Is RCP a Republican-leaning site ?

[Tender Branson]

I looked at their Electoral map and found out that Nevada, Ohio and Virginia are colored "tossup", even though Obama is ahead of Romney by about 5-6 points in their average.

Yet on their map, Arizona is colored as "lean GOP", even though Romney leads by only 5.4 as well.

Why the double standard ?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html

[Tender Branson]

Their classifications of OR, NM, MN, WI, MI and ME are also faulty.

Their averages have Obama up by 10+ in each of them, yet they are only "lean DEM" instead of "strong DEM".

10%+ usually qualifies as "strong", no ?

[argentarius]

I only look at the RCP videos, and yes they do seem republican leaning, as from the titles it always seems to be the democrats making the gaffes and not the republicans. But maybe that's because I consider democrat rhetoric absurd anyway.

[Lief]

RCP has always been Republican leaning. There's a particularly hilarious and infamous article they published before election day 2000 predicting that Bush would win by 10 points and have a shot at picking up California.

[oakvale]

Yeah, I think RCP has a fairly well-established Republican tilt.

[Sasquatch]

RCP has always been Republican leaning. There's a particularly hilarious and infamous article they published before election day 2000 predicting that Bush would win by 10 points and have a shot at picking up California.

Here is the link to that embarrassing prediction.

http://web.archive.org/web/20001023155619/http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Polls/polls-EC_ALWAYS.html

Electoral College Prediction
Bush - 446
Gore - 92

[IDS Speaker Ben Kenobi]

October 23rd of 2000?

And people wonder why I don't take polls taken now for the general seriously.

[Senator Snowstalker]

The assumption may be that the election will tighten after Romney officially locks the nomination, which is true to some extent, but that alone won't be enough. Romney needs serious economic stagnation, and possibly a double-dip, to win.

[cavalcade]

Yeah, I think RCP has a fairly well-established Republican tilt.

It's all of RealClear, as you can see from the editorial content.  Their news aggregation is top notch however.

[Jayhawker]

The assumption may be that the election will tighten after Romney officially locks the nomination, which is true to some extent, but that alone won't be enough. Romney needs serious economic stagnation, and possibly a double-dip, to win.

^^^This. I think their map is largely based off of assumptions on how they expect the race to turn once the General Election starts, as well as past election trends.

[A-Bob]

RCP has always been Republican leaning. There's a particularly hilarious and infamous article they published before election day 2000 predicting that Bush would win by 10 points and have a shot at picking up California.

Here is the link to that embarrassing prediction.

http://web.archive.org/web/20001023155619/http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Polls/polls-EC_ALWAYS.html

Electoral College Prediction
Bush - 446
Gore - 92

Didn't the alcohol thing come out after that date though?

[All life is a blur of Republicans and meat.]

I've actually corresponded with a left-leaning guy who worked for them. Or should I say the left-leaning guy. He informed me that virtually everyone else over there was conservative and Republican. Of course, you can just read any of their editorials and figure that out on your own. It's still a pretty useful site though.

[TheGlobalizer]

Yes, though they've moderated a bit in recent years.  I imagine they do bang-up business among the center-right folks.

[GM Griffin]

I've always wondered how they determine which specific polls they list to come up with their averages. There are plenty of credible polls that always seem to get left out of lots of states. I noticed with my home state, they have decided to completely ignore the CNN/ORC poll that showed Obama and GOP candidate tied (which could be an outlier), but featured the SurveyUSA poll back in December that shows Romney up by 17 (which is even more of an outlier).

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

RCP has always been Republican leaning. There's a particularly hilarious and infamous article they published before election day 2000 predicting that Bush would win by 10 points and have a shot at picking up California.

Here is the link to that embarrassing prediction.

http://web.archive.org/web/20001023155619/http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Polls/polls-EC_ALWAYS.html

Electoral College Prediction
Bush - 446
Gore - 92

Didn't the alcohol thing come out after that date though?

They were saying the same thing November 6, the day before the eleciton.

http://web.archive.org/web/20001216085300/http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Polls/polls-Electoral_11_06_EC.html

[Χahar]

That map (40% tossup, 50% lean, 60% strong, 70% safe):

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

That map (40% tossup, 50% lean, 60% strong, 70% safe):

Actually they had New Jersey at a tossup. That was probably their biggest fail, seeing as Gore won it by 16 points.

As for what reasonable people were seeing before the election was that Gore was tightening things up and it was looking like he had a decent chance. The mid-west states, NM, NH and the like looked like they could go either way (Gore won most of them). Pennsylvania was looking like Gore would win, and Bush for Ohio. Florida was starting to look like a tossup, and looked like it would be the decisive state. That's was my pre-election analysis. Realclearpolitics was just epic fail.  Of course I never imaged that Florida would be so epically close. Gore won more states than I thought he would, but nothing too crazy.

[Tender Branson]

That map (40% tossup, 50% lean, 60% strong, 70% safe):

How could they actually produce such an EPIC FAIL projection of an Electoral Map back in 2000, when all polls showed this:



http://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=151594.msg3251031#msg3251031

[Vasall des Midas]

By breaking all tossups and weak leans (bar one - NJ) for Bush in the prediction. Though that still leaves the question of where the hell they got the idea that California and Illinois were arguably still up in the air.

[Ljube]

I looked at their Electoral map and found out that Nevada, Ohio and Virginia are colored "tossup", even though Obama is ahead of Romney by about 5-6 points in their average.

Yet on their map, Arizona is colored as "lean GOP", even though Romney leads by only 5.4 as well.

Why the double standard ?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html

I have the same map and I am not Republican leaning. Cook Political Report has a similar map. We all think that the current polls are more or less irrelevant and that the election will be close.

[TheGlobalizer]

I have the same map and I am not Republican leaning. Cook Political Report has a similar map. We all think that the current polls are more or less irrelevant and that the election will be close.

I agree with this.

[Tender Branson]

I have the same map and I am not Republican leaning. Cook Political Report has a similar map. We all think that the current polls are more or less irrelevant and that the election will be close.

I agree with this.

I do not. It's the double standard that they are using.

On the one hand, they have the Obama approval ratings which they update every day with the latest numbers and in their chart. Here they are very precise.

But on the other hand they have their flawed electoral map, in which they have AZ as Romney+5.5 and colored "Lean GOP", while Obama is up by 5.5% as well in NV, OH, VA - yet here they colour the states only as a "toss-up".

These are people who are paid 2000$ a month to update these maps and they are not doing it. If Dave paid me 2000$ a month for updating an electoral map, I'd be happy to do this.

It simply doesn't matter if you BELIEVE the swing states will be competetive in November, a CURRENT electoral map should be based on CURRENT polls and UPDATED accordingly.

[TheGlobalizer]

It simply doesn't matter if you BELIEVE the swing states will be competetive in November, a CURRENT electoral map should be based on CURRENT polls and UPDATED accordingly.

Force them to change.  You can do it, man.

An electoral projection based on current polling is, at this point, meaningless.  IMO, it would be pro-Obama propaganda.  Incumbent vs. primary polls always favor the incumbent until the primary is settled, and then traditional polling patterns resolve.  Then you'll start to see the real/meaningful movement.