September 14, 2012

Romney 48%, Obama 45%.

The Rasmussen tracking poll.

80 comments:

Shouting Thomas said...

Gallup:

Obama... 50%
Romney... 44%

What accounts for the difference?

Granted, it's a small group of people, but everybody I know who voted for Obama has turned against him.

Balfegor said...

I like hearing that -- it helps combat the despair which is the President's greatest weapon -- but it's just noise at this point. And it's out of line with what most other polls are saying, at this point.

shiloh said...

Keep hope alive! :)

SomeoneHasToSayIt said...

That close? wtf???

TWM said...

"What accounts for the difference?"

The truth is always in the details . . .

shiloh said...

Althouse dilligently trying to appease her flock!

Hey, if Scotty Ras doesn't carry water for mittens, who the fuck will?

Matt Sablan said...

I'm not sure what to believe. If this is still the case mid-October, I'll start being hopeful.

Bob Ellison said...

I've been wondering what the left will do when Obama loses.

I'm also wondering what the pollsters will do when they're proven wrong. They're scientific and all that. Cell phones, likely voters, people who refuse to answer-- they've got it all figured out.

There is a coming disaster for the polling industry at large.

TWM said...

"Granted, it's a small group of people, but everybody I know who voted for Obama has turned against him."

I'm running into the same thing with my - admittedly small - group of liberal friends/relatives. Of course some of them are now against him because he isn't liberal ENOUGH, but I'll take that as long as they either don't vote for him or just don't vote.

Tom Spaulding said...

Waitin' for the Jay-Z/Beyonce bounce.

What cool celebs will President Romney invite to sit in the Situation Room chair for photo ops?

Squeeeeeee! Celebrities!!!!

YGTBFKM

furious_a said...

What accounts for the difference?

Maybe not sampling Dem +10 vs. Rep or sampling Independents at at least 30%.

Of course, using DoJ as a club (Gallup) can improve one's polling, too.

furious_a said...

Waitin' for the Jay-Z/Beyonce bounce...

Waitin' for that Beyonce bounce, too, IYKWIM.

Ann Althouse said...

"What accounts for the difference?"

Gallup looks at registered voters. Rasmussen looks at likely voters.

Gallup reports on a 7-day rolling average. Rasmussen is averaging the last 3 days.

I'm sure there's plenty of other stuff, and they may be dishonestly trying to manipulate public opinion, to the extent that the idiot public decides to be for what other people seem to be for.

Matt Sablan said...

Honestly, if Romney can't keep a steady lead in the polls after this week, then, even though I've been vocal that the polls don't matter (yet), I'll start to lose a bit of faith.

machine said...

How is Romney doing in Michigan?

Ann Althouse said...

@shiloh You're desperately straining to make other people seem desperate. Don't you ever feel silly?

Bob Ellison said...

Oh, wow! Obama's at 65% on Intrade! Get your bets in now, folks! Obama was at about 59% for weeks, and now he's up, way up!

With maybe $200k, one could easily manipulate this market. George Soros could just tell one of his people to tell one his littler people to do it.

Renee said...

The difference is that a lot of people call themselves independent when they are not. With individuals reluntant to label themselves, impossible to gage.

shiloh said...

Don't you ever feel silly?

Projection!

btw, do you read any of your loyal/rabid con posts at this blog? Rhetorical.

Scott said...

The race is pretty much a dead heat. The winner will be the one who can get their voters to the polls in swing states like Ohio and Florida.

What really could swing the election is the Fed's quantitative easing, round 3 (or QE3). The short-term effect of that will be to drive money into the stock market, as people look for an inflation hedge for their savings. The rise in stock prices (but not stock values) will cause people to have a warmer, somewhat more fuzzy feeling about the gumment ("Gee honey, maybe I can retire after all!"), which will work in favor of Obama's reelection.

Make no mistake about it: Announcing QE3 now is blatantly political. You probably can't PROVE that Bernanke is violating the Hatch Act, but geez, put two and two together. If by God's grace Romney is elected, firing Bernanke ought to be near the top of Romney's first-day list.

Matt Sablan said...

If Althouse, who voted Obama, is a rabid conservative, I... I just don't know how the world works any more.

Nichevo said...

See, prof, you tried, you got pissed on. Why not just delete Shiloh posts on sight like you do Mary posts? He has nothing to offer.

Shouting Thomas said...

shiloh clearly doesn't even bother to read Althouse's posts.

Tom Spaulding said...

shiloh said...
Projection!

btw, do you read any of your loyal/rabid con posts at this blog? Rhetorical.

9/14/12 9:08 AM


Somebody's mad that people who think alike comment on a blog... like that's some weird occurrence that needs constant noting.

Rage..RAGE...against it, shiloh..you truly are doing the most important work for a ProgLib: pointing at others and judging them, offering nothing in exchange.

Bottom line is, your answer to "Barack Obama" is MORE "Barack Obama".

GTFO

LoafingOaf said...

Fox News was just discussing the latest swing state polls and Obama is way ahead in Ohio and Florida. Just saying.

harrogate said...

"Desperation" is not the word I would use either to describe the predictions and sensibilities of the blog and its majority commenters, or the dissenters.

More like a combination of being hopeful, deeply despising the "other guy/other party," and most impiortantly, operating in a bubble. Certainly the many moments when commenters begin prattling about how Romney is going to "bring back '84" exemplifes the bubble effect.

The truth is it's a deeply divided country both in erms of sensibilities and ideology (most often the divisions involves far more than two "halves" of positions, of course). Such scorn the "sides" feel for one another. That's what bodes worst of all. It's also what's most responsible for the downgrades, btw.

Matt Sablan said...

Would that be the polls that think there will be more Obama voters than there were in 2008? Cause. Yeah. That's a silly poll.

shiloh said...

Whereas I will admit, posting at a 90/10 con blog is more entertaining if you're a liberal.

Matt Sablan said...

Harrogate: Most of the posters here, that I've seen, don't think Romney is the spirit of 84. In fact, most people recognize that he's a moderate, wishy-washy RINO who will do the best he can with Congress. Most of the really vicious lashing out is done at people like Ritmo, Andy and Shiloh who, let's be honest, have done nothing to create a constructive dialog.

Tom Spaulding said...

O-BA-MA!

Oil: The price of oil broke above $100 a barrel on Friday for the first time since early May after the U.S. Federal Reserve announced a plan to jolt the U.S. economy and unrest in the Middle East heightened supply concerns.

Consumer Prices: More expensive gas drove up consumer prices in August by the most in three years. But outside energy, inflation was tame.

The Labor Department said Friday that consumer prices rose a seasonally adjusted 0.6 percent last month, the first increase since March. Higher gas prices accounted for 80 percent of the increase. Food prices rose 0.2 percent.

Industrial Production: U.S. industrial production fell in August by the largest amount in more than three years as factories produced fewer cars and other manufactured goods.

Shouting Thomas said...

America is not a deeply divided country.

No matter how it seems to you at this moment, the differences between the Republicans and Democrats are mostly superficial.

My life is going to change very little as a result of the outcome of this election.

We're all being drama queens.

Paulio said...

I couldn't tell which comment of shiloh's Althouse was claiming was desperate. I thought he was just accusing Rasmussen of massaging their data (something althouse also seems to suggest is a possibility, though maybe not a likely one). It certainly seems a reasonable hypothesis, that is, one that should be considered, if you look at the the realclearpolitics collection of polls, which includes many with likely voter screens and many that have been "right leaning" in this round and in previous elections.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html

I agree that Rasmussen tends to get the final answer correct, but in 2008 that was in part because of a late shift towards the mean. He was consistently +3-4 McCain vs. the average up until the end.

So either Rasmussen is an outlier--for whatever reason--or every other pollster is wrong.

To me, I think the biggest problem is that Rasmussen has the "swingiest" effects. If you try and estimate what any individual night of polling must have been (which isn't too hard), you can see that he gets +6 or more swings from day to day to move the numbers as quickly as he does. The current runup of Romney has that flavor. It's possible it will be maintained (he can keep getting high numbers) but my guess is that in a day or two a single outlier +high Romney number will fall out and it will come back down.

garage mahal said...

Fox News was just discussing the latest swing state polls and Obama is way ahead in Ohio and Florida. Just saying.

And Virginia. Seems to be slipping away from Willard pretty quickly. Maybe why Ryan is now running ads for his House seat?

SteveR said...

Shiloh's problem is that he's either unaware of the type of "commenters" who've visited over the years and who were unable to break free of various forms of liberal sockpuppetry (meaning not intelligent, original or funny) or he's one who's changed identity and come back for more.

Either way, its like the dorky kid who gets to be the basketball manager in high school.

harrogate said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
harrogate said...

Matthew,

I see lots of predictions by more than a few commenters on this blog that Romney is going to win in a "blowout" of some kind; that's what I meant by invoking '84. It had very little to do with comparing Romney to Reagan.

Although, it is also true that Ann and her merry commenters do seem to fall more and more into "Romney is such a great guy teeming integrity" mode with each passing day--defaulting, that is, more and more into the kind of rhetoric you see cons use to iconicize Reagan.

But, fwiw, I care a lot more about the "scorn" element that I referred to, than the lunacy of believing that this Presidential election even has a chance of ending in a blowout. It's a small handful of states hey're fighting for like mad. The popular count too will be close.

Ann and her merry commenters like to make fun of the notion of civility in the political discourse, and to a point, I actually do agree it is "bullshit." After all, you can't say "Ann and her merry commenters" without harboring more than a little scorn yourself, now can you?

But the ways in which we see that scorn elevate to the point that the parties and the people themselves regard one another as true enemies, bodes unwell indeed.

Anonymous said...

Polls can move unexpectedly in either direction? Inconceivable! (/Vizzini)

shiloh said...

Blog conservatives are all about divide and conquer! As evidenced daily at conservative blogs. The ailes/atwater/turdblossom scorched earth win at all cost hate/division/fear monger/misinformation meme.

My mostly accurate hyperbole aside, again Republicans feel they should win every presidential election regardless. Indeed, (8) years of cheney/bush had cons totally flustered!

Bruce Hayden said...

As others have pointed out, there are a lot of things going on that affect the numbers. Time span. Registered vs Likely voters. Weighting of D's, I's and R's. Throughout the summer, much of the difference between these two pollsters may be able to be attributed to the latter, with Gallup tending to weight their polls towards Democrats, based on 2008 exit polling. Always suspect when you see I's and R's strongly for Romney, and yet the poll comes out in favor of Obama, despite R's overtaking D's in registrations (and, yes, in being likely voters).

I don't think that we really know, at least directly, what the actual numbers are right now, and what is being manipulated for our benefit. But, I am pretty sure that the two campaigns do know, and you can maybe get a feel for the actual numbers by watching where they are putting their money, and where they are writing off states.

shiloh said...

Rasmussen notwithstanding, which brings us back to why mittens is losing as the cheney/bush legacy looms large this election cycle. Especially after Bubba's laundry list convention speech.

bagoh20 said...

The following list ranks the 23 organizations by the accuracy of their final, national pre-election polls (as reported on pollster.com). 2008 Presidential election

1. Rasmussen (11/1-3)**
1. Pew (10/29-11/1)**
2. YouGov/Polimetrix (10/18-11/1)
3. Harris Interactive (10/20-27)
4. GWU (Lake/Tarrance) (11/2-3)*
5. Diageo/Hotline (10/31-11/2)*
5. ARG (10/25-27)*
6. CNN (10/30-11/1)
6. Ipsos/McClatchy (10/30-11/1)
7. DailyKos.com (D)/Research 2000 (11/1-3)
8. AP/Yahoo/KN (10/17-27)
9. Democracy Corps (D) (10/30-11/2)
10. FOX (11/1-2)
11. Economist/YouGov (10/25-27)
12. IBD/TIPP (11/1-3)
13. NBC/WSJ (11/1-2)
14. ABC/Post (10/30-11/2)
15. Marist College (11/3)
16. CBS (10/31-11/2)
17. Gallup (10/31-11/2)
18. Reuters/ C-SPAN/ Zogby (10/31-11/3)
19. CBS/Times (10/25-29)
20. Newsweek (10/22-23)

bagoh20 said...

"Whereas I will admit, posting at a 90/10 con blog is more entertaining if you're a liberal"

You're never entertaining, smart, funny, interesting or honest.

You get swatted at in here for the same reason a single fly in the room does. Clue: It's not because that fly is important.
We know flies feed on shit, and would prefer they go do that, rather than bring it in the house.

Rusty said...

shiloh said...
Don't you ever feel silly?

Projection!

btw, do you read any of your loyal/rabid con posts at this blog? Rhetorical.


Are we ever in any danger of you actually contributing something substantive? Rhetorical

edutcher said...

And this one reflects that so-called gaffe.

Ya love it, right?

LoafingOaf said...

Fox News was just discussing the latest swing state polls and Obama is way ahead in Ohio and Florida. Just saying.

MSLSD poll, skewed D+ anywhere between 6 and 10.

Good luck.

shiloh said...

Pay no attention to that SCOAMF who went back to sleep when he was told the Libyan embassy had been overrun!!!!

Please!!!


mittens train wreck Althouse lemmings hyperbole (my new word!!!!!)

&&&&&#####

S# :< "* I:

A penny saved is a penny earned

lol lol lol

Sloanasaurus said...

From above:

"I agree that Rasmussen tends to get the final answer correct, but in 2008 that was in part because of a late shift towards the mean. He was consistently +3-4 McCain vs. the average up until the end. "
___________

THis is a false statement. Rasmussen showed a +1 Obama race up to the democrat convention in 2008, where Obama got a bumpt to +5. Then Rasmussen showed a McCain bounce after the Republican convention. MCCain was about +2-3 for a week. The race then settled back to even until the Lehman collapse and subsequent market meltdown occurred starting in late september. Then Obama rose to a +5-8 advantage consistently up until the election.

The Gallup poll still shows a large Obama bounce because 1) it is a registered voter poll, and 2) it is a 7 day poll. Thus it still includes polling from the Thursday of the Democratic convention plus the few days after the convention. I bet the Gallup poll settles back to an Obama +1-2 advantage for registered voters by the end of next week.

Brian Brown said...

Fox News was just discussing the latest swing state polls and Obama is way ahead in Ohio and Florida. Just saying.

Except Obama isn't ahead in either of these states.

garage mahal said...
And Virginia. Seems to be slipping away from Willard pretty quickly.


Complete & utter bullshit.

Sloanasaurus said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sloanasaurus said...

The middle east situation will be very bad for OBama, and he knows it. The MSM spin has been up, until a few days ago, that Obama is strong on foreign policy - mainly because he was victorious in Libya, and because of Bin Ladin (which Obama's boasting about is partly responsible for the now igniting flame in the middle east).

No matter how the MSM tries to spin this, the pictures of arabs shouting down the U.S. and burning our flag contradicts Obama's entire foreign policy goal that he alone would make them like us better. Obama's middle east policy is a total faiulre and we are going to suffer for it with a Nuclear Iran, an Egypt controlled by Islamic Fascists, and the rest of the middle east bowing to those two powers before us.

Moreover, to get to that point, we abandonded our one ally in the region - Israel, and have pissed off all of Eastern Europe in the process. Russia thinks we are big wussies also. (that reset button).


garage mahal said...

Except Obama isn't ahead in either of these states.

OHIO (NBC/Marist): Obama d. Romney (50-43 LV; 50-41 RV)

FLORIDA (NBC/Marist): Obama d. Romney (49-44 LV; 50-42 RV)

VIRGINIA (NBC/Marist): Obama d. Romney (49-44 LV; 49-42 RV)

Jason said...

It's not that Mitt is going to bring back the Spirit of '84; it's that Obama has already brought back the Spirit of '79.

bagoh20 said...

You'll notice that the left is hanging their hat on the polls that are least accurate: see above list from '08.

test said...

Nichevo said...
Shiloh ...has nothing to offer.


Why do people bother to post 3rd grade insults and repetitions of Dem talking points? Are they so concerned we are insufficently exposed to Democratic talking points we must have 6 trolls repeat them on every thread?

Or is the goal merely to raise the cost of discussion for non-leftists to drive them away?

Sloanasaurus said...

The NBC/WSJ polls were taken over Sept 9-11, the rasmussen poll was still showing an even race for Romney at that time. Now Rasmussen is showing Romney +3.

Also those polls were 30% cell phone, thus they oversample younger adults, which tend to favor Obama.

Edward Reiss said...

Shouting Thomas,

Obama... 50%
Romney... 44%

What accounts for the difference?


Gallup is still polling registered voters, Rasmusssen is polling likely voters. That may account for the difference. IIRC, as the election approaches, pollsters move to a likely voter statistical base.

Brian Brown said...


OHIO (NBC/Marist): Obama d. Romney (50-43 LV; 50-41 RV)


Would you like me to start posting polls that show Romney is ahead in FL, tied in VA, and down 1 in Ohio?

You really are an imbecile, aren't you?

garage mahal said...

Would you like me to start posting polls that show Romney is ahead in FL, tied in VA, and down 1 in Ohio?

Sure, let's see them.

I'm almost starting to feel sorry for you guys. Almost.

edutcher said...

For those who don't know, polls doing registered voters favor the Demos, ones doing likelies favor Republicans. And then they skew it.

That's why you're seeing what you're seeing.

garage mahal said...

The NBC/Marist poll was likely voters.

edutcher said...

It was also skewed out the wazoo.

Sloanasaurus said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sloanasaurus said...

The state polls will be much more accurate when the bounce from the dem convention subsides - say in another week. If you look at past years polling, this was always the case, that bounces went away about a week after the convention.

It's a mystery as to why there are bounces from conventions. Perhaps people get exicted about speeches, especially speeches from liberals who promise all kinds of goodies, but then reality takes over after a short while. And the reality for Obama is pretty bad. Its even worse this week after his mid-east policy failed miserably.

Maybe Obama will get a lift from QE3... but I think ROmney can just use QE3 as more evidence that Obama has been a failure. Why would we need to print fake money if the economy was not a disaster.

test said...

harrogate said...
Certainly the many moments when commenters begin prattling about how Romney is going to "bring back '84" exemplifes the bubble effect.


No one I've seen is referencing 84. Carter-Reagan was 80. But why whine about others' "scorn" and then engage in yourself?

Larry J said...

For those liberals who complain about the Rasmussen poll, you might want to look at this Fordham University evaluation of which polling outfits were the most accurate in predicting the 2008 election.

The following list ranks the 23 organizations by the accuracy of their final, national preelection
polls (as reported on pollster.com).
1. Rasmussen (11/1-3)**
1. Pew (10/29-11/1)**
2. YouGov/Polimetrix (10/18-11/1)
3. Harris Interactive (10/20-27)
4. GWU (Lake/Tarrance) (11/2-3)*
5. Diageo/Hotline (10/31-11/2)*
5. ARG (10/25-27)*
6. CNN (10/30-11/1)
6. Ipsos/McClatchy (10/30-11/1)
7. DailyKos.com (D)/Research 2000 (11/1-3)
8. AP/Yahoo/KN (10/17-27)
9. Democracy Corps (D) (10/30-11/2)
10. FOX (11/1-2)
11. Economist/YouGov (10/25-27)
12. IBD/TIPP (11/1-3)
13. NBC/WSJ (11/1-2)
14. ABC/Post (10/30-11/2)
15. Marist College (11/3)
16. CBS (10/31-11/2)
17. Gallup (10/31-11/2)
18. Reuters/ C-SPAN/ Zogby (10/31-11/3)
19. CBS/Times (10/25-29)
20. Newsweek (10/22-23)

edutcher said...

Sloanasaurus said...

The state polls will be much more accurate when the bounce from the dem convention subsides - say in another week. If you look at past years polling, this was always the case, that bounces went away about a week after the convention.

It's a mystery as to why there are bounces from conventions.


Until last time, conventions weren't done one after the other around Labor Day.

One party would have theirs in mid-July, the other in mid-August - which gave time for each side to have its voice heard.

The way it is now, the last to hold their convention may get a short-lived bounce.

The days of the "bounce" are over, though, unless they go back to the old system (which made a lot more sense0.

Salamandyr said...

You know, I for one would take Shiloh more seriously if he (or she) stopped referring to Romney as "mittens". That kind of juvenile insult reveals an unwillingness to engage in honest debate.

shiloh said...

Sala, I've been calling willard mittens since 2003. Old habits are hard to break, but just for you I'll try.

Because heaven knows, there's no silly Obama degradation/name calling/outright hatred by cons at this blog.

Seriously!

Alex said...

shiloh has become a parody of THE parody of shiloh.

Alex said...

Obummer, O-dum-dum, Barack Insane Obama, O-Shitter.

I'll come up with more just for you shiloh.

shiloh said...

Again, Alex is doing an excellent job avoiding me. Such a lost/lonely pup!

AF said...

Winning!

PaulV said...

QE3 will provide much support for Romney.
Higher gas prices at all major intersections and high food prices on grocery bills. Sucks for dems.

PaulV said...

QE3 will provide much support for Romney.
Higher gas prices at all major intersections and high food prices on grocery bills. Sucks for dems.

edutcher said...

And the jump in food prices will hit just in time to vote.

shiloh said...

Sala, I've been calling willard mittens since 2003

Oh, sure he has. And he crossed the International date Line until he didn't.

And he was a Bill Buckley fan at 7 and voted at age 11.

Known Unknown said...

I don't understand how sampling +10% Ds vs. Rs can make your poll even considered accurate.

Nathan Alexander said...

I'm beginning to think that the Democrat party has become a huge social experiment:
"Has campaigning art become enough of a science that we can get a completely incompetent President re-elected on just brand loyalty and a complicit media, even in the presence of alternative sources of information?"

Sadly, it looks like there may enough people stupid enough to vote Democrat this year to prove the thesis true.

edutcher said...

EMD said...

I don't understand how sampling +10% Ds vs. Rs can make your poll even considered accurate.

This is for psy op purposes.

Demoralize the enemy by making them think their cause is lost.

shiloh said...

"Oh, sure he has. And he crossed the International date Line until he didn't.

And he was a Bill Buckley fan at 7 and voted at age 11."

Now I know why edutcher is a Romney/Ryan fan as all (3) just make shit up!

In my best con lemming voice, prove it edutcher or shut the fuck up! Heck Althouse can help you do the futile blog research. :)

Indeed, the great thing about not lying is one doesn't need a good memory.

Whereas Willard/Ryan's lies are all on videotape!

Christopher said...

Shorter Shiloh:

"Mittens! LOL"


I mean, when even the usually neutral (in regards to comments) hostess is making fun of you you have to realize you've failed.

shiloh said...

"when even the usually neutral"

Her attempt was noteworthy. Much like die hard cons make fun of Althouse re: her supposed cruel neutrality. ok, cons make fun of her re: many issues.

Surely she takes it all in stride, much like I do. Again, this is just one of several political blogs on the net. No need for any rational person to get upset unless they are obsessed w/politics ie obsessed w/their Obama hatred, etc.

Brent said...

shiloh,

please take a minute from your jerking off to your Obama poster and lean something.

Hands down, since 2000, every polled election, the overwhelmingly most accurate - not perfect, but the overall most accurate - poll is Rasmussen.
Start with looking it up at Wikipedia.

HEY! I'm talking to YOU shiloh - get that dildo with Obama's name on it out of your asshole right now! Pay attention!

Your masters that tell you what to think at Talking points Memo agree that Rasmussen is the most accurate. Your fellow Obama dick suckers at Salon agree.

There will always be noise about Rasmussen leaning Republican, becausa you and your Obama ho's can't take the truth. But it's the end result that matters.

Be sure post hear on the day after the election shiloh, and try to keep your Obama cum juices away from the keypad. Mixed with your tears, that will be some really sticky stuff you'll have to deal with.


Everyone, I just completely spanked the troll, so you don't have to. No need to be discouraged. The truth won again. See you on the other side of Nov 6., with President-elect Romney!