Three New Likely Voter Polls

[Mecklomaniac]

Originally Posted by Pseudofool

I'm thinking Obama might win bigger than he did with McCain. McCain actually got a convention bounce, and it wasn't until after the debates that Obama should a substantive lead.

[Mr.Meanie]

Originally Posted by DBruleU

You guys can all bash Rasmussen all you want. But you ignore the fact that they are consistently accurate in their polling. You convenvetinalty ignore what I said earlier.

I was talking to a friend about polling and he made a good point that further illustrates what I have been saying.

Actual turnout in 2008 was Dem +7, and incidentally, Obama also won the popular vote by +7.

In 2010, the actual turnout was Repub +2 !!! Yet all these polls are using sample sizes based on 2008!! Or WORSE. One poll had Obama up +7, but the sample size was Dem+10!!! PLUS TEN!! That would assume that Dem turnout this year would be BETTER than in 2008!!! NO WAY THAT HAPPENS!! These polls are meant to INFLUENCE. Polls will get more accurate with about 1-2 weeks to go until the election. That's because they stop trying to influence....and actually start worrying about their reputations as accurate pollsters.

Turnout will probably be closer to 2010, which was Repub +2.....could be even, could be higher.

If these polls sampled based on R+2.....Romney would be up by at least 6-7 points.

It all comes down to turnout.

You can't compare mid-term elections to presidential elections. Mid-terms are more influenced by older voters, and will tend to skew more towards conservatives anyways. Presidential election turnout is leagues different, both in demographics and pure numbers of voters. I think you're making the same mistake you're accusing the pollsters of doing...

[DBruleU]

Originally Posted by Mr.Meanie

You can't compare mid-term elections to presidential elections. Mid-terms are more influenced by older voters, and will tend to skew more towards conservatives anyways. Presidential election turnout is leagues different, both in demographics and pure numbers of voters. I think you're making the same mistake you're accusing the pollsters of doing...

Damnit, you're right. R's are screwed.

[Kid A]

Originally Posted by Pseudofool

I'm thinking Obama might win bigger than he did with McCain. McCain actually got a convention bounce, and it wasn't until after the debates that Obama should a substantive lead.

Highly unlikely. Given economic situation (recovering, but very slowly) history would point toward winning by a couple points. '08 was a perfect storm of Bush fatigue + financial disaster. I mean, Indiana going blue? Not going to be even close this year. Dems should be more than happy if they can hold onto Ohio and Florida. Which, as of now, is the most likely outcome.

Both campaigns in 08 saw more movement in the polls, including after conventions. 538 has noted that they have been especially hard to move this year. That's why the RNC generating a very small bump for Romney wasn't a total disaster, but Obama get a decent one was a significant sign. Will be interesting to see if the debates have greater power in swinging the needle. I doubt it.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by Kid A

Will be interesting to see if the debates have greater power in swinging the needle. I doubt it.

Same here.

The knuckle draggers who voted for Bush in '04 were convinced Dumbya won all three debates.

[Mr.Meanie]

Originally Posted by Kid A

Highly unlikely. Given economic situation (recovering, but very slowly) history would point toward winning by a couple points. '08 was a perfect storm of Bush fatigue + financial disaster. I mean, Indiana going blue? Not going to be even close this year. Dems should be more than happy if they can hold onto Ohio and Florida. Which, as of now, is the most likely outcome.

Both campaigns in 08 saw more movement in the polls, including after conventions. 538 has noted that they have been especially hard to move this year. That's why the RNC generating a very small bump for Romney wasn't a total disaster, but Obama get a decent one was a significant sign. Will be interesting to see if the debates have greater power in swinging the needle. I doubt it.

He'll probably win by maybe 2-3% in the popular vote, but I really think the electoral votes he'll grab will be in the range of 320-340. The way it's looking right now Obama should take Florida, Ohio, PA, and probably even VA, WI and CO where he's at least a cointoss if not better. It won't be as great a margin as in '08 but Obama is comfortably leading Romney, and I think it would take a major event to shake that up.

[Pseudofool]

Originally Posted by Kid A

Highly unlikely. Given economic situation (recovering, but very slowly) history would point toward winning by a couple points. '08 was a perfect storm of Bush fatigue + financial disaster. I mean, Indiana going blue? Not going to be even close this year. Dems should be more than happy if they can hold onto Ohio and Florida. Which, as of now, is the most likely outcome.

Both campaigns in 08 saw more movement in the polls, including after conventions. 538 has noted that they have been especially hard to move this year. That's why the RNC generating a very small bump for Romney wasn't a total disaster, but Obama get a decent one was a significant sign. Will be interesting to see if the debates have greater power in swinging the needle. I doubt it.

I think you're downplaying what a horrible candidate Romney really is. And how much Obama has overcome his 08 detriments (foreign policy, capacity to lead). McCain was actually a candidate that appealed to both moderates and the base for different reasons. Romney does neither. I suppose we'll see. But I have a hard time believe any Obama 08 voters change their vote for Romney, no matter how dissatisfied they are.

We'll know more once the debates start and we see the candidates side by side--and we'll be able to better measure the starkness between them.

[peacepipe]

Obama has been been winning since like march. the rnc tied things up abit,but didn't last.

[DBruleU]

Some interesting things to consider.

Mitt Romney holds large lead in UnSkewedPolls.com average of polls

http://www.examiner.com/article/mitt...esign-right-ne

http://www.unskewedpolls.com/

While Mitt Romney enjoys a 47 percent to 46 percent lead over President Obama in the Rasmussen Reports Daily Presidential Tracking Poll released today, he has taken a 7.8 percent lead in the UnSkewedPolls.com average of unskewed polls. The UnSkewed Average includes the results of “unskewed” analysis of several well-known national polls, that typically over-sample Democrats and/or under-sample independent voters. Here is an example illustrating the process of “unskewing” a skewed poll that over-sampled Democrats.

The current UnSkewedPolls.com average reported today from the website includes eight recent polls, each one the latest conducted by that polling or media organization. When unskewed and averaged, they show a Mitt Romney lead of 7.8 percent.

The most notable of the polls is the CNN/ORC poll released last Monday that reported Obama leading by a six percent, 52 percent to 46 while it massively over-sampled Democrats and under-sampled independent voters. Unskewed, that poll's data calculated to a 53 percent to 45 percent margin in favor of Romney.

The last NY Times/CBS News poll was equally as skewed. It reported the presidential race 49 percent Obama to 46 percent Romney while the unskewed analysis of that poll's data revealed a 51 percent Romney to 44 percent Obama result. This poll relied on an unusually large sample of Democratic voters.

The UnSkewedPolls.com average included six other polls, all of which were similarly skewed due to the sampling issues mentioned above, and produced results showing Obama finishing stronger as a result. Unskewed, the data from these polls indicated a substantial Romney lead in every single instance.

In the past many have relied on the Real Clear Politics average of polls. In past election cycles it might have seem that there were one or two polls that seemed to favor the Republicans, and maybe a few that somewhat favored the Democrats, and averaging all the major polls produced a number that seemed fairly accurate. In past election cycles, the RCP average was fairly accurate for that reason.

During this election cycle, it seems we have many more polls that are so much more skewed and biased in favor of the Democrats, primarily a result of heavily over-sampling Democrats in the samples and not weighting them in the analysis to counter that effect. As a result, the RCP average itself has become quite skewed from being dominated by so many skewed polls. The current RCP average includes 10 polls, of which eight of them are heavily skewed and have been unskewed for inclusion in the UnSkewedPolls.com average of unskewed polls.

The purpose of unskewing the polls is to arrive at accurate numbers, not to show one candidate or the other ahead in the presidential race. The analysis process in unskewing polls relies on the Rasmussen Reports partisan data measured from hundreds of thousands of voters by Rasmussen Reports, which measures the partisan percentages at 37.6 percent Republicans, 33.3 percent Democrats and 29.2 percent independents.

Journalists and analysts can honestly debate this premise and assert their own educated prediction of what the partisan makeup of the electorate on election day will, but within some degree of reason and reasonable probability. While 2008 was a heavily Democratic election, the percentage of Democrats voting was about six percent more than that of Republicans voting in the actual election. The 2010 election that saw Republicans gain 65 seats in Congress was about the opposite of that.

During this year, most states have seen large increases in Republican voters registrations while registration of Democrats has declined. In many instances where both parties held state and local primaries on the same day, the Republican primary typically had more voter participation. There is overwhelming empirical evidence of higher enthusiasm and participation levels of Republicans than Democrats this year. The 4.3 percent Republican edge that Rasmussen Reports is projecting would appear to be a fairly small-c conservative projection given the available evidence. Rasmussen Reports has invested far too much in their reputation for accuracy to gamble that way taking chances in projections of this sort.

[DBruleU]

Also, some interesting polling in regards to party registration and how it correlates to election results.

http://datechguyblog.com/2012/09/17/...about-edition/

[TonyR]

"I witnessed Prime Minister [David Cameron] saying to a group of people, myself included, that Mitt Romney had that unique distinction of uniting all of England against him with his various remarks," - Harvey Weinstein.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...tt-Romney.html

Forty-seven percent of UK respondents said a Romney victory would make them feel less favourable towards the US, and only 3% would make them feel more favourable. That sentiment was mirrored in Germany and France, where only 4% and 5% respectively said that he would make them feel more favourable towards the US. In Germany, 48% said it would make them feel less favourable and in France 38%.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...utation-europe

[TonyR]

“Romney is in a very bad place. He’s got the Republican intelligentsia second-guessing him, publicly and privately. The party base has never trusted him and thinks that everything bad it ever thought about him is being borne out now. And he’s got the media believing that he can’t win. He’s right on the edge of a self-­fulfilling downward spiral,” - a "senior Republican strategist" to John Heilemann.

http://nymag.com/news/politics/power...unrest-2012-9/

[Mecklomaniac]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/150743/Obama-Romney.aspx

Gallup(registered voters)-- Obama 47 Romney 46

Rasmussen (likely voters) --- Romney 47 Obama 45

[DBruleU]

Romney up in CO now too!

[houghtam]

Rasmussen.

There have been 12 major polls in CO in the last 3 months. 2 of them have favored Romney. Take a guess which two.

[peacepipe]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...bama-1171.html
Obama is ahead in every poll except for the biased rasmussun.

[DBruleU]

Originally Posted by peacepipe

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...bama-1171.html
Obama is ahead in every poll except for the biased rasmussun.

We've been through this genius. Those polls where Obama is killing Romney are extremely biased. They over sample D's by sometimes 10+ points.

And you mean the same Rasmussen that in the past was the most accurate?

[DBruleU]

Originally Posted by houghtam

Rasmussen.

There have been 12 major polls in CO in the last 3 months. 2 of them have favored Romney. Take a guess which two.

The ones not heavily weighted towards D's?

[houghtam]

http://www.270towin.com/2012_electio....php?mapid=zJu

Romney cannot win without Florida. Even Rasmussen has Romney losing in FL.

Romney cannot win without 2/3 of OH/VA/WI. All polls have Romney losing in Ohio. All but one poll has Romney losing in VA. Most polls have Romney losing in WI.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

^

L0L!

As always, it's DBruleU vs. Reality.

[houghtam]

Even if you take the most recent Rasumussen polls from each of the "battleground" states, Obama is still up 307-231.

http://www.270towin.com/2012_electio....php?mapid=zJW

[peacepipe]

Originally Posted by DBruleU

We've been through this genius. Those polls where Obama is killing Romney are extremely biased. They over sample D's by sometimes 10+ points.

And you mean the same Rasmussen that in the past was the most accurate?

BS. just because they don't fit what you think,doesn't make them biased.

[Drek]

Originally Posted by DBruleU

We've been through this genius. Those polls where Obama is killing Romney are extremely biased. They over sample D's by sometimes 10+ points.

And you mean the same Rasmussen that in the past was the most accurate?

FYI, Ras goes cheap with the slanted robo calls and massively oversampling the GOP base up until the last week or so of every POTUS election. This is why they have massive swings, especially just before elections when they actually do some real polling.

Not so long ago he had double digit swings in a single week for both Ohio and Florida, the opposite way in each state. Its silly season for Ras until it gets close to election day and the numbers they'll be touting over the next four years need to start coming out.

Also, Nate Silver of 538 does a correction based on historical leaning and poll sampling within all of his predictions. He has Obama up by 51.1% to 47.8%, based on weighted rolling averages, which is likely a very solid indicator of a slight edge for Obama. Fact is though, those numbers get a lot less pleasant when you look at his numbers for swing states. Obama has consistent leads in all but Missouri and North Carolina. That leads to a 332 to 206 electoral college landslide.

As for actually getting people out to vote, well, Obama is destroying Romney in the number of field offices he has in swing states and people on the ground. Romney's big edge is supposed to be a media blitz, but how do you do that when everyone thinks you're full of **** before you even start?

[Mr.Meanie]

Originally Posted by DBruleU

The ones not heavily weighted towards D's?

Can you spot the obvious non-biased poll?

[peacepipe]

Originally Posted by DBruleU

We've been through this genius. Those polls where Obama is killing Romney are extremely biased. They over sample D's by sometimes 10+ points.

And you mean the same Rasmussen that in the past was the most accurate?

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/rasmussen-bias-redux/

This lends more credence to the view I expressed Wednesday: Rasmussen’s sample is biased because they’re polling on the cheap — using robocalls, which by law can’t dial cell phones, and otherwise cutting corners — rather than because of some agenda to propagandize for the GOP. The end result, however, is the same: Polls that can’t be trusted.