Talk Elections

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/09/fox-news-poll-obama-lead-grows-as-romney-support-slips/

Ouch.

The folks in that Pew thread look pretty silly now.

If only the Obama campaign had listened to David Gergen and Cory Booker.

These are all outliers, folks. Something something too many Democrats sampled.

but Dick Morris said that ROmney was turning things around...

and another laughable (D+9) poll from FOX: Obama: 49/46 my numbers:44.8/52.7

Obama: 49% Romney 40%
my numbers: Romney/Obama: 49.8/44.5

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2012/08/09/fox-news-poll-presidential-race/

Uh huh.

What's your firm's response rate? What proportion of respondents are mobile vs. landline? Sample size?

Interesting comments from the Republican pollster who jointly conducts the FOX poll, touching partly on the partisan ID question:

“The events of the past two weeks appear to have energized Democratic voters a bit," says Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts the Fox News poll with Democratic pollster Chris Anderson. “But perhaps more critically, Romney’s support among independents has declined. The Obama campaign has -- at least in the short-term -- succeeded in raising questions about Romney’s fitness to govern and in making this less of a referendum and more of a choice election."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/09/fox-news-poll-obama-lead-grows-as-romney-support-slips/#ixzz235lgtKKi

Ben, you're not as credible as FOX news.

Ouch...

Does anyone here think the election day ID will be close to D+9? If you do, believe this poll. If not, put it in with the Colorado poll.

Stop.

This was true when you said it about the CNN poll earlier today. It's obviously not true now.

Their last poll was D+5(still to high) now they changed to D+9 in 2008 it was D+7 who believe that 2012 will be a better election year as 2008???? I DON`T!!!!

A poster named Hillary2012 and has a username with Romney in it doesn't like Obama's chances. He sounds very objective in this matter.

I didn't know that some gay creep in Germany had his own polling company operating in the US.

I am a member of the Demcrats Abroad by the way

I disagree pretty strongly with what he's claiming, but there's no need to get so personal.

FOX undersampled the Indys
who think it will be 20I only??
D+9 is laughable
and to think Romney would get only 30% of the Indys is wishfulthinking too

Don't cry about it too much now, guy. I'm sure Hillaryis44 has plenty of room for you to post your conspiracies.

Do people really believe CNN and Fox are biased towards Obama? Ok Someone can claim NBC
Is due to primetime Progressive hosts.

and someone who claims to be hillary clinton supporter.Obama made Hillary his secretary of state.
Bill Clinton Is one of DNC top Speakers.

I just love this.  Not only are people flat out denying polls they don't like, but now they're actually making up numbers and claiming them to be more accurate than what all the other polls say?  Wow, there are going to be some teary faces this November...

But don't worry, I'm sure the real margin after Election Day will be dismissed as an "outlier," using this new logic. :P

So if you swing the partisan compositing D+5 Obama grows by 5!?  Shocking!!?

This polls a joke

You're right, Fox News is a joke.

Yeah this is a troll poll

FOX: Obama 49 Romney 40        My numbers: Obama 55 Romney 32
Election Day numbers: Obama 64 Romney 34

There! I have a great track record! Trust my numbers!

:)


behind the scenes i don't think the republicans in power all that thrilled about romney. there seems to be some disconnect . In 2008 with mccain the republicans in power faught  hard for him eventhough he still lost. With romney everything is kept secret. 

You do realize the partisan composition is changed because more people are self-identifying as Democrats when asked by pollsters what their affiliation is, right?

I guess everyone is just lying to Pew, CNN, Fox News, etc... that must be it.

Not particularly in regard to this poll - but to all polls and trolls in general - I am so tired of hearing people whine about the (almost universal) inflated Democratic numbers regarding party affiliation in national polls. Take a look at this map showing the ten most populous states. The shades illustrate the margin between self-identifying Democrats and Republicans.

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And here are the numbers:

CA - Democratic 44-31
FL - Democratic 41-36
GA - Republican 44-32
IL - Democratic 46-31
MI - Democratic 40-33
NY - Democratic 49-25
NC - Democratic 45-32
OH - Republican 37-36
PA - Democratic 51-37
TX - Republican 45-21

These ten states make up half of the US population. As you can clearly see, there is a significant Democratic advantage in many of these states. New York and North Carolina effectively cancel out Texas and Georgia, while Democrats in Michigan add more to the Democratic total. Oh, and then there's Pennsylvania, Illinois, Florida and California.

When comparing these numbers and projecting them upon a 2008 electorate, this would have resulted in approximately 4.2 million more Democratic voters than Republican voters among these ten states. This effect alone - on a hypothetically evenly divided electorate (party affiliation) throughout the other states - would move the national result from D=R to D+3.

While the remaining 40 states would favor Republicans somewhat more, there are obvious advantages for Democrats when it comes to increasing nominal party membership (West Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana, Arkansas) and of course disadvantages (D+9 is not the inverse of R+9 when it comes to voting patterns).

Still, Democrats have a national advantage beyond the inflated numbers, one that has clearly been demonstrated in the fact that Republicans have only won the national popular vote once in the past twenty years. 

Its pretty clear that these national polls showing Obama +7 to 9 are no longer outlyers as 4 straight surveys have show this - cnn, fox, ap, pew. But its also clear the gains are (almost) solely due to increased dem party ID. No one except the pollsters knows what changed, but something gave them reason to increase tbe Dem Id. However none of the tracking polls ( ras, gallup, kos, yougov) - taken oven the exact same time and presumably among the same sample - show any change. The average of the 4 is a dead heat. One of these groups is wrong, we just dont know which one. It does seem quite bizarre that there iz such a desparity btw the two groups.

One Obama +7 and one Obama +9 poll may suggest that the Pew poll of last week was no outlier. Electoral collapses can happen at any time.  Any sensible person first figures "outlier"... but see enough polls with roughly-similar results and the first outlier may be an early indication of huge change.  

Possible explanation: Mitt Romney has made some serious gaffes and they are beginning to sink in. Sure, one can recover from a gaffe like the Obama classic "but they are tied to their guns and their religion" if they are clever enough in their rhetoric. But a politician who makes too many of them, makes gaffes too severe, or shows no ability to recover from them most likely shows himself going down to defeat.

OK -- the American economy remains a mess. The Iranian government rattles its sabers every few days. Mitt Romney's experience as a business executive looks at first sight like a qualification for competent management of the deficit. The GOP and related organizations seem to have unlimited funds for using against any Democrat.  Above all, President Obama is a horrible march for the political culture of some states that Democrats once absolutely had to win to have a chance (Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia).  

How on earth does that mathematically work when Texas and Georgia have far more population than New York and North Carolina?


The aggregation of those 10 states, even with those North Carolina numbers, comes out to 40% D 35% R 25% I. I weighted each state by the number of house seats in the next congress.

D+5 in the Democratic half of the country is not D+9.

8.3% UNEMPLOYMENT



TRAILS BY 9%

It doesn't work that way...

It's an approximation, champ, given that house seats are proportional to the population of each state.

Of course, Democrats don't end up with a New Jersey-like D+9 partisan advantage merely because some guy looked at 10 states and came up with that number. But carry on. You will certainly win the election if millions of Republican voters vanish off the earth.

In short, because the partisan slant by identification in NC & NY is stronger than that in TX and GA. As I stated, these numbers (in reference to NC & NY versus GA & TX, along with the 4,200,000 number mentioned) were compared to 2008 totals. So:

NY - Democratic 49-25: +1,850,000 D
NC - Democratic 45-32: +550,000 D

TOTAL: +2,400,000 D

TX - Republican 45-21: +1,950,000 R
GA - Republican 44-32: +475,000 R

TOTAL: +2,425,000 R


Whoops, you're wrong again. While it may not be D+9 nationally (never said it was), there are plenty of states on the other side that do not bode well for Republicans when it comes to self-identifying. Three of the five states with Democratic identification majorities are definitely in the Republican half of the country, with many more having net Democratic advantages.

Kentucky - Democratic 56-37
West Virginia - Democratic 54-29
Louisiana - Democratic 51-26
Oklahoma - Democratic 49-40
Arkansas - Democratic 41-31

There are only 22 states with a net Republican advantage, which is incredibly weak considering  that Republicans could never win a modern election with victories in just 22 states. It's not about "victory", though; it's about folks such as yourself learning what party affiliation means and what it doesn't mean. A D+9 sampling does not mean that the electorate is skewed in favor of national Democratic politicians by the same amount. I'd be willing to say a D+9 sample looks awfully similar in partisan comparison with a R+3 or R+4 sample.

Party ID is notoriously volatile - like ideology, it's one of two major characteristics that respondents volunteer, but unlike ideology it tends to fluctuate pretty wildly. Off the top of my head, 2008 saw a hue nationwide shift in party ID, but ideology stayed exactly the same, about 20-45-35.

Note that party ID questions rarely, if ever, ask about registration - the most common phrasing is "Do you consider yourself a Republican, Democrat, or independent?" And as we see with the shy partisan phenomenon (there are many fewer true independents than you think), self-professed partisanship is unstable. If people start to lean towards one candidate or another, they become more likely to identify with his or her party.

In short, weighting by party ID is putting the cart before the horse. That's why (most) professionals don't do it.

Nate has an excellent (lengthy) post tonight, basically saying its still probably a 2 or 3 point race.

Even if TX has grown to be about 20% more populous than NY, their electorates are about the same size.

Serious?

Yep, this is an excellent poll. :b: