June 20, 2012

Bloomberg polling has Obama 13 points ahead of Romney.

"Can that possibly be true?"
The firm that conducted the Bloomberg survey, Selzer & Co., is well regarded by polling experts. The margin of error for its likely voter results was 3.6 percentage points.

The poll did not include an over-representation of Democrats, or African-Americans – both groups that skew heavily toward the incumbent. One thing that might account for its result, as compared with other surveys, is that it shows Obama doing better among white voters. The Bloomberg survey has him with 43 percent of the white vote, as opposed to 50 percent for Romney.

47 comments:

crosspatch said...

There are always outliers in these polls but this one seems way out of line. But in any case, the national polls don't really matter all that much, what matters is state polls. So Obama can get 100% of the vote in NY, IL, and CA and it won't matter any more than getting 51%.

"National polls" don't mean anything in the context of Presidential elections. Example: A WAA (WeAskAmerica) poll out today has Romney +2 in Michigan. That is the sort of polling that matters; state by state.

Original Mike said...

"Can that possibly be true?"

They aren't acting like they are 13 points ahead.

dmoelling said...

Quick question to Ann's readers.

Do you answer polls? I've tended to let the answering machine take 800 service calls and usually am too busy to answer political polls. I get a lot of surveys these days as a Registered republican in CT, so I'm guessing I'm contributing to underrepresentation.

Anonymous said...

Gallup and Rasmussen, both with good track records, has Romney up by one or two. 13 points is simply unbelievable, I doubt they have a representative sample

yashu said...

If I'm going to rely on polling (and I try not to), I'll stick with Rasmussen and Gallup. Both of which show Romney narrowly ahead.

My suspicion (if I may put on my conspiracy cap) is that this poll-- obviously an outlier (even *if* Obama is in fact ahead, 13 pts is ridiculous)-- is about "bringing balance" to the RCP average. Given the trends, some pro-O counterweight at this point was politically necessary for Obama. 13 points of it.

tim in vermont said...

it's true. Of course it is true! Don't doubt it, we have Garage's word on it.

Brian Brown said...

Fed slashes econ forecast: 2012 GDP to 1.9% -2.4% from 2.4%-2.9% in April.

2012 Unemployment to 8.0%-8.2% from 7.8%-8.0%

Yeah, Obama, who beat McLame by not 13%, is totally up by 13% today.

Really. He is.

Brian Brown said...

It's a poll of 1,002 adults, of whom 734 'qualify' as likely voters. 38 percent were Democrats or leaned that way, while 33 percent were Republicans or leaned toward the GOP.

A great snap shot of the American electorate.

Or, not true.

Anonymous said...

You mean those white racists have stopped being racists?

What has he done for gaining a 13% advantage? 3% may be, but 13%?

It's the first time he gets anything more than 50% since the beginning of the year. How is his approval rating?

Anonymous said...

A 38/35 D?R split is overly optimistic for the Dems. Based on Gallup self ID numbers party ID is close to parity, but even that reweighting still doesn't explain the extreme 13 point lead.

campy said...

"Can that possibly be true?"

Sure can! Obama is Awesome!

SteveR said...

“This poll is a clear outlier,” tweeted Ezra Klein

Once again, Klein demonstrates why he was voted most likely to succeed in middle school in 2008.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Maybe they are trying to skew the RCP average, which is about to show Romney ahead of the President.

Chuck66 said...

I'll vote for Obama when he gets me free birth control. And some hot ladies to use it on.

Chip S. said...

Evidently, every so often you get a black swan of a sample. The Bloomberg poll seems to consist largely of idiots.

62% of respondents agreed that "things in the nation have gotten off on the wrong track."

63% of respondents cited "jobs" (45%) or "the deficit" (18%) as the "most important issue facing the country right now".

Yet 53% said they'd vote for Obama.

This is what an outlier looks like.

Fen said...

Evidently, every so often you get a black swan of a sample.

No way is this merely an outlier. Someone at Bloomberg had to deliberately manipulate the poll to get this result.

George said...

It's a statisical fluke. Run enough surveys and you'll get a few like this one three or four standard deviations outside of the population average.

Fen said...

Can anyone point to an outlier by a "respected" polling firm? One with 1,000+ likely voters and an MOE of 3.6%?

The odds don't favor a "black swan".. more like an asteroid strike that wiped out the dinos...

I maintain Bloomberg has been corrupted. No doubt tomorrow they will claim it was a typo.

dreams said...

"Bloomberg polling has Obama 13 points ahead of Romney."
"Can that possibly be true?"

No, yet another example of the corrupt liberal media trying to create a narrative that Obama is unbeatable.

The only reliable polls are those of likely voters and I bet this one wasn't of likely voters. I haven't and don't intend to read the article.

ricpic said...

Whites are suicidal.

Chip S. said...

The odds don't favor a "black swan"...

True...by the definition of a "black swan" event.

The Bloomberg poll is clearly an outlier in the sample of polls, whether by chance or by design.

pauldar said...

Well, in my neck of the woods in SW Ohio, not to far from Ann's man 'ole hangout, there is not a soul that I know that supports Obama. Between my personal friends and business folks I know, not one single person. That was not true in 2008.

sakredkow said...
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edutcher said...

It's Bloomie, what do you expect?

Jay, Dave, and Fen are right.

When in doubt, look under the hood.

sakredkow said...
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NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

If it showed Romney up by 13, what would you think?

It seems screwy to me, because the President being up by that much should have showed up in the other polls.

Michael K said...

This is good to keep the GOP focussed. Turnout will be everything; small business owners and employees will crawl over broken glass to vote.

jrberg3 said...

"John Lynch said...
If it showed Romney up by 13, what would you think?"

The exact same thing. There hasn't been any reason for either candidate to suddenly seem that heavy a favorite among likely voters. It's ridiculous. Any poll that showed Romney with more than a 6% lead at this point would be criticized as an outlier.

David said...

Of course it can be true.

When you have a 98% lock on 12% of the electorate, you are very hard to beat.

It is no accident that the Democrats try to obliterate any black person who dares stray from the protectorate.

Chuck said...

In other polling news: The Walker-Barrett recall election is still too close to call, within the margin of error.

Tom Spaulding said...

Michigan Poll

Romney up, that settles it. Done deal.

Hi, Garage!

BarryD said...

Obama was only 7 points ahead of McCain in 2008.

Obama was a good deal more popular then, and McCain (along with the GOP generally) a good deal less so than Romney.

Reagan beat Carter in what was considered an all-out landslide, and Reagan's popular vote was under 10 points ahead of Carter.

I don't think any modern election has had a 13 point spread, or will. I wouldn't believe that number in either direction.

Terrye said...

This poll is an outlier. There is no other polling out there that is even close.

I read a couple of posts on this, and it seems they did over represent Democrats.

Here is an interesting link Guy Benson

And Power Line

Terrye said...

Actually I think the break down was 40 Republican and 48 Democrat. Who knows, the poll is obviously nonsense.

sakredkow said...
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Tim said...

Bloomberg polling has Obama 13 points ahead of Romney.

"Can that possibly be true?"


Of course it can possibly be true.

After all, 53% of the electorate was dumb enough to vote for Obama the first time around.

Why would anyone think that 53% of the electorate dumb enough to vote for Obama would be smart enough to learn not to do so the second time around?

No doubt, some of the idiots who voted for him in '08 have learned not to do so again, but is it possible that none of the idiots who voted for him in '08 have learned anything since then? No, not likely.

Siduri said...

It seems a little crazy. Look at this long list of polls.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html

Jane said...
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D. B. Light said...

The result isn't crazy, it's just statistics. Even a well designed poll will yield results that fall outside one standard deviation from time to time. This is just one of those cases -- an outlier.

dreams said...

"The truth is that there’s no sure way to know why this survey is so much more favorable to Obama without seeing the makeup of the underlying likely-voter sub-sample."

www.nationalreview.com/corner

Crunchy Frog said...

It has to be true - Bloomberg doesn't know anyone who's going to vote for Romney.

Craig said...

Drive for show, putt for dough?

Tiger Woods is #1 in Total Driving, that's a combination of driving distance and percentage of fairways hit. His putting stat has been mediocre, in part because he hits so many greens, 66%, in regulation.

David Duvall is ranked #2 on tour in Putting, but he's dead last in greens hit in regulation at barely 50%. That means his first putt on average is much shorter than Tiger's, but it's often for par instead of birdie.

Tiger has two wins and a second place finish with $3 million in prize money in ten starts. Duvall has only made two cuts in eighteen tries and hasn't yet earned $20 thousand in prize money.

Ninety percent of all comments about Tiger Woods on Yahoo Sports insist that Tiger Woods is all washed up because of his moral failings which mostly consist of being black. Nobody cares if David Duvall fools around on tour because he's white and he's last on the money list.

When Duvall was World #1 he led the tour in birdie putts from less than ten feet because his iron play was simply spectacular. He needs to borrow Tiger's swing coach.

Bloomberg is the only news channel I watch. Gordon Gekko for President.

a psychiatrist who learned from veterans said...

Nate Silver is on board to some extent: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/outlier-polls-are-no-substitute-for-news/

William said...

Bloomberg only polled thin, non smokers.

Anonymous said...

"There are a few things that caught my eye as potential reasons the poll is so favorable to Obama. The survey is of adults, [not] registered or likely voters, though the ballot numbers that are grabbing the headlines are among likely voters... Looking at the adults sample, ...For instance, the Bloomberg survey has 22 percent of respondents under the age of thirty... Even in the 2008 election, only 18 percent of voters were under thirty... Furthermore, even with energized turnout among black and Latino voters, some 74 percent of voters were white in 2008, only down three points from 77 percent in 2004. In the Bloomberg poll, white voters fall to only 67 percent of the sample..."

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/303519/re-new-poll-gives-obama-double-digit-lead-kristen-soltis

Some people really don't care about their own credibility to shill for the One. There was Journolist Andrea Mitchell, and now Bloomberg. Amazing.

Mitch H. said...

The reason margin of error calculations are reported at confidence levels - even with 99% confidence, an average of one out of a hundred samples will be wildly unrepresentative.

No way is this merely an outlier. Someone at Bloomberg had to deliberately manipulate the poll to get this result.

Nah, sometimes an outlier is just that - unrecognizable compared to its poll-peers.

Charles said...

The CS Monitor is dead wrong: "The poll did not include an over-representation of Democrats, or African-Americans – both groups that skew heavily toward the incumbent."

African-Americans (and young voters) absolutely are over-represented in this poll. That's because they pegged their data to the general population and not to likely voters. That's a huge difference.

It's such a farce that it was clearly done by the pollster and Bloomberg on purpose. I can't decide if the CS Monitor is stupid, malicious or just ignorant.