Tag: polls

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Barack Obama Mitt Romney Politics

New Poll Suggest Even Bigger Lead For President Obama In Swing States

The Romney campaign is still saying they’re not panicking. Why? What exactly are they waiting for? Their blindness to see the reality just shows the inept leadership of this Romney campaign. They don’t even know when to start panicking!

Jeeze!

Mr. Obama holds a 10-point lead in Ohio among those who say they will definitely vote, a lead propelled by a 25-point advantage among women. Romney holds an 8-point lead among men. The president holds a 35-point edge among voters under 35 years old, and a 5-point lead among those ages 35-64; the two candidates are effectively tied among Ohio seniors. Sixty-two percent of Ohio likely voters say the auto bailout, which had a significant impact on the state’s economy, was a success, while just 30 percent say it was a failure. Both candidates will campaign in Ohio Wednesday; the president led Romney by six points in the state last month.

Mr. Obama also holds a huge lead among women in Pennsylvania, where his advantage overall stands at 12 points. The president leads his opponent by 21-points among women, and they are split among men. The two candidates also split the support of whites, but the president holds an 87 percent to 11 percent lead among nonwhites. Romney holds a 5-point lead among Pennsylvania seniors, but that is more than offset by the president’s 14-point lead among those ages 35-64 and 34-point lead among those under 35.

In Florida, Mr. Obama’s edge over Romney has risen from three points before the political conventions to nine points today. His gains are due to improved performance among women, white voters and seniors. Nearly half of Florida Democrats now say they are more enthusiastic about voting than in the past – up from 24 percent at the start of August, and only slightly less than the percentage of Florida Republicans who are more enthusiastic. Two in three Florida likely voters support the DREAM Act policies put in place by the president to allow young illegal immigrants who came to the country as children to obtain work permits and not face deportation.

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Barack Obama Mitt Romney Politics

The Issue With Issues

Remember when Paul Ryan’s selection meant that the 2012 campaign was going to be about issues? Like the “Scott Brown Means the End of Healthcare” and “The Supreme Court Will End Obamacare” narratives, this one also might turn out to be wrong. So far this is a campaign about Mitt Romney tripping over his own tongue and Paul Ryan trying to sweep it up from the floor. At some point, though, Mitt will stop saying destructive things and President Obama will need to confront the economy, so this race has some tread on it going forward. Given the polls, though, Romney had better step hard on the gas, and soon.

The Medicare debate does not seem to be hurting Romney in Florida, at least according to the latest poll from the Miami Herald. That’s good news for the Republicans. The problem is that they’re not saying exactly how they would pay for those over 55 to stay on traditional Medicare while weaning those younger onto a voucher system (a teat of a different size?). Perhaps the elderly voters have already internalized that they wouldn’t be touched by the Romney/Ryan plan, so why oppose it? Those who would fall into the voucher zone have plenty of reason to be nervous, suspicious and demanding of details. I wouldn’t hold my breath. This is the same team that says they aren’t going to tell us what taxes they’re going to cut until they get elected. If the polls are correct, that could be years from now.

The economy, which was supposed to be the downfall of the president, doesn’t seem to be hurting him at this point, but there’s still time for the GOP to highlight it every day and remind people about the unemployment rate and the deficit. Mitt’s 47% comments didn’t help him and several polls have shown that Americans now say that Obama would be the better candidate when it comes to fixing our economic house. This is a huge turnaround since the spring and, with women and more enthusiastic Democrats, is providing him with the polling bump he’s received since the Democratic National Convention. Keep in mind that there are two more employment reports to be released between now and election day, so the danger isn’t past for Obama. But now a plurality of voters think that Mitt Romney is an out-of-touch rich guy who can’t be trusted on jobs, so he has his work cut out for him if he hopes to catch up.

Neither party has highlighted the old standby social issues of abortion, marriage equality and prayer in schools, so we’ve been spared the usual fights over who’s more moral. Part of that, I think is that the GOP understands that most young people don’t want to fight those fights and most older people have already staked their territory on those issues. Whatever the reason, it’s good news.

The presidential debates are next week and I’m sure we’ll get an earful on the issues from both candidates. The conventional wisdom says that debate gaffes, missteps or forceful performances will affect people’s votes. The research says that’s not really true. That’s not good news for Romney, who is behind in the key swing states and needs a defining moment to build upon for the final six weeks of the campaign.

With most voters having made up their minds, and with a small slice of independents still on the fence, this election could turn on a mistake by either candidate, so look for them to play it safe and stick to well-worn scripts. It’s not the most interesting way to conduct a campaign, but it’s the system we have.

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Categories
Mitt Romney Politics

It’s Raining Polls

The Democratic Nation Convention is a dot in the campaign’s rear-view mirror, but the shift in public sentiment it engendered is now embedded in the polling numbers. And that’s not good news for Mitt Romney.

The one bright spot for Mitt’s campaign is in North Carolina, where a Rasmussen poll has him leading by 51-45%. This is a firm enough pick-up for the GOP that the Obama campaign will probably not contest the state too vigorously because there are other states that need their attention.

Most of the other state polling over the last week shows the president with small leads in some of the swing states and solid leads where he needs to have them, most notably in Pennsylvania and Michigan, where the conservative groups supporting Romney have pulled their advertising, and New Jersey where, despite Chris Christie’s best efforts, Romney is behind by double digits. Those states, though, were always considered nice switches if the election was going to swing hard against Obama and Romney was going to win in landslide, a scenario not out of the question last spring when the economy and momentum were on Mitt’s side. After a summer in which Obama ran a textbook incumbent’s campaign (define your opponent negatively, change the topic from the economy, force Mitt further to the right), the big Republican win seems to be fading. Romney can certainly pull this election out, but he’ll need to go a different route than the 44 state rout he was thinking about.

In the states where the election will turn, the latest polls show a virtual dead heat. Obama leads by one point in a Rasmussen Virginia poll and by one in Colorado according to a Denver Post/SUSA survey. In Florida, and NBC/WSJ/Marist poll has Obama leading by 49-44%, but the poll overstates Democratic participation so the actual results are probably closer than five points. Both Rasmussen and ARG show one point leads for Obama in Ohio and UNH/WMUR sees Obama with a five point lead in New Hampshire. If Romney can carry Ohio, Florida and Colorado, he’d be within two Electoral Votes of the presidency and could win with any one of New Hampshire or Virginia. This is a tall order, but this is where both he and Obama will be spending the most money and time over the next seven weeks.

The main focus for the next few days, though, will be on Wisconsin, a state that hasn’t been polled since the DNC. With native son Paul Ryan on the national ticket, a poll-leading Republican, Tommy Thompson, atop the Senate ballot and a Republican governor at the helm, Wisconsin has been trending red for the past two years. The Romney campaign is putting a good deal of money into the state and a win there would be a huge pickup. In fact, a Romney win in Wisconsin could mean that Ohio follows suit. That would obviate the need for Mitt to win Colorado. It’s big. Perhaps we’ll get some numbers this week.

The national polls show an Obama bounce that has faded somewhat, though the Rasmussen tracking poll had Romney ahead by four early in the week and now shows his lead cut in half. Gallup has shown a pretty consistent Obama lead throughout the last 10 days. National polls by the New York Times, ABCNews and NBC/WSJ show an Obama lead, but they all overpolled Democrats in their surveys. I at least will need some further confirmation from more realistic internals to make a judgement about the national race. We know it’s close, but we don’t know just how close it is.

With foreign policy grabbing the headlines this week, the Romney campaign hopes to undermine the president’s policies while continuing to attack him on the slow economy. That Mitt’s comments on the Middle East unrest were seen as political opportunism will not help him, but if further events lead to more instability, he could correct himself and gain the high ground. Obama has probably built up enough of a lead in the foreign arena to survive, but more problems are clearly not what he wants. The president’s campaign has to figure that any day Romney is not talking about the economy, he’s losing ground. We’ll see what happens this week.

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Politics

Obama Leads in Three Swing States- Has Double Digit Lead in Pennsylvania

Some good news from the pollsters for Team Obama Wednesday a.m.: The president currently leads in three swing states, including a double-digit lead in Pennsylvania.

According to a poll by Quinnipiac, CBS News, and the New York Times, Obama is ahead in Ohio and Florida by six percentage points, and is polling 53 percent to 42 percent in Pennsylvania against Mitt Romney. But a note of caution: the poll surveyed a significantly larger number of Democrats than Republicans, which, as the Washington Post notes, could be giving Obama more of a lead than he actually has in those states.

It also looks like the poll might indicate a gap in strength of support between the two candidates, too. As CBS explains, Obama’s supporters in all three states are more likely to “strongly favor” the president in November, while Romney is more likely to take in supporters primarily motivated by their dislike for Obama. In Pennsylvania, for instance, 22 percent of Romney supporters are motivated by their dislike of the other contender, while only 7 percent of Obama’s supporters say the same.

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Politics

Presidential Polling: Obama, Romney Will Win, Lose

The polling in the presidential race over the past week has led to some interesting analysis, and depending upon your view of the numbers both candidates can claim to be winning, which also means that both are losing.

The latest RealClearPolitics composite shows the president with a small lead, but his aggregate score of 46.4 is rather low for an incumbent and gives Mitt Romney many opportunities to catch and surpass him. A case in point is an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll out Tuesday showing Mr. Obama with a 49-43% lead. The problem is that the poll oversamples Democrats by 11 points, 46-35%. My sense is that Democrats will not turn out in November in those numbers, so the poll is not as representative as it first appears. The other issue is that the poll uses registered voters (RV) as opposed to likely voters (LV), which at this point in the campaign might be worthless.

Another poll released on Tuesday by PPP/Daily Kos/SEIU shows the race tied at 46%, which would be great news for Romney if not for some troubling poll internals. First, it assumes that Romney will attract 17% of the African-American vote and 39% of the Latino vote. By November, that might be possible, but other polls show President Obama garnering support from those groups that approaches 80-90%, so this poll might be a bit optimistic. Further, the poll oversamples Democrats by 7%, which, again, is possible, but it also shows that 32% of respondents identify themselves at members of the Tea Party. That’s high. Finally, this is an RV poll using automated technology and did not call cell phones. All of this adds up to a poll that has a lot of holes in it for both sides to peek through a spin as they please.

The national tracking polls give us little to go on, with Rasmussen giving Romney a 1 point lead and Gallup giving that same lead to Obama.

The real action is with state polls, and for the most part these have been good news for the president. A Rasmussen poll of Michigan gives Obama a 48-42% lead using likely voters, and a Survey USA/KSTP poll  of likely voters in Minnesota has Obama up 46-40%. Good news for Obama, but it shows a decline in his support from previous Minnesota polls which could be a signal of slippage or statistical noise. Your choice, it seems, depending upon which way you lean. A SurveyUSA poll of Florida using likely voters has the president with a 48-43% lead, but the same release showed Republican Senate candidate Connie Mack leading Democrat Bill Nelson by 48-42%. That kind of ticket splitting doesn’t make sense, so we’ll need another Florida poll to sort that out.

There has also been some considerable punditry about where this race is heading despite the polling. Two schools of thought seem to be controlling the debate. One says that the negative ads that Obama is running in swing states, combined with an improving economy in those states, will lead to his reelection. The other thought is that Obama has spent almost $100 million dollars on negative ads and only has a small lead on Romney and no poll has him at 50% or above on the national level (some state polls do have both candidates with sizable leads depending on the state). Both camps are looking for any significant movement in the polls, but won’t likely see much until mid-August when Romney unveils his pick for Vice president and the conventions get under way in earnest.

Of course, it’s the states that matter most in our electoral system and Obama will want to lock down as many of his 2008 wins as possible, and the above discussion suggests that he’s moving in that direction. Still, polls are close in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina (where Romney leads) and Pennsylvania. This is where the election will be won or lost and Romney has yet to advertise seriously in any of those states (he can’t until after the GOP convention).

Stay tuned for more as the polls are released.

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Barack Obama Politics

Registered and Likely: A Tale of Two Voters

A number of polls have been released in the past few days that continue to show the presidential race to be very close. What’s worth discussing at this point is the difference between polls that measure registered voters (RV) and those that have switched over to likely voter (LV) models. There’s a terrific article by Mark Blumenthal of HuffPost/Pollster that discusses this issue and he comes to some interesting, and ultimately unsatisfying conclusions. From the article:

The consistent difference between the registered and likely voter samples raises the question: If likely voter screens applied at the end of the campaign nudged the horse race numbers in a more accurate (and more Republican) direction, why not apply such screens now?

The answer, in part:

These “measures of engagement and intention to vote are useful as indicators of likely turnout on the aggregate level” at this stage in the campaign,” Pew Research associate research director Michael Dimock explained to The Huffington Post in June, “but they are only loosely predictors of whether an individual is or is not likely to vote this November.”

“As we get closer to Election Day,” he added, “particularly after the conventions and into the debate season — these indicators become stronger.”

With this in mind, let’s take a look at some recent polls that use LV models. Purple Strategies released a number of swing state polls showing Obama leading in Ohio (+3), Virginia (+2) and Colorado (+1) and Romney leading in Florida (+3). All of these results are within the margin of error and seem to suggest that Obama does well in states where he polls well with women and lags where men and independents do not support him. The Florida results are also in line with a Mason-Dixon poll that also uses an LV model and shows Obama with a 1 point advantage. Likewise, a new Rasmussen poll of Virginia also shows Obama with a small lead of 47-46%.

The Rasmussen daily tracking poll uses an LV model and shows Romney with a 1 point lead today, within the margin of error.

If it’s true that Republicans tend to do better with LV models, then we can assume that Obama is truly ahead in the states where he leads and that Romney will need to move the dials a bit to overtake him.

On the RV side, a new Quinnipiac poll of New Jersey gives Obama a 49%-38% lead while slightly oversampling Republicans. New Jersey is D 33/R 20/I 47 while the poll was D 34/R 24/ I 37.

Presumably, even if Quinnipiac went to an LV screen, Romney would not be within threatening distance of the president. My view is that New Jersey will remain blue this November.

A PPP Poll of Iowa has Obama leading by 48-43% with a D 35/ R 34/ I 30 split, when in reality, Iowa breaks D 31/ R 32/ I 37. PPP, which has a Democratic leaning house effect, has also slightly underpolled Republicans and overpolled Democrats. This leads me to believe that Iowa will probably lean Romney once polls move to an LV model.

At this point in the campaign, using likely voter models do not seem to be diverging a great deal from polls that use registered voters. As we get closer to the campaign’s major events, that will change. Romney has yet to choose a running mate, and that will help his numbers. The conventions will also provide major bumps for both candidates, as will the results of the first televised debate. If voters are settling in on one candidate, that will become evident by the middle of September, and as long as respondents tell the truth about their voting habits (what is the percentage of people who lie about such things?) we’ll get a fairly accurate view of any election trends.

Right now? Enjoy the summer, baseball and the Olympics.

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Categories
Mitt Romney Politics

Obama Is Back

This guy is a political genius, and the right-wing just can’t stand it when President Obama acts presidential or outmaneuvers them on policies and public opinion. They pilloried him for evidently making gas prices go sky-high, prompting Mitt Romney to blame him for economic pain, then he gets gas prices to plummet by 30¢ at the pump, and magically, the issue goes away.

Obama’s move on immigration was an election year masterstroke. It was a blatant political move meant to shore up the Latino base and it had the intended effect of highlighting the split in the Republican Party between radical fence builders and the more moderate wing that see that demographic fleeing from the GOP. And Romney again has nowhere to go on this issue because, while he might have been sympathetic during his sensible years, he’s since staked out a claim in Santorumville that requires drivers only to make hard right turns.

The president is also beginning to hammer home the differences between his economic plan and Romney’s. It might be true that independent voters see Obama’s policies as hindering economic growth, but it’s still early in the campaign. Once he highlights the effects of Romney’s cut first plan and a more pragmatic vision that includes cuts and investment, those voters will come back in sufficient numbers to win him the election.

And the horse race numbers? Yes, they are close, but Obama is ahead in enough states now to capture 270+ electoral votes. Michigan is not going red and neither are Colorado, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin nor Virginia unless we get terrible economic news over the summer. In fact, the economies in the swing states are outperforming the national economy. That favors the president.

The Supreme Court’s decision later this month will shape the race, but it will also emphasize Romney’s opposition to protections for people with pre-existing conditions and will force him to move farther right on health care. Most Americans do still oppose the individual mandate, but they also need affordable coverage. Obama offers that; Mitt doesn’t.

And there’s one final reason why we know Obama is turning his campaign around: Rush Limbaugh says that the president is panicking.  The right must be very nervous.

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Mitt Romney north carolina Politics

New Poll Gives Mitt Romney The Lead Against President In North Carolina

What are these people thinking, or are they even thinking? The same Mitt Romney who is promising to cut jobs if he becomes president is leading in North Carolina.

PPP’s newest North Carolina poll finds Mitt Romney leading Barack Obama 48-46. It’s a small lead but still significant in that it’s the first time we’ve found Romney ahead in our monthly polling of the state since October.

Romney’s gained 7 points on Obama in North Carolina since April, when the President led by a 49-44 margin. Since then Romney’s erased what was a 51-38 lead for Obama with independents and taken a 42-41 lead with that voting group. He’s also increased his share of the Democratic vote from 15% to 20%, suggesting he’s convincing some more conservative voters within the party to cross over.

Voters in the state have significantly warmed up to Romney in the couple of months since he sewed up the Republican nomination. 41% of voters have a favorable opinion of him to 46% with a negative one. Those numbers still aren’t great but they represent a 24 point improvement on the margin from April when Romney was at a -29 spread (29/58).

[PPP]

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Politics

NBC/Marist Poll Gets It Right

On the heels of last week’s NBC News/Marist polls that underpolled Republicans and made it look as though the president was ahead when he really wasn’t, today’s NBC polls got it pretty much right. That’s good news for Obama in Nevada, Colorado, and Iowa.

In Nevada, Obama leads Romney by 48%-46%. The real voter breakdown is D=42 R=37 I=21. NBC’s poll was D=40 R=38 I=21. There was a slight underpolling of Democrats, but that’s only better news for Obama.

In Colorado, Obama leads Romney 46%-45%. The actual voter breakdown is D=33 R=35 I=32. NBC’s poll was D=31 R=35 I=34. Almost exactly correct. Nice job NBC!

In Iowa, Obama and Romney are tied at 44%. The real voter breakdown is D=34 R=31 I=35. NBC’s poll was D=34 R=35 I=31. There was a slight overpolling of Republicans, but otherwise the results seem solid.

There has been a great deal of talk about the polling in the presidential election, but 5+ months out, much of the results are not predictive of what will probably happen in November. Yes, Obama is stuck nationally at around 47%, but his approval numbers are close to 50% and he’s leading in most of the states that he needs to win to be reelected. Romney is polling close to the president in the states above and is ahead in Ohio according to a Rasmussen poll out on Thursday.

My sense is that the unemployment numbers for May, out on Friday, will do a great deal to shape the race before the summer. Remember that the June numbers will be released during the July 4 holiday week and July’s numbers come out in August when the Olympics will steal the show and, well, it’ll be August.

June could also be a make or break month for other reasons, including the Wisconsin recall race, and two Supreme Court decisions on health care and immigration. Right now Obama is still the favorite, but that could change quickly depending on these external events.

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Politics

The Truth Behind the Florida Poll

The headline number was Romney 47% Obama 41% in the Quinnipiac poll of Florida voters released today. It’s too bad that the media can’t read a poll effectively or analyze its results.

The search for the relevant numbers requires that you scroll all the way to the bottom of the poll and click on the Demographic Summary link. A Word document will open (and open your mind) and reveal that the pollsters seriously oversampled Independents, and undersampled Democrats. From the survey:

PARTY IDENTIFICATION – Generally speaking, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent, or what?                       

PARTY IDENTIFICATION

 Republican                 34%     640

 Democrat                   31      493

 Independent                29      507

 Other/DK/NA                 6       82

First of all, I love the “or what” part of the question. Can’t Quinnipiac come up with other language, such as “or other political party?”

Second, the actual voter registration split in Florida is:

R=36%

D=40%

I=24%

As you can see, Democrats were underpolled to the tune of 9%. True, Republicans were also undersampled, but relative to their actual numbers, not by much. If anything, the oversampling of Independents should be of some concern for Obama, since they are probably the difference in the poll.

Usually Quinnipiac is a solid pollster, but on this one they missed the boat.

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Elections Politics

It’s All About, Like, Like.

Remember when liking something had to do with ice cream or 8th grade crushes? Now the word is everywhere: Facebook, teenage (and increasingly adult) conversations, and now presidential politics.

The latest CNN/ORC International poll shows that President Obama leads Mitt Romney in large part because Americans like the president more, and more American women like Obama a lot more.

The same is true for the Washington Post/ABC News poll and the CBS News/New York Times poll. Nate Silver writes a more expansive article about what likeability/favorability means in the political context and concludes that the issue is cloudy about predicting a winner in the fall. What’s clear, though, is that it’s better to be the person more people like and trust than not.

The polls do serve as warnings for Obama because despite being liked, more Americans are still not pleased with the way he’s handled the economy. The April and May jobs numbers will be key for his reelection prospects because they will either signal an ongoing positive trend of (sluggish) job creation or they’ll show a slowdown or reversal.

If the news is positive, that could create a feeling that we’re finally on the right track out of Recession Terminal and on our way to Job Construction Junction. It would also give Obama a couple of months of leeway if the numbers dip a bit during the summer. If both month’s figures are very weak or negative, that could cement in people’s minds the image that Obama just isn’t going to get it done and that maybe we should give Mitt another chance. Yes, the fall numbers will be important, but both sides would like a head start with their economic arguments before the conventions.

Other measures of the economy are turning positive and lower unemployment in the swing states could trump any negative national news. After all, if there are more jobs in Ohio, Michigan and Florida, those people will not be so concerned about what’s happening in Nevada or Arizona.

Mitt will have the more difficult road because lurking deep within his mind is a collection of embarrassing rich guy things that will surely come out of his (or his wife’s) mouth. He’ll also be in the unenviable position of endorsing lower taxes on the wealthy and cuts to social programs that even Republicans want to stick around, like Medicare, Social Security, public and higher education and health care. And Mr Businessman will need to answer for why he would have allowed tens of thousands of workers to lose their jobs rather than save General Motors, and why any president should have the power to make gas prices go up or down.

Like, wow.

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Categories
Politics

President’s Job Approval Ratings Goes Up a Notch

The Gallop Polling shows an increase in President Obama’s job approval ratings. According to the poll, “President Obama’s job approval rating averaged 46% in March, up from 45% in January and February, and significantly improved over his term-low 41% monthly averages recorded last summer and fall.”

Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking March 1-31, 2012, with a random sample of 16,037 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

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