Romney, Obama, Rasmussen

The one caveat from Silver is the possibility that the national tracking polls are more accurate than the state polls:

Nate Silver said:
But perhaps national polls tell the right story of the race instead — meaning that the state polls systematically overrate Mr. Obama’s standing?

It’s certainly possible. (It keeps me up late at night.) If the polls in states like Ohio and Wisconsin are wrong, then FiveThirtyEight — and all of our competitors that build projections based on state polls — will not have a happy Nov. 6.

With that said, our decision to cast our lot mostly with the state polls is not arbitrary. In recent years, they’ve been a slightly more unbiased indicator of how the election will play out.
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NotJesus said:
The one caveat from Silver is the possibility that the national tracking polls are more accurate than the state polls:
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Yup. But he does have some very good basis for using state polls -- not only are they "more" unbiased than the national polls, they also are within a margin of accuracy that is quite satisfactory:

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In fact, since 1984, the only year where I wouldn't be fine using the state polls even if they _aren't_ more accurate was 1992... and that was the year Perot was involved.

This year it's a very straightforward race; I would expect to see similar bias numbers (close to, but less than 1.0) for both the national and state polls.
 
Lots of big polls out today, and none of them good for Mitt.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/31/1153153/-Obama-s-crazy-good-polling-day


Quinnipiac University, on behalf of CBS and the NY Times, stuck a dagger in Romney's Ohio hopes by showing President Barack Obama up 50-45, as well as a one-point lead in Florida and two-point lead in Virginia. Marquette University, the best pollster during the Wisconsin recall, now shows Obama winning the state 51-43. Their last poll a couple of weeks ago had it 49-48 Obama. PPP has Obama cruising in Iowa 50-45, and in Wisconsin 51-46.
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Just for the record...it looks as though the polls are moivng in Obama's direction, but you might want to cite a website that is less partisan then Daily Kos. It's just good tactics.
 
dudalb said:
Just for the record...it looks as though the polls are moivng in Obama's direction, but you might want to cite a website that is less partisan then Daily Kos. It's just good tactics.
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Agreed, but in this case, I'm citing the actual polls.

Polls above the MOE in any of the swing states are pretty hard to spin.
 
Wow, Romney is dropping fast on the markets...

Predictwise:

Obama 70.9%
Romney 29.2%

Seems that more and more people are deciding that Romney's campaign is a sinking ship.
 
Tricky said:
Also predicting the Democrats will hold 52 or 53 Senate seats after the election.
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Two months ago, if you had told me the Democrats would not only retain the Senate but even pick up a seat or two, I'd have said you were nuts.

Quite a turn, isn't it?
 
dudalb said:
Just for the record...it looks as though the polls are moivng in Obama's direction, but you might want to cite a website that is less partisan then Daily Kos. It's just good tactics.
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This is true. You might want to drop in at Fox and watch them rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, for some eye-opening snappy repartee.

They're actually mentioning the unmentionable... that the GOP is going into PA, MN, WI, MI because Ohio is unwinnable. Shep Smith actually said, "Now whether this is reality or they're just spending money because they have it - or trying to make the Democrats spend money in those states... it still seems that this is due to the need to find another route to 270 without Ohio..." (I paraphrase, but that's what he said... And this was in their "hard news" hour, not on one of the opinion shows.)
 
Redtail said:
I wonder if the "canned food drive" is causing this?
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Super Sandy has basically put a halt to any imagined movement upwards for Romney. Obama can campaign from disaster areas and without campaigning. This means Ryan and Romney have to STFU and not look partisan. And if they don't keep hammering, they don't keep the illusion going. They're in an inenviable position. If Obama doesn't utter a political word in the next five days, anything negative they say looks like them just being political hacks while the president is too busy being presidential to reply to their unkindness.

(Plus, the Romney lead dissolved because the land lines went out! Gallup hasn't released a poll with Romney ahead by 6 in two whole days. :p )

Oh, and over at Intrade, Romney's about at his nadir. The only time he was down at these levels was in the crash after the 47% video. $3.15 as I'm typing.
 
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Foolmewunz said:
This is true. You might want to drop in at Fox and watch them rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, for some eye-opening snappy repartee.

They're actually mentioning the unmentionable... that the GOP is going into PA, MN, WI, MI because Ohio is unwinnable. Shep Smith actually said, "Now whether this is reality or they're just spending money because they have it - or trying to make the Democrats spend money in those states... it still seems that this is due to the need to find another route to 270 without Ohio..." (I paraphrase, but that's what he said... And this was in their "hard news" hour, not on one of the opinion shows.)
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Wow... that's pure fantasy. If they're admitting they can't win Ohio, then it's basically over.

The phrase "grasping at straws" comes to mind. It's almost as if they know they're going to lose but they cannot admit it.

It'll be interesting to see what Fox News has to offer next Wednesday...

:popcorn1
 
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Yeah. None of those states appears any more winnable for Romney than Ohio but I guess they have to do something if Ohio really is gone.

Assuming no Ohio -- if they win Florida (where they're ahead), plus Virginia, Iowa & Colorado (where they're behind but possibly within striking distance, they still need another state. And if you add New Hampshire, that's only four EC votes, so they'd still need one more. Where else can they get it?
 
Here's one of the principal interior decorators on the Titanic. It's particularly useful because you can see links on the right hand column.

Not only do the polls flicking by show that his article is based on a series of lies (because it shows Obama leading and going up in the states he dismisses when he says "only in NV does Obama still lead", but it links to his other silliness... articles like Why Romney Will Win, Pennsylvania is the New Ohio*, etc...

Dick Morris...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/10/31/here_comes_the_landslide_115998.html

Oh, and Greta is now covering Reince and Paul in WI this week. They show the "crowd" in Green Bay. No front audience view, just the speaker with three rows of people behind him on the podium. I'm pretty sure that was the whole turnout. I also note that they're having trouble with the scenery. Are there no Latinos or Blacks in Green Bay? They didn't have the one dark face they always position in these shots. Maybe they can get Mia Love to pose in the background. Maybe a little green screen CGI?

Oooh, Reince is still spinning a big win in WI, but the gusto is gone. Even Greta is asking "Why is WI so close?" A week ago (she's from WI) she was cheering with them about how they were going to take the state. At least she's avoiding last week's lie - they actually claimed that the Obama team went to WI to work for the recall AND FAILED. Everyone who remembers the news of the time remembers that WI progressives were complaining of the lack of support from the big dawg.
 
BenBurch said:
Rasmussen still hanging on to Romney +2.

So tenacious it is almost cute.
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'Turd Blossom' weighs in with Romney winning by three nationwide, 279 electoral, maybe more. He also mentions the poll that has Obama up by five in Ohio:

Karl Rove WSJ 10/31/12 said:
Desperate Democrats are now hanging their hopes on a new Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News poll showing the president with a five-point Ohio lead. But that survey gives Democrats a +8 advantage in turnout, the same advantage Democrats had in 2008. That assumption is, to put it gently, absurd.
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When one poll shows a partisan advantage it's not out of the ordinary, however when (virtually) all the polls from certain firms report that, either the electorate has in fact dramatically changed, or there's something wrong with their assumptions.

Can anybody show me a 1000 or more respondent poll from the past week or two with a Dem advantage of four or less that has Obama winning either the national vote or one of the swing states? All those ones with huge Dem partisan advantages are likely just indications they didn't do a very good job separating the 'likely voters' from the 'registered voters' as there's usually a significant number of Dems that don't turn out, thus of that +8 in Ohio half (or more) of it might just be the void between the 'registered voter' and the 'likely voter' with more meticulous methodology.
 
Brainster said:
Okay, here's a question for all the Nate Silver fans here. Ever since the first debate, Mitt Romney has held a pretty clear advantage in the RCP national poll index. He's currently at 47.7% versus Obama's 46.8, an advantage of 0.9 percentage points. In five out of the last six polls, Romney has been in the lead; the one poll in that half-dozen that Obama was leading had him up by only 1 percentage point.

Okay, so I can understand why Silver still rates Obama as more likely to win the election; this is not a popular-vote contest, but a 50-state electoral college race. But how is it possible that Silver rates Obama as 71.4% likely to win the popular vote?
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He has a post up today explaining why his model is based (more) on the state polls rather than the national polls. Basically the state polls and the national polls tell two different stories.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

He does admit that it's possible that his model is wrong and the national polls are more accurate than the state polls, but in recent elections the state polls have tended to be less biased than the national polls.

BTW, the RCP average of national polls now shows a tie. Gallup is the only one that shows a big lead for Romney.
 
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