The first set of numbers is the general presidential tracking poll. The second is restricted to 11 swing states (with 146 electoral votes).
Romney's number is the same in both places, and Obama snags an extra 3% when you look at the whole country. In the general group, there are 6% that go to neither candidate, and that's evenly divided between undecideds and people who are voting for some other candidate. In the swing states, you've got 9% who aren't (yet) going for Obama or Romney, and within this group 4% go to some other candidate and 5% are undecided.
September 9, 2012
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The correct numbers are:
51% Obama-Biden, the best and greatest POTUS-VPOTUS team
44% Romney-Ryan, the worse-case scenario for America (this is paraphrasing the folks from NYT, NPR, PBS, MSNBC, and K-street).
I just report the facts.
The second poll is the accurate poll (and that is without looking at the actual polling data). A national poll means nothing when the election is a sum of fifty separate state elections. Obama could get 100% in New York, Illinois and California but that won't change the electoral college vote. Too bad there are no state by state polls of likely voters weighed by party/independent registrations. That type of polling would be more indicative of reality.
What will be the Democrat narrative if it's a tie?
(Photoshop jaunty cap on my avatar)
Just looking at the economic numbers, it shouldn't be this close, at all.
Perhaps the number of voters receiving government subsidies is greater than the number of voting taxpayers?
It's a little bit far out to try and tease too much out of any polling. Though, if the October job numbers are just as bad as September's, it is pretty much over in my opinion.
If this were a scientific problem, I'd look at the underticket races as a better measure state by state. My guess is Obama get's a 2-3% automatic "I don't want to admit I'm voting against the black guy" factor.
Here in CT A tough GOP newcomer, Linda McMahon (of WWF fame) is leading a progressive dem congressman by 2-3%. Ditto for some competitive house races. We almost elected a Republican governor last time except for some last minute big city vote fraud.
People want to believe that fixing our problems can be done without real change (I was going to say real pain, but pain is coming regardless) Obama and the Dems are shamelessly pretending there need be no change except taxing rich guys. That's worth a few more %
Honestly, I think Republicans would do a better job convincing people to change their vote if you stopped accusing Obama voters of being idiots and racists.
I think it's going to come down to the takers versus the makers.
Obama has almost the dreamed-of dependent majority. Free stuff for everyone! may must work again.
No question we need to talk about the polling numbers. F. Chuck Todd and Toyko Rose (Nate Silver) have had a field day the last 48 hours letting all of us know that Romney and the conservatives need to just surrender now. We'll never defeat the land of the Obama sun.
I'm not confident Romney will win, but I also know that Romney is not a charismatic guy that the country believes they know yet. Hence his isn't seeing huge polling numbers.
However, at the end of the day, a lot of people are going to enter that voting booth in November with a determination to vote against Obama. And I think a lot of the coastal pundits are so much in their own pro Obama bubbles that they don't sense what is going on in flyover country.
Supporters of Romney and opponents of Obama (overlapping but not identical groups) feel that there's no good reason for Obama to be re-elected with his miserable record, and we expect him to be defeated decisively. Yet the polls show a close race, with Obama often slightly ahead, as now.
Are we really out of touch? Are we allowing our own perceptions to cloud our judgment? Is there anything we can do to assure that Obama is defeated, as we think he deserves to be?
Wow. If his numbers are that bad with the Republican operation of Rasmussen, imagine how bad they must look with a genuine polling company.
Ritmo: Gallup has yet to move to likely voters, the CBS/NYT polls often over sample Dems to margins even better than their 08 wave election. Ras is at least on registered voters, if not likely voters. There's a reason as you get closer to an election that all the major polls tend to tighten up and look more and more like Ras.
A national poll means nothing when the election is a sum of fifty separate state elections.
Only in about three out of 54 elections. Generally the national poll is a good predictor.
Best not to rely on alternative strategies.
And remember, this is the most Republican-biased poll, anyway.
We could all be wrong, but it doesn't look good for Phony.
Note: When polls use more reliable methodology that doesn't over sample or skew, it is "Republican biased." When a poll has a D+10 sample, it is a good poll though.
So what are you saying, Matthew.... That the Republican voter suppression efforts might have some as-yet unaccounted for impact?
It's hard to say. They might actually backfire by:
1. Energizing the Democratic base and increasing registration efforts
2. Preventing older voters, who are more likely to be Republican and less likely to drive, from voting.
Be careful what you wish for.
"That the Republican voter suppression efforts might have some as-yet unaccounted for impact?"
-- I have a new rule; I do not address whole posts that are founded on incorrect assumptions. Republicans are making no attempt at voter suppression, as can be seen by the number of voters increasing in areas where voter ID laws have passed and by various courts acknowledging that certain laws are able to go forward.
Assume good faith in the future.
This is really dispiriting.
So what is this, Matthew... A display of good faith?
Regardless of impact, how do you account for his statement? Or does "good faith" prevent you from doing that?
Phx: That's simply because when a Democrat at a national convention refers to Republicans as Nazis, it barely made the news. No, seriously. That happened. The media is pretty much in the tank -- and it has taken me -YEARS- to accept that as a true statement and not hyperbole -- for the Democrats. It is not that Limbaugh and others are more outrageous than Democrat talking heads; he just has enemies with access to megaphones.
Ritmo: It is a statement made with the belief that voter fraud is much more prevalent than it may be.
The fact is, after Franken's win and a few other close elections that went into over time with ballot after ballot mysterious appearing for Democrats, some Republicans believe there is much more voter fraud than there actually is. It's highly politicized, but what do you expect when years after the fact you learn more people illegally voted in the election than the margin Franken won by.
But Matthew, how does one "have" that belief, in good faith, if they couldn't even get a court to agree that there was any evidence of fraud?
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. But I do think that evidence matters.
Good to know that the election pivots on the 5% dumb enough to not know who to vote for yet. They haven't seen anything all these years to tell them, but some sound bite or something is gonna turn them. Nice.
Obama gets higher numbers in weekend polling? That makes sense. People are less mad about not having a job on the weekend. During the week they'd be mad about it.
Most of the swing states are the ones getting WARN notices Dec. 1.
Oh that sucks so bad for Obama.
DOLETA issued an opinion saying that WARN notices don't have to be sent out, but they're not mandating that they not be.
Employers can face stiff penalties for not sending out WARN notices.
Sweet, sweet irony: Obama was a champion of the WARN Act in 2007, and wanted to extend the period to 90 days and increase the penalties.
So why would he try to abuse government power to get businesses to ignore the WARN act requirements?!
hoo hoo ha ha hee hee
That's a good belly laugh for you.
Law of Unintended Consequences
Exhibit #684,948
Correcting myself: Nov. 1
Most polling organizations have policies that discourage (or prohibit) dissemination of information available only to paid subscribers. I mean, why should I pay for info if I can read it within an hour of its release on a free blog?
Does Rasmussen not have that policy, or did they publish an exception for today?
The fact that there is little to no evidence of bad action doesn't mean it does not exist, nor should we be required to suffer harm before we take appropriate legal or defensive measures to prevent that harm.
The argument "We can't find any fraud" is an irrational attack on Voter ID laws, in general. A particularly onerous one it might work against, but the problem is that even perfectly sane laws are savaged.
An interesting poll would be a poll of the unemployed and the U6 preference. They may well turn out to be the real swing-voters.
Ritmo weighing states are are a given for either candidate only gives you the probable electoral college votes you already have. But unless you are starting with enough electoral college votes to win a national poll really doesn't mean much. it's in the contested states that it matters and if the down ticket candidates are doing well in those states its difficult to believe the voters will split the ticket at the top.
Lets see in two weeks when both conventions wear off and the economic news doesn't improve where the polling lies among likely voters.
I guess for me a rational basis for determining something includes evidence of it. I don't know if it's due to a science background or what. But that's how I see it.
What we do know is that there are people whose votes will be prevented from taking place. As someone who values the right to vote, I find that to be the less defensible transgression.
But again, it could backfire or (assuming you have no political agenda in this, unlike Mike Turzai) improve neutral voting efforts that even people who have nothing against the elderly or Democrats could appreciate out of some newly found sense of "integrity" about it.
If the state is too incompetent to provide IDs for its citizens, that's just a further sign of a broken government. Fix it.
As to the first numbers, again, Zero does better on the weekends.
Check in around Wednesday and we'll see something materially different.
phx said...
This morning George Will seemed to be making the point that while swing voters generally break away from the incumbent, there just aren't a lot of them out there this year.
Looks like a close election at this point. Watch out for the unexpected.
That's something to scare the Lefties.
The unexpected won't be good for them.
Also, again, were the state doing its job competently, these people? They would not be "denied the right to vote." The only way that would happen is if the state mismanages its funds so badly that it can't keep offices open or operational. If people simply elect not to go get their IDs, that's not an indictment against the law any more than it is a reason we should do away with driver licenses. This seems to me to be one area where actual compromise is possible: Republicans are willing to spend lots of money on legitimate uses of state power (like Defense), yet this is one area where Democrats refuse to expand the state's power.
It's like a twilight zone of political issues where everything is backwards.
PS Matthew, Ras is likely voters only. That's why he's viewed as so reliable.
You're saying that the voters should pay for what the government can't do perfectly, even when you say there's a more important, though virtually invisible - (if lack of evidence is an acceptable standard then there is no way to agree on meeting it to the satisfaction of neutral observers) - goal to achieve?
I guess we'll just have to have a lot of faith that your evidence-free fears are legitimate. And it seems like an anti-Tea Party way of approaching things: Punishing citizens for the (imagined) failures of their government.
I didn't notice that those pushing for the bill had any proposed "fixes" that you say the voters are now responsible for.
Did the voters push for this bill? Did it go through a referendum? Why should they be made to suffer for not "fixing" what the eager legislators pushed for in time for an important election?
It was important to the Republicans to pass it this quickly for a reason, but not to make it a somehow suppression-proof process?
WHere's the good faith in that, Matthew?
All of that noise is based on your assumption that Republicans are attempting voter suppression.
Yet, more people are voting than before in places with Voter ID laws. So... where's the suppression?
The government sometimes condemns innocent men, yet I don't see people suggesting we dismantle the justice system till we get it to be perfect. Each argument you put forward to attack this is poorly founded and rests on unproven (and often unspoken) assumptions.
For example, no one ever proposes putting Democrat-supported laws through "referendum." Why was the ACA not put through it? How often has same-sex marriage been voted down via referendum, yet still pushed legislatively? You don't care about the "will of the people," you care about throwing up roadblocks to stop a law you don't like but cannot intelligently articulate why (PS: Most polls show voter ID laws would pass very comfortably, thank you very much.)
Instead of actually developing a single argument, you are loading every bad assumption you can into a shotgun and hoping that a single one of the arguments can strike home, yet each one seems flawed. For example, I let your assertion that no example of voter fraud were ever found go unchallenged. I should not have.
Do your homework, come back with better information and build an argument instead of hysterics.
By the way, this is the standard debating tactic that I dislike, which I see primarily from the left. So much crap gets thrown at you, that you sometimes -miss- rebutting one because you are too busy assuming good faith in your opponent to assume they would not either be sloppy or deliberately lie to you. Whichever it was, it shows you're not ready to defend your side in this conversation.
You broke the code.
Matthew:
1. You supplied a report of someone claiming evidence of fraud that, which the later article said the court ruled that it had no evidence of. If court rulings and the judicial process of fact-finding is not to be respected then there is no rule of law.
2. If the law was so poorly constructed to contain flaws that prevent voting, yet advanced in a partisan way by legislators (and not the people) - then why do you say: a) that it is based on good-faith "fears" and not the sort of partisan goal that a Republican said it would accomplish? b) that the Republicans who pushed for it in time for the 2012 election shouldn't have been responsible for for those "fixes" in time for them to matter?
These are not hysterics. These are rational questions.
And regarding "hysterics", I was not the one who said that lack of evidence for a fear did not mean it wasn't a good reason to pre-emptively act on that fear.
Wait for the Nov. 6 poll.
I care about the right to vote not being impeded, regardless of the issue.
I never said that referendums couldn't take place on other issues.
Not that it matters, (it seems like a distraction), but the only national referendum of which I'm aware is presidential elections. The ACA, or any other federal law, when have referendums ever been conducted for those? This is something that states do.
El Tardo:
There is evidence, you know, the scientific kind, that many felons illegally voted in MN, giving Al Franken the win. You can find this on the web, by looking.
Here's a clever video that makes the case voter ID cards are lax. Furthermore, it notes that an ID is required to get into the department of justice, the place that has struck down voter ID laws.
Again Althouse continuing, ad nauseam Rasmussen fetish aside ...
Obama Job Approval Rating:
Rasmussen ~ 9/6 - 9/8 ~ 52/47 +5
Gallup ~ 9/5 - 9/7 ~ 52/42 +10
Just a couple days ago Ras had Obama at 46/54. Apparently Scotty Ras has determined mittens is a lost cause and will no longer carry water for willard lol.
Again, Bush 43 was re-elected fairly easily w/48% Gallup job approval, Oct. 30, 2004.
It's Over ~ Go Home ~ Go!
but, but, but ~ keep hope alive! :)
I think these posts about the polls produce the silliest comments of any posts.
By the time ritmo and shiloh argue into the dawn, this thread will probably reach 250 comments.
All arguing about whether the polls prove... what?
shiloh said...
Again Althouse continuing, ad nauseam Rasmussen fetish aside ...
Obama Job Approval Rating:
Rasmussen ~ 9/6 - 9/8 ~ 52/47 +5
Gallup ~ 9/5 - 9/7 ~ 52/42 +10
Hate to tell you, but those Ras numbers are before the lousy acceptance speech and the jobs report, but do coincide with the 3 point bounce.
Wait until Tuesday and Wednesday to see the effect of all that lousy.
PS The fact the Rs didn't campaign during the Demo convention (showing some class, dare I add) undoubtedly adds to the number.
It's interesting that a guy who plays off of a Spanish portmanteau between my name and "retard", doesn't seem to realize that Pennsylvania and Minnesota are different states.
I'm not making a case for illegal voting in Minnesota, but as a separate issue I don't see why felons should even be prohibited from voting. What's to stop a police-state from declaring widespread hooliganism and branding every citizen a criminal? This kind of thinking seems to go hand-in-hand in places like North Korea. Everyone is suspect and therefore, no one is trusted with the vote.
I wouldn't want to be governed by a society of felons. But if the number of felons is considered so substantial as to regularly tip elections, then how would that say something honorable about the society and how its governed?
You've been stuck on the "honorable" bit for a while, Ritmo.
Shuffle the fetish deck. Come up with a new one.
El Ritmo:
Just wondering how far I could troll the troll. That's all. I think I'm 4 for 5.
What does entrance into a government building have to do with the right to vote?
Again, your side keeps bringing up how we configure the permission to do a whole host of things that have nothing to do with what should be a much more fundamental, basic right.
Honor is unimportant to you, Shouting?
Ritmo, do you have even the semblance of a sense of humor?
Is there anything so trivial that you won't argue endlessly over it?
Even better questions for Ritmo.
How old are you?
Do you have anything to do?
I love you too, Shouting. Not in that spooky homosexual way, though.
Enjoy the day. I totally intended to but have an addiction to this website that probably isn't for the best and keeps me here longer than I should. There's a lot of sun and markets open right now.
Later -
Right now, this instant - there is only one number right now (redundant for effect, lol!) that matters - and that number is 50%
If an incumbent consistently polls below 50% (as Obama has for nearly a year and a half now, in every single poll), that incumbent is very likely to lose; that is to say, that incumbent is highly unlikely to win.
Examples to the contrary are exceedingly rare; I bet even the house trolls can't find those examples.
Again, your side keeps bringing up how we configure the permission to do a whole host of things that have nothing to do with what should be a much more fundamental, basic right.
Not sure why you think that traveling, entering government buildings, engaging in commerce, etc., are less fundamental rights than voting. All are important.
As to felons voting - that is one of the penalties society imposes for conviction of a felony - at least in most states. You know that up front, just like you know about losing your right to own a gun, so whining about it afterwards is unconvincing to many of us.
The idea that there are too many laws on the books, and too many ways to break the law is a completely different topic. I would agree that it is a problem, but would suggest that the solution is fewer laws, and not lower penalties for breaking them.
And, worse to me, is that too many laws results in selective prosecution, which in turn changes this from a nation of laws to one of men. Of course, it has long been that way, with Teddy Kennedy not doing any time for killing that woman so many decades ago with his drunk driving, etc., because he was one of Joe Kennedy's boys.
Just to make the Lefties crazy, since they love quoting polls, have we discussed the ARG poll that has the Romster up 53/43?
Steve Austin - "However, at the end of the day, a lot of people are going to enter that voting booth in November with a determination to vote against Obama. And I think a lot of the coastal pundits are so much in their own pro Obama bubbles that they don't sense what is going on in flyover country."
===============
True, but the problem is that if
you lock away the votes of the heavily populated East and West Coasts, which has been the case since the Religious Right and extremist conservatives have dominated against "evil RINOs"....for the last 20 years...Republicans lose unless they can basically run the table on Rust Belt States.
Yes, they have gained West Virginia, but are less and less competitive in other states that Republicans could once assume to win in. (Hispanic demos that Republicans waved in by the tens of millions in the West and Southeast, the repellant social values (to the East Coasters at least) of the Deep South goobers, etc., Virginia is becoming an enclave of wealth Federal Government workers and immigrants dependent on Federal gov't dollars, etc. )
What does entrance into a government building have to do with the right to vote?
Is there a right to vote? I'm not so sure. It may be left up to the states, but perhaps Ann can chime in.
I know there is a "Right to travel," according to the 9th circuit court of appeals, since they struck down a CA proposition that would have limited welfare benefits in CA for newcomers.
And it requires an ID to board an airplane.
I also know there is a right to keep and bear arms. But there is a requirement to have an ID for firearm purchases.
See how confusing things get when leftists want to enfranchise illegal voting?
It boggles my mind and horrifies me that with such a disastrous record, that even the most strenuous efforts of the MSM cannot entirely conceal, Obama is anywhere over 40% in the polls. What the h3ll is wrong with people?
For the appointment of senators there certainly is a right of the people to a vote, as stated in the 17th amendment.
Same with members of the House of Representatives.
I wonder why people think Obama's election is in the bag? This is just after the convention (and having Clinton speak was not helpful because he can no longer be president, so I thought it was just stupid) plus, would you really vote for someone who...
---increased the deficit by trillions of dollars,
-- have a huge amount of unemployment
--have a huge amount of people dependent on food stamps and having to run to SS early just to survive
- broke his promise on getting us out of foreign wars we are currently in
-- push for a new government program without help from the other party *plus* costs lots without guaranteeing coverage
all while taking vacations on taxpayer costs and constantly playing golf?
The SCOTUS case recognizing voting as a fundamental right is Reynolds v. Sims -- ("Undoubtedly, the right of suffrage is a fundamental matter in a free and democratic society.")
Some commenter surely must be willing to wager a Snickers Bar with me. I say Romney will win.
The SCOTUS case recognizing voting as a fundamental right is Reynolds v. Sims -- ("Undoubtedly, the right of suffrage is a fundamental matter in a free and democratic society.")
Suffrage merely states that women can't be disenfranchised because they are women.
We live in a republic. I believe it is fine for, say, the governor to determine the electoral votes for his state, if that's the state charter.
Perhaps there could be a state that chooses government officials by lottery. It's been done to some extent in the past.
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