national polls seem to closer than the polls in the so-called swing states.

Race is tight, but not in key states, a new poll finds

Nationally, the race is unmoved from early September, but 52 percent of likely voters across swing states side with Obama and 41 percent with Romney; Republican gains ground on wealth and taxes.

Nationally, the race is unmoved from early September, with 49 percent of likely voters saying they would vote for Obama if the election were held today and 47 percent saying they would vote for Romney. Among all registered voters, Obama is up by a slim five percentage points, nearly identical to his margin in a poll two weeks ago.

But 52 percent of likely voters across swing states side with Obama and 41 percent with Romney in the new national poll, paralleling Obama’s advantages in recent Washington Post polls in Florida, Ohio and Virginia.

An 11-point lead in the swing states but only a 2-point lead nationally.

One difference between the swing states and the rest of the country is that both candidates are focusing their campaign resources in those states. Does this mean that Obama's campaign is just beating Romney on the ground, with better ads and better get-out-the-vote efforts?

 

[Foolmewunz]

The national polls seem to closer than the polls in the so-called swing states.

Race is tight, but not in key states, a new poll finds



An 11-point lead in the swing states but only a 2-point lead nationally.

One difference between the swing states and the rest of the country is that both candidates are focusing their campaign resources in those states. Does this mean that Obama's campaign is just beating Romney on the ground, with better ads and better get-out-the-vote efforts?

I'm having a lot of trouble seeing how they come up with the "national" numbers when you look at all the state races.... ALL the state races. Some of those states, RCP doesn't even report polls from, but Romney would have to be garnering something like 30 point pluralities in the likes of Alabama and Louisiana and Arkansas and Mississippi AND ALL THEIR "SOLID ROMNEY" STATES, just to make up for the 20+ edge that the current polls show for Obama in CA, NY, and MA. Those three states represent more population and EC votes than RCP's entire slate of "solid Romney" states.

Do the "national" polls, e.g. Rasmussen, Washington Post, Gallup... call and say, "we're conducting the national poll and don't care where you're from" and then call back a whole bunch of other people the next day to get the numbers on how tight or not tight it is in the EC vote for that same location?

It makes absolutely no sense, frankly. The biggest GOP "gimme" is TX and Romney's only got a +15 and that's in a single poll (they're just not polling TX, either). The media/press has a vested interest in a close contest.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Obama +4.3.

Many pundits said the polls would level out until the debates. I'm sorry but the trend has been ever increasing in Obama's favor and the debates are matter of days away. Particularly significant is the increase for Obama in the swing states.

Of course it's possible this could all turn around but it's really not looking good for Romney.

[qimg]http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg209/scaled.php?server=209&filename=rcp4.jpg&res=landing[/qimg]

That snapshot was before two polls came out this morning with Obama at +2. Obama, if the numbers are to be believed (see above post, last line) has gone from 4.5 to 3.8 in four days. This could be Libya reaction, or it could be just a happy coincidence in time for the debates and to make the prognosticators who said it'd be close look that much wiser. Look for Rasmussen to come out with numbers showing Romney +9 so it goes to "OMG, a statistical dead heat. Stay tuned for the crucial debate!"

(Cynical? Who, me?)

 

[not_so_new]

That snapshot was before two polls came out this morning with Obama at +2. Obama, if the numbers are to be believed (see above post, last line) has gone from 4.5 to 3.8 in four days. This could be Libya reaction, or it could be just a happy coincidence in time for the debates and to make the prognosticators who said it'd be close look that much wiser. Look for Rasmussen to come out with numbers showing Romney +9 so it goes to "OMG, a statistical dead heat. Stay tuned for the crucial debate!"

(Cynical? Who, me?)

In light of the two posts above, I think you might find this interesting.

 

[Puppycow]

Do the "national" polls, e.g. Rasmussen, Washington Post, Gallup... call and say, "we're conducting the national poll and don't care where you're from" and then call back a whole bunch of other people the next day to get the numbers on how tight or not tight it is in the EC vote for that same location?

It makes absolutely no sense, frankly.

As to your first question, I think that the national polls are usually different sets of randomly called people. In the case of this poll, however, the wording of the article seems to indicate that the "swing states" group is just a subset of the national poll.

But 52 percent of likely voters across swing states side with Obama and 41 percent with Romney in the new national poll, paralleling Obama’s advantages in recent Washington Post polls in Florida, Ohio and Virginia.

This Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted by telephone Sept. 26-29, 2012, among a random national sample of 1,101 adults, including landline and cell phone-only respondents. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error or 3.5 percentage points. The error margin is 3.5 points for the sample of 929 registered voters and four points for the sample of 813 likely voters. Sampling, data collection and tabulation by Abt-SRBI of New York.

So it may just be an effect of small sample size.

On the whole, you would probably expect the results in swing states to be not much different from the results in the national poll, but polls include a margin of error, and the reason for the divergence might be as simple as that. One in 20 polls will have an error even greater than the margin of error.

 

[Foolmewunz]

In light of the two posts above, I think you might find this interesting.

I generally concur as to the overall averages. I note that more polls came out later in the day showing Obama with larger than +2, yet he went down another .3 in the overall averaging. This is not conspiracy stuff. It's based on the averaging. They added about five polls yesterday and knocked out the previous batch, a couple of which had Obama with rather large leads.

(And I do think that the Libya mess is gaining some traction - not enough to suit Hannity and friends, but enough to hit the national polling by a point or two.)

 

[RandFan]

RCP's electoral map has Obama 269 Romney 181. +3.0. It should be noted that though Obama gained electoral votes he is down a full percentage point from a day or two ago.

Fivethirtyeight has Romney's chance of winning at 14.3%

Intrade Romney 25.8%

 

[MattusMaximus]

The national polls seem to closer than the polls in the so-called swing states.

Race is tight, but not in key states, a new poll finds

An 11-point lead in the swing states but only a 2-point lead nationally.

One difference between the swing states and the rest of the country is that both candidates are focusing their campaign resources in those states. Does this mean that Obama's campaign is just beating Romney on the ground, with better ads and better get-out-the-vote efforts?

Based upon the reaction of various Republican talking heads in recent weeks, one has to also wonder whether or not Romney is a decent candidate? Seems to be a perfectly valid question to me.

That said, I think President Obama's ground game is incredible. The organization that he built up in 2008 never really went away.

 

[Foolmewunz]

RCP's electoral map has Obama 269 Romney 181. +3.0. It should be noted that though Obama gained electoral votes he is down a full percentage point from a day or two ago.

Fivethirtyeight has Romney's chance of winning at 14.3%

Intrade Romney 25.8%

And in the Good News for Mitt category, he can now claim to be ahead in one of the "Undecided" states - something they haven't seen in about a month. Oh wait, that's Missouri. It moved from "Leans Romney" to Undecided.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

And in the Good News for Mitt category, he can now claim to be ahead in one of the "Undecided" states - something they haven't seen in about a month. Oh wait, that's Missouri. It moved from "Leans Romney" to Undecided.

Interesting. I've been saying that the (national) Obama campaign has written off Missouri prematurely. . at least as far as TV ads go. McCain won here by the slimmest margin. I think Obama could take it with a bit of effort. I think it's all about opportunity costs though. If an extra visit to Colorado, Virginia, Ohio or Florida is going to make the difference, I can see why Missouri might be written off.

ETA: Too bad though. McCaskill could sure use a coattail effect. Todd Akin is still running inexplicably close.

 

[MattusMaximus]

And in the Good News for Mitt category, he can now claim to be ahead in one of the "Undecided" states - something they haven't seen in about a month. Oh wait, that's Missouri. It moved from "Leans Romney" to Undecided.

Whoa, you're kidding.

What's your source for that?

 

[BenBurch]

Whoa, you're kidding.

What's your source for that?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html

 

[Foolmewunz]

Whoa, you're kidding.

What's your source for that?

RCP, as Ben mentioned. They moved NH into the "Likely Obama" from "Undecided" and Missouri from "Likely Romney" into "Undecided". It's now at the point that any one undecided state gives Obama the brass ring and Mitt will need to not just sweep the undecideds, but also move one of the recent turnovers (NH and OH). Regardless of the national polls, the three yards and a cloud of dust ground game keeps grinding out the yardage.

 

[Puppycow]

Interesting. I've been saying that the (national) Obama campaign has written off Missouri prematurely. . at least as far as TV ads go. McCain won here by the slimmest margin. I think Obama could take it with a bit of effort. I think it's all about opportunity costs though. If an extra visit to Colorado, Virginia, Ohio or Florida is going to make the difference, I can see why Missouri might be written off.

ETA: Too bad though. McCaskill could sure use a coattail effect. Todd Akin is still running inexplicably close.

Missouri is not really a swing state. If Obama wins Missouri it almost certainly means that he won in a landslide and had more then enough electoral votes to spare. As far as coattails, I'm not sure if Obama campaigning for McCaskill would help her or hurt her. Some Democrats in red states or reddish states really don't want to be associated too closely with Obama. I think he could possibly help a candidate like Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, but the danger there is that Obama could hurt himself in places like Virginia or North Carolina if he is too closely associated with a liberal like Elizabeth Warren. He wants to position himself as a centrist to win in those swing states.

 

[SezMe]

That said, I think President Obama's ground game is incredible. The organization that he built up in 2008 never really went away.

As an aside, if that's true it's a damn shame he didn't use that organization to more effectively bolster his legislative efforts. That a guy as polished on the campaign trail to not use his bully pulpit more effectively after the campaign was over is waste of talent.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Interesting. I've been saying that the (national) Obama campaign has written off Missouri prematurely. . at least as far as TV ads go. McCain won here by the slimmest margin. I think Obama could take it with a bit of effort. I think it's all about opportunity costs though. If an extra visit to Colorado, Virginia, Ohio or Florida is going to make the difference, I can see why Missouri might be written off.

ETA: Too bad though. McCaskill could sure use a coattail effect. Todd Akin is still running inexplicably close.

Missouri, though, represents a great strategic move. Obama doesn't have to go there. A whole bunch of leading lights would love to go out and take on Akin on behalf of McCaskill, and if in the bargain they stump for Obama - AND the state stays in the Undecided column, then Mitt's got to start spending time and money in a state which:

A) He had never intended to worry about.
B) He doesn't want to go near the Senate candidate for his party.

B is a double-loser for him. If he goes to Missou and campaigns for Akin, there goes Virginia, Colorado and Florida. The MSM will eat him alive. If he goes and stumps for himself and runs away from Akin, the Tea Party will go ballistic. If I'm Axelrod, I'm seeing a win/win here. Wouldn't you just pick up the phone and call a couple of boys from Arkansas and Tennessee (Remember Success Rally! Clinton/Gore back together again like when we last had it good!) and ask them to drop in on their neighboring state?

In short, if we see Romney scheduling stops in Missouri, it's all over but the shouting.