Trend or noise?

5 day rolling average, and a subset of their presidential approval tracking poll.

Gonna be a whole lot of noise in that one...

Also, the sample universe is Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who are registered to vote, so I ~~suspect~~ the actual primary voters who turn out to vote may look a LOT different than this sample.

Gingrich has a lot more intensity, buy Romney has a ton more actual organization... we see how those play out.

Santorum is changing his last name to gain a more favorable outcome in the Google search engine?

Wow Mittens is 65? I thought he was in his 50s.

Bobby Jindal- 45

Wow - Jindal is 45, it didn't think he had to shave yet

Look...voters vote THEIR pocket books, and when the percentage of the population working is shrinking and wages (even before adjustments for inflation) are shrinking...it doesn't matter if Unemployment Rate drops to 2.0%, the voters aren't going to drink the Kool-Aid.

And an economy growing at 2% GDP with NEGATIVE real wage growth will soon become an economy with NEGATIVE GDP growth - a recession.  And that new recession is going to be obvious in 2012Q1 (or 2012Q2, at the very latest), right in time to engineer a landslide against Obama.  In fact, as I pointed out last month, half the GDP growth of Q3 was due to increased spending on medical services and electricity (due to the heat wave).

The negative wage growth (even before inflation), is showing up in both the GDP reports and the employment reports....it's undeniable.

Not to mention, consumers are continuing to pay down debt.  So with shrinking wages and no new debt spending, where is continued growth going to come from?

Wow.. and I thought I was a pessimist... - I am thinking flat gdp will 2013.....

The first editions of the AP story pointed out that it ONLY dropped because 315,000 people stopped looking for work, so they are no longer counted toward unemployment figures.

The AP has now conveniently reworded that information after their overlords in the DNC demanded that they hide it.

Pure coincidence.

The headline number (Drop to 8.6%) is good news.  

I am sure the Obama folks and the media will spin that number really hard, and to the degree it can become a narrative it is good in that it may improve the general level of confidence in the economy.  There is a $h*tload of cash on the sidelines, and to the degree confidence improves, some of this capital may reenter the economy.

The bad news is that 315,000 folks just simply gave up looking, so the drop is a statistical quirk not a real reflection of actual gains.

With the revised upward numbers from the previous two months, the economy is in reality more or less at a break even point - new jobs being created more or less equaling the increase in persons in the workforce.

I suspect that the "headline number" will stay pretty constant for a while - if we get a spurt of job growth, the spurt will be masked by previously discouraged workers rejoining the workforce. (and vica versa, if growth goes south, discouraged workers will rise)

An interesting question is how many of the long term unemployed (ie nearing the 99 week unemployment Insurance limit) have just gone off the books and are working in the underground economy?

In Europe (Italy is the poster child for this) the real number of folks with a job is a fair bit bigger than the "official" one - As US policies converge with those of Europe, it will be interesting to see if the underground economy grows to also match European levels.

Well he could still be following a delayed Reagan path where good economic news props him back up over 50 by late winter and he stays there.  This assumes that Europe stabilizes and the recent uptick in employment and consumer confidence accelerates.

Other than that, or something particularly heroic in foreign policy, I don't know how he gets out of the 42% strong disapproval rut.

Can't see where an economic uptick comes from though.

The Euro zone, even assuming an optimistic scenario where it doesn't implode, will certainly not be an engine of growth.

China is wobbly, Japan is, well, Japan...

The overhang of the housing bubble is still huge.  ObamaCare is an unknown.  The EuroZone remains a ticking time bomb. China is massively overbuilt and their economy is waaay short of enough internal demand to be self sustaining.

 I just don't see where the investment and risk taking need to jump start things comes from.

Hmmm... He's back down to -7 to -9 territory now.  I wonder what caused the late October-early November bump when it looked like he was moving back to 50/50 approvals?  It doesn't seem obvious at all.

Very little, if any, real change...

A lot of the changes in RCP and other averages is just polls more favorable to Obama (Pew, CBS, Ipsos, etc) rolling in and out or the average...

Both Gallup and Rasmussen have had a few odd runs.  I wonder if there is some issue with samples getting out of sync or something.  Both Rasmussen and Gallup buy their raw survey calling lists from the same supplier (Survey Sample International) and I sometimes think there may be some glitch there...

Obama is at the upper end of the 40-45 band for approval, and 50% ish disapproval..

Not good, but not dead in the water either...

"start" to default?

Greece is paying back 50% of the face value, and the terms have been extended...

I think "default" by any sane definition has already begun, the are just calling it something else to avoid the credit default swaps from cutting in.

Please give this President some credit for the end of the decline, if nothing more than credit for not making things worse and for promoting some gimmicks to stop the economic bleeding.  

That is actually a matter of some debate.

Obama has essentially slow walked the housing crisis, he has made it harder for the banks for foreclose, but he has put very little of actual substance on the table to actually fix the problem.

I would also note that according to the Director of the Congressional Budget office, that the net effect of Obama's "stimulus" will be a slightly smaller economy and a lower GDP than if it had never been enacted. - Again, this is from the Director of the (semi) non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h_rDrd97sY&feature=player_embedded

Hundreds of billions of dollars in payoffs to teachers, labor unions, and crony capitalism friends, in exchange for a massively higher debt, larger debt servicing costs AND fewer jobs and a lower GDP at the end of it all is not exactly a matter that is universally regarded as beneficial.

Obama is pretty stable re job approval right now.

A poll to the same poll comparison shows approval staying in the upper end of the 40-45% range, and disapproval hanging in right around 50% for a net of -6 or -7.

Normally....

50% approval = reelection
40% approval = dead in the water

Obama is slightly to the dark side of the grey area.

Of course these numbers are meaningless right now, tune in in 3 months and these numbers start to have an actual predictive value for November 2012.

Oh my God! - We will have a hollowed out shell of a government!

Can you imagine how draconian and brutal it will be if they have to limit spending to just $42.8 Trillion over the next 10 years...  DC will become a ghost town as the once proud and mighty federal Government is reduced to a vague shadow of it's former self.

Perry and Pelosi....


Maybe they could record it and release it as a straight to DVD as a sequel to "Dumb and Dumber".....?

I am honestly not sure which of those two is more delusional and crazy....

Yikes...

LOL Santorum is going into enemy territory this Friday at 5:30

http://www.politico.com/2012-election/calendar/?date=2011-11-18

Rick Santorum
Hosting a town hall meeting at Godfathers Pizza
1504 North Lincoln St., Knoxville, Iowa

There is a bit or ironic comedy there.....

[likely]

Nobody can predict who the 'likely voters' are.  

Perhaps Muon2 can enlighten you on how statistics work. "Voters" can't be predicted, but "likely voters" can. Sure, some voters that are not "likely voters" will in fact vote in the next election, and voters whom are "likely" to vote may not, but, the underlying statistical models underpinning the filter can be mathematically and empirically sound.

There is no doubt that a "likely voter" screen is a better way to poll when you get quite close to an actual election, but one year out it's a bit vague as to how useful that screening is.

This far out, I actually like what Marist/McClatchy and Fox (Opinion Dynamics) do which is run a poll of registered voters, and then NOT slam the undecided hard for a reply.

By limiting the pool to RVs you eliminate the folks who are really unlikley to vote, and by not slamming the undecided, you get the opinion of those who are at least marginally engaged in the process enough to have an a actual opinion.

McClatchy says 43/50 => -7, which is pretty much identical to Fox's 42/48 => -6

The Gold Standard poll (HART/McINTURFF for NBC/WSJ) says 44/51 => -7 which I think is pretty close to reality.

Obama is (IMHO) is in that grey area of polling where is is clearly vulnerable, but also not dead in the water. - Obama's polling looks a lot like Bush II in the summer of 2004 (Obama is maybe a few points weaker) - weak, with a very passionate and intense core of opposition, but also a base that is "hanging in there" and likely facing a challenger in the General election that is less than optimal....

Assuming the Obama folks can bury any ethics scandals, and assuming the GOP gets a flawed candidate, Obama can still will.  It's going to be very close.

[80% of ‘Green Energy’ Loans Went to Top Obama Donors]

Would want to do a little fact checking before jumping up and down, but on the surface this stinks like a rotten fish... if true...

80% of ‘Green Energy’ Loans Went to Top Obama Donors

by Wynton Hall

With Energy Secretary Steven Chu set to testify Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the government’s $573 million loan to failed solar panel maker Solyndra, an explosive new list of energy loan amounts to President Obama’s top fundraisers, bundlers, and supporters has been released by Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer, author of Throw Them All Out.

http://biggovernment.com/whall/2011/11/16/80-of-green-energy-loans-went-to-obamas-top-donors/

...or a bad sample.

The day Obama hit +1 in Rasmussen the sample jumped up a net 5% in one day, and three days later it drops 6% as that sample rolls off....

The "strong approve" dropping 5% looks like a bad sample on the low side...

Rasmussen's use of "likely voters" about a year out adds artificial volatility to things because "likely voters" a year out bounce around far more that they do close into an election....

There is no perfect methodology, they all have warts, this is just the set of warts Rasmussen has chosen...

In looking the the day to day numbers, it's easy to think you see trends that are not really there.

If you do an apples to apples comparison (ie track the changes within the same poll) there seems to be a whole lot less noise...


Essentially, versus a month ago, Obama's average disapproval is virtually unchanged, and his approval is up, on average, about 1%.

These changes are so small that "statistical noise" is my first guess. followed by "perhaps a very modest rise" in second place.....

The President is doing fine on everything but the economy.
    

And last night Rick Perry did just fine, other than that one question.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loBe0WXtts8

It is highly unlikely that I would ever vote for a Mormon, because frankly, they don't have souls, and cannot be trusted on anything. 

SS and I see eye to eye on something for once.

Maybe we need a thread on this in the religion section. Why don't you think Mormons have souls Lief?

Well, I don't believe in "souls" (obviously), but I think we can all agree that Mormonism is a strange cult based on the pretty obvious lies of a 19th-century charlatan and child molester.

Ayres, McHenry & Associates (R):

50% Approve
47% Disapprove

Results are based on 1000 weighted cases, Margin of Error = ±3.10 percent. Totals may not equal 100 percent due to rounding.

http://www.resurgentrepublic.com/system/assets/436/original/RR_Nov_2011_Year_Out_Toplines.pdf

An interesting poll.

They ask the "approval question" quite deep into the survey after having presented the GOP and Dem positions on a variety of issues.

Because of this, this poll is "kinda" a very mild version of a "push poll" - I am not saying this in a negative way BTW, in campaigns it is standard procedure to present a variety of issues and see if the presentation of these issues impacts the "horse race question" as a way of testing campaign themes.

Given that it has been quite a while since Obama has a net positive approval rating in any poll, this poll suggests, at least as presented in this survey, that Obama can make up a bit of ground "on the issues" and that the policy issues , at least as framed in this poll,  are more popular than he is personally.

I remember, seemingly a zillion years ago, when a stable banking system was considered a GOP/Conservative type of idea.

The times they are a chang'n (back?)

Perry and Paul clearly have a little bad blood, as do Perry and Romney..

Gingrich, by default as Cain is now tainted.

The Perry meltdown is/will get soooo much air time that it will basically suck up all the oxygen and it will be as if the rest of the debate never happened.

"Princess Pelosi" might get some airplay.. and not in a good way for Cain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Romney... one day closer to the inevitable.... won by not losing.

Gingrich - If he was not Gingrich he would be doing amazingly well - smartest guy in the room and it's not even close (at least according to Newt)

Cain - Didn't hurt himself, but needed to help himself, so he lost relative to what he needed to do.

Perry, - Actually was doing OK until he, well, committed suicide and splattered his brains all over the room. - but other than that..........

Paul - He is, in fact, completely correct on a number of issues - Not that politically that is relevant.

Others = irrelevant before, irrelevant after.

Romney has not committed suicide or shot off his own foot, hence he is the front runner.

The ballot for President in 2012 looks, well, tragic in a gong show sort of way.