Talk Elections

Akin 44
McCaskill 43


Heh. PPP might be cooking the books of course.

Correction: race tied and slipping fast, as it goddamn well should be. If the Missouri GOP has any sense or decency within any bone in their self-righteous fundamentalist bodies, they'll have put Akin out of a career before sunset tomorrow.

Not sure whether this is good or bad news.

Same as the last PPP poll. Of course, 1 or both may be Junk Polls.

I ordinarly would also be calling krazen out on his spin here, but I wouldn't want to annoy Phil :P

When was the poll taken?

What the heck did I spin?

Read the thread title.

PPP's twitter described Akin as leading.

Then maybe both you and PPP need to learn how margin of error works.

The race is tied.

His favorable/unfavorables are 24-58 and yet he still leads. Hyperpartisanship at its finest.

Love the Dem hackery here. Yes, a one point lead is essentially a tie but you mean to tell me that you guys haven't seen other candidates ahead by a point or two in the past and thought "Hey, so and so is leading" instead of immediately thinking it's tied? Give me a break. I must have missed the clamoring for the "Kaine ahead by two" threads to be renamed.

Of course you know Phil, around here, shooting the messenger is the style.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/08/akin-44-mccaskill-43.html#more

Funnily enough, his numbers haven't budged since PPP's last poll in June (when Akin led 45-44%). What's miraculous is that Akin is leading despite a hugely unpopular 24/58% favorability rating. McCaskill has a poor 41/53% job rating. Wonder if this poll will silence a lot of the GOP bigwigs screaming for him to step aside.

With favorables like that, I don't see how he wins. He will face enormous downward pressure as he tries to get out of the mid 40's.

McCaskill doesn't have good favorables either, and Akin may be able to repair things enough to win in November.  If Akin had said this before the primary, he'd have been sunk of course, but he still has time.

That's a really pro-GOP sample from PPP (GOP+9).

But despite this, it's pretty shocking that Akin still leads among Independents after his comments.

A tremendous victory for the sanctity of RAPE!

Seriously though, I'm wondering if PPP is trolling a bit here and massaged their head-to-head numbers in order to help Akin look stronger than he is. Given the fact that they're Ds at the end of the day, it's not surprising that they'd want him to stick around. You're not going to win anything with favorables like that and the money will be cut off. And there's that sample that Tender posted for the poll. Umm, yeah. So I still think he's toast, one way or the other. This will give him a talking point to help get through the next few days though. "See, the latest poll shows that I can still win!" Very sneaky, PPP!

Now, let's see if Rasmussen comes out with a poll that has him trailing by 10 to counter this. :P

Post-rape comments?

If so, then Jesus F. Christ.

I always knew the good ol' state of Missourah would still back Akin.

Scott Rasmussen must be burning with jealousy at PPP's ability to land on the perfect number to generate controversy.

()

#pwned.

How is that "owning" someone? Not to say that they are cooking the books but just because they say they aren't devious enough to do it doesn't mean they aren't doing it.

Whether they say they're "cooking the books or not," riddle me this....how in the world does Missouri go from a D+6 turnout in 2008 to a R+9 turnout in 2012. Miles is smart enough to know that that doesn't pass the smell test. Just because PPP says they're not being devious doesn't mean they aren't. And the fact that they enjoy people thinking they are devious certainly seems odd.

Ace of Spades points out the problem with their numbers here: http://minx.cc/?post=332101

I give PPP the benefit of the doubt that they arent cooking the books. However the whole poll itself is flawed. They cant get a good sample in one evening of calls on the first day of media coverage on this issue.

R+9? I don't think so.

PPP is using a likely voter model that doesn't weight for party ID (a fact which they are very upfront about). Comparing the party turnout in this poll to past exit polls is comparing apples and oranges - a likely voter model in August ≠ final turnout in November.

An argument that this poll is bad news for Akin is legitimate (I think it is bad news because the likely voter model will probably change between now and November) but to accuse PPP of intentionally messing with the numbers shows a lack of understanding about what this poll is showing.

Is what it is "showing" just a bad methodology?  And just why is this outfit with a somewhat Dem house effect, suddenly apparently crossing the River Styx? I have asked (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=157877.0) these questions. I am not yet satisfied with the answers so far.

PPP also tweeted that they found Nixon up 9 and Romney up 10.

It's only a bad methodology if what you're trying to see is what they "think" the results will be in November. PPP could weight these numbers to what they "think" the partisan makeup of the electorate will be in November. But that's not polling; that's electoral projection (also known as guessing) based on some data points.

If what you're trying to see is the current margin based upon voters who say today they're likely to vote in November - which is all this poll is - then it's exactly what PPP is offering.

As for why PPP's sample in particular got so much more Republican from their last poll of Missouri, this is the first time they've used a LV model in Missouri (their last poll was of RV's).