Talk Elections

April Purple Poll (http://www.purplestrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/AprilPurplePoll_v9.pdf)

Colorado
Obama 47%
Romney 47%
Not Sure 6%

Virginia
Obama 48%
Romney 46%
Not Sure 6%

Ohio
Obama 49%
Romney 44%
Not Sure 7%

Florida
Romney 47%
Obama 45%
Not Sure 7%
-----------------------------------
"The Wild West" (CO, NV, NM)
Obama 48%
Romney 46%
Not Sure 6%

"The Heartland" (IA, MN, WI)
Obama 50%
Romney 44%
Not Sure 6%

"The Rust Belt" (NH, PA, OH)
Obama 47%
Romney 45%
Not Sure 8%

"The Southern Swing" (FL, NC, VA)
Obama 47%
Romney 46%
Not Sure 7%
------------------------------

April 19-23; 1705 Likely Voters for ALL regions combined; MoE for all subsamples +/- 4.1%

Unless they included AZ and/or Utah this makes no sense.

Interesting...

I don't buy the Colorado poll. I think, at this point, it's lean Obama (though could change).  If Obama is leading in Ohio by 5, this would also suggest that Romney is probably leading in Pennsylvania. Obama would also have to be up in North Carolina.

Au contraire, mon ami.  A poll came out last week showing Obama's approval at 45% in the Denver metro area, including liberal Boulder County.  See http://www.ciruli.com.  Obama's approval was in the 30s in Jefferson County, and 42% in Arapahoe County.  A head-to-head poll has Obama getting only 44% of the metro area vote, again including Boulder.  Obama got 61% in 2008, according to Ciruli.  In other words, unless Colorado Springs suddenly morphs into a clone of Boulder, Obama is in deep trouble in Colorado.  Those are frightful numbers.  If you're Obama, and you've got numbers like that, and Colorado only has 9 EVs, you're not going to hold as tight a grip on the state as you would on Ohio or Virginia.  And this poll justifies that sort of strategy.

I can't fart loud enough to show how seriously I take this poll.

Why do we even bother to keep entertaining polls that are obviously bogus?

"Oh no, the poll is bad news for Obama! Must be a crap poll!"

1. It hasn't veen entered (yet).

2. How is it "obviously bogus"?

Wasn't there a poll that just came out right before this showing Obama was winning Colorado by 13%?

The numbers seem reasonable except for CO. I'd be surprised if Obama wasn't leading there.

As for the multi-state polls, there will never be a reason to pay attention to that garbage.

If Romney did get a bounce though, it sort of makes sense that he'd get it in a mountain state like Colorado. I think it will be easier for Romney to gain ground in Colorado than even in Ohio.

These multistate polls are completely worthless

So, this is saying Obama is anywhere between 2 to 4 percent ahead of Romney in North Carolina, right?

Romney is certainly prepared to win Pennsylvania's electoral votes. Many wealthy SEPA individuals in areas like Gladwyne are quaking in fear at the idea of paying so much additional tax.

So, Obama is up in every single purple state.

I think I understand what this "Purple Poll" is trying to do; this shouldn't be looked at as a weird assortment of useless multistate polls, but like a sorta-national poll that only polls states that have a chance of swinging the election, rather than the entire country. The state groupings with the silly names would thus be analagous to the regional subsamples of a true national poll.

Here's the number you should really take from the poll, the "mini-national" result of the twelve swing states polled.

Obama v. Romney matchup
Obama: 48%
Romney: 44%

However, delving deeper in to the PDF here, there are a lot of things that do look pretty bad. For starters, it looks like they really messed up on partisan identification- Obama does significantly worse among independents than he does overall for every single issue/character question they asked. For example, Obama wins the question, "would be a stronger commander in chief" among all voters 47%-44%, but among independents, Romney wins 45%-39%. Considering how consistent this skew is, they either overpolled Democrats or called a lot of very liberal Republicans.

And while I'm no expert on this topic, their margins of error appear to be totally bogus. To get their stated MoE of 4.1% in each of the states, they would have needed to poll 571 people in all four states- 2284 in all. That's impossible in itself, because the entire poll only had 1705 respondents. In addition, they claim the same MoE of 4.1% for each of the four regions- already impossible, because it'd certainly be lower for the "Southern Swing" due to the 1148 people supposedly polled in Florida and Virginia- but that would mean they'd need to poll another 571 people in "The Heartland,"; that brings the total they would have needed to poll up to 2855 people at minimum in order to reach their stated accuracy, and even then that's without a single respondent from five of the states.

With only 1705 respondents, there's actually much higher error here. If you assume they polled the same number of people in each state (142), that'd be a margin of error of plus or minus 8.2% for VA/FL/OH/CO.

If you assume they polled the four highlighted states more than the other eight, then that'd mean the entire poll isn't a random sample and everything except the four state results are entirely useless (and they would actually have a 5-7% MoE anyway). I guess "The Heartland" would still be possibly random, I guess, just with an insane MoE as well.

---

Ultimately, it seems this pollster is utter garbage. Even setting aside the inane tri-state polls, and whatever anomaly happened for their partisanship metric, this company is releasing polls that at best have insane error margins (and lying about it!) and at worst make such a poor attempt at randomized data collection that these results might as well be made up.

So, yeah, this is a meaningless junk poll through and through; this Purple Strategies group is certainly trying its hardest to be the just as respected as Zogby/ARG/Strategic Vision.

(edit: damn you adderal, why did I just spend an hour looking in to this, I am supposed to be writing an essay right now)

"Quaking in fear" at the possibility of taking the top two rates of income tax back to Clinton era levels of 36% and 39.6%, on individuals earning >200k and joint-filers earning >250k.



"Quaking in fear" at the possibility of taking the top two rates of income tax back to Clinton era levels of 36% and 39.6%, on individuals earning >200k and joint-filers earning >250k

You forgot to tack on the additional taxes already presented by the Obamacare law, and the additional taxes proposed by the Buffett rule, and of course the additional taxes required by the Alternative Minimum Tax.

In addition, in other parts of the state, the rogue organization known as the EPA certainly has the same effect on many individuals affiliated with energy producing industry.

The multistate polls are, but some of this is individual states as well.

Colorado just seems like an easier state than Ohio for Romney to pick up.  Few people realize that 2011 may have been more important to these two states' political futures than 2010.  In 2011 Colorado, including all metro Denver counties (excluding Boulder), voted overwhelmingly against a statewide tax hike for schools (the margin was a little less than 2:1).  By almost the same margin, Ohioans voted to repeal Gov. Kasich's new union law.  Those two off-year elections help focus voters' attention and toss out a few tea leaves for 2012.  Colorado is one of the most fiscally conservative, anti-tax states in the country, and Ohio is not especially conservative on those fiscal issues.  Obama is very unpopular in both states, but in an election based on core issues like taxes, unions, budgets, etc., Colorado seems like the most likely to split right while Ohio seems more likely to split left.

That's an analysis that many haven't yet picked up on--in fact, the White House has only recently indicated a shift in strategy that will place Ohio and the midwest ahead of the "New Democratic" states in terms of electoral priority. 

The bottom line is this: the Purple Poll is probably where the election is headed, despite Obama's problems with blue-collar white voters.  Colorado will end up moving more safely in Romney's direction, and Ohio will emerge, as it is usually does, as the flashpoint of the 2012 campaign.  If Romney does drop Ohio, something that looks likely at this point, he will need to find a way to pick off enough suburban Philly voters to win Pennsylvania.  If there's a candidate to do it, it would probably be him, as long as doesn't lose too many "Pennsyltucky" voters in mid-state PA or the areas around Pittsburgh.

You can laugh (I suppose there is a level on which it is funny, though I don't appreciate the humor), but there are far more people motivated to turn out to stop taxes from returning to Clintonian levels than there are to return them to such a state. As a general rule, tax issues help Republicans.

Would it appease to know that I've never cast a ballot in my life on the promise of tax cuts?

Anyway, more to the point, I'm being serious. At the end of the day, sooner or later, the bills are going to have to be paid. $1.4 trillion defiicts aren't sustainable and yes, it is Bush 43 policies (tax cuts, unfunded wars) and the effects of the Great Recession (fall in revenues) which primarily continue to drive 'em. Obama's primary counter-cyclical response was the conservative, as opposed to radical, $800bn ARRA

I'm not adverse to some tax cuts as a means of stimulating economic growth, in the event of an economic downturn, on the understanding that a time may come when they need to be raised. Because if the answer was to cut them, keep them at those rates, cut again .... Where would it end?

Did an economic contraction of 0.3% between April and September 2001 really need $3 trillion in tax cuts to get out of? I wouldn't care had they resulted in balanced budgets, millions and millions and millions of new jobs (in other words, not the fewest number of jobs generated by the US economy this side of Herbert Hoover - read that in the WSJ) and reduction in the gross federal debt as % of GDP

Even Reaganites are critical of the contemporary GOP's anti-tax jihadism (Clinton was able to constrain it), with David Stockman calling Grover Norquist - of whom they appear to be scared sh**tless - nothing short of a "fiscal terrorist"; indeed, Stockman called for the Bush 43 tax cuts to expire on the grounds that they are unaffordable

The only thing standing in the way of a 'Grand Bargain' is the GOP's unwillingness to shift an inch on taxes and yes, there are those with the means to be able to afford to pay Clinton rates); indeed, they want $4.6 trillion more ::). Its the definition of madness doing the same thing over and over yet expecting different results. As for "austerity" what effect, pray, would that have on unemployment? The public sector has lost more jobs during the 'Great Recession' than it did during the 'Monetarist Recession', with what job growth there is coming from the private sector [and that is not something that could be said for GWB's first-term]

November 2000. It wasn't broke and it sure didn't need George W Bush to fix it ::). Where did you guys get him from? The bottom drawer?

Yes, of course. After the Democrats basically broke even with 6 figure voters in 2008, they lost them by landslide margins in 2010. Romney is undoubtedly counting on large margins among 6 figure voters and he can and will obtain then by defending them from higher tax.

I don't worship at the altar of supply-side given the extent to which the gross federal debt as a % of GDP spiralled upwards during the 'Eighties', falling back under Bill Clinton :), who constrained the Reactionary Party's anti-tax jihadism, spiralling - AGAIN -from the 'Noughties'-to-present with President Obama having to compromise to secure support for the very folks needing it most - the unemployed. Those of you who believe that is a sustainable course can think again

"Pain" now - on those with the broadest shoulders - to avoid :) more pain, as much as anything, later. Take your pick. Or is the Reactionary Party agenda to crash the economy through austerity and pray for a strong recovery to follow? And the hell to those on the sh**tty end

Well, of course you don't. You want to redistribute money from others to Democratic voting chosen constituencies, and indeed, given the massive excess spending of the past few years, have succeeded. Barack Obama's budgets as a result show a massive permanent increase in the levels of government spending through the year 2021; its no wonder he abysmally failed at his promise to reduce the deficit to $650 billion by next year.

The spend now, less spend later tripe is about as serious as the charlotte bobcats.


But these types of voters in places like Gladwyne don't benefit from your handouts, and your circular thinking isn't going to make them want to pay more tax. Sorry.

Unfortunately for you, Obama (unlike Clinton) isn't about a prosperous middle class. Incomes have shrunk and poverty has skyrocketed during his administration.

People like you don't like those facts, but people in Gladwyne aren't likely to care about that.

Perhaps had Dumbya built on the Clinton legacy of prosperity, low unemployment and solvent government ...the US economy may not have hit the crappers to the extent that it did ;)

Well, when you don't have facts, you make up a baseless hypothetical. Shrug. Congrats on convincing yourself.

Perhaps the voters will seek to continue to Obama record of poverty, shrinking incomes, money tossed to Democratic special interests, and insolvent government. Perhaps not.

I talked to the guy who headed the poll today.  The sub-sample MoE is correct.  That 1705 sample is a total weighted sample, not just a total sample.  The actual total sample was around 4000 he said.

Database entries:

CO: https://uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/PRESIDENT/2012/polls.php?action=indpoll&id=820120423195
FL: https://uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/PRESIDENT/2012/polls.php?action=indpoll&id=1220120423195
OH: https://uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/PRESIDENT/2012/polls.php?action=indpoll&id=3920120423195
VA: https://uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/PRESIDENT/2012/polls.php?action=indpoll&id=5120120423195

As opposed to Republican records of poverty, shrinking incomes, money tossed to Republican special interests, and insolvent government, or as opposed to some mythical antelapsarian state that you believe held sway before January three years ago, perhaps through some sort of political application of the omphalos hypothesis?

If you recall, that statistical record led to the election of a Democratic President. Are you expecting the mirror outcome 4 years later?

DemocraticHawk's position of course seems to describe all 6 figure voters as a Republican special interest. I can agree and live with that as it will lead to another landslide victory by the Republican party among these voters.

Democratic Hawk's position is that the bills have got to be paid. And there will be those 6 figure voters and millions more besides who are rational enough to comprehend that the GOP's anti-tax jihad is, frankly, unaffordable

I know this much I wouldn't vote for new spending (outside of counter-cyclical fiscal stimulus) unless revenues were raised or cuts made elsewhere to - shock horror - pay for it. Its called fiscal responsibility :)

Speaking of which, here we go. Wealthy people in Gladwyne are very eager to support Mitt Romney to safeguard themselves from higher tax.

http://mainlinemedianews.com/articles/2012/05/01/main_line_times/news/doc4fa07fee48681475319486.txt



Of course many of these people were Obama voters last time around. Not anymore!

Umm, the article you're posting is about a Romney fundraising event.

Incidentally, I'd like to mention that I've been to this Gladwyne place that krazen keeps talking about. It's a hellhole. Not that that either strengthens or diminishes its voting strength in any way, but there's a certain small comfort of aesthetic-moral vindication in that, I think.

Back to the demographic question...
According to the exit polls, whites over 50k went from 56R-43D in 2008, to 61R-37D in 2010. Not exactly an overwhelming change. Nonwhites over 50k likewise went from 75D-22R to 69D-29R.
All in all, typical of the shift from presidential-year turnout to midterm turnout where one party's supporters are more excited about voting. Obviously, if the 2012 electorate looks like the 2010 electorate, Obama's screwed; if it looks like the 2008 electorate, he's doing fine.
(I'd talk about voters over 100k, but those aren't broken down by race in the exit polls, and as you can see from the 50k+ numbers, race matters at higher income levels just as it does at lower income levels).

Err, what? Gladwyne is a beautiful place. People want to live there and they pay a lot of money to do so.

I am just curious Nathan why you consider Gladwyne a "hellhole." Is it because big houses on big lots = hell?  Is that in the Bible somewhere? :)

Now granted I would consider maintaining houses that big "hell," but I digress.

()

Outside of the old village center it's completely uninteresting new development replete with gated communities and McMansions in what would otherwise be very nice woodland (and, indeed, the parts that still are woodland are quite lovely). I'll concede that the Youngsford/Righters Mill area isn't bad and that its proximity to Bryn Mawr is nice (I have an aunt who teaches at Bryn Mawr) but other than that it's just the sort of suburban environment with, shall we say, a limitation of history of note that characterizes so much of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. 'Hellhole' is perhaps a bit strong but this sort of thing is probably my least favorite type of environment for populated places in the United States, excepting outright ghettos.

Of course the sheer affluence of the place is this close to downright offensive considering its proximity to places like West Philadelphia, but that's of course a matter of preexisting political and social belief.

Gladwyne is, however, orders of magnitude nicer than many other Main Line communities. Let it never be said that it's anywhere near as bad as a lot of what surrounds it.

New Quinnipiac Swing State poll out later today (FL, OH, PA).

Maybe likely voters already, but I'm not sure. In 2008, Quinnipiac started with LV in June.