Jan 30 2012
Tomorrow We Determine: Are Voters Engaged or Enraged?
Major Update: Looks like PPP also detected a late Gingrich Surge:
Meanwhile, a Public Policy Polling survey, conducted Saturday and Sunday, has Mr. Gingrich with a manageable-looking 7 points deficit. And he was down just 4 points in interviews conducted on Sunday alone, according to a cross-tabulation provided to FiveThirtyEight.
Well, well, well. I saw one poll claiming Romney is winning Evangelicals and the Tea Party. Sounds fishy to me. I would say tomorrow is going to be very surprising – end update.
The other day I noted that primary polls this year were not to be trusted, especially in Florida since the turnout modes used by pollsters has little prayer of being right given this cycle is like none other – so there is no historic basis to any turnout model. The factors I listed that made this year so unique in Florida primary history:
First off, we still have the 2010 insurgent voter out there. This can be seen in the fact that the current GOP voters in Florida are not the same ones from 4 years ago:
Republicans have narrowed the Democrats’ registration edge in Florida since November 2008, when Barack Obama carried the state. And with the Jan. 31 primary still nearly two weeks away, more than 446,000 Florida Republicans have requested absentee ballots — far exceeding the 307,744 absentee requests for the 2008 GOP primary.
Figures released by the Division of Elections today show Florida has 11.2 million voters, with 40.5 percent registered as Democrats and about 36.2 percent as Republicans. The gap of 4.3 percentage points between Democratic and Republican registrations compares to a 5.8-point gap that favored Democrats heading into the 2008 presidential election.
Assuming the number of voters has not changed in Florida (still 11.2 million), the number of new GOP voters is euqal to the change in the gap between registered GOP and Democrat voters. This change is 1.5% or 168,000 new GOP voters, out of a total number 4, 054,400. This represents 4% of the total GOP voters.
4% is a large number when candidates are even 8% apart. A 4% shift moves a blow-out to a tie.
Another factor I noted was how Florida is actually in the kingmaker position this cycle, something they are never really in since they were historically one of the many Super Tuesday contests. This new pivotal position in the GOP selection process is going to really change the turnout models:
Florida moved their primary date up again this cycle (cutting their delegates from 99 to 50, with no super delegates) to move off of one of the Super Tuesdays. One thing is true, if voters don’t feel their vote counts, they don’t take the time to vote. Florida has never been in this position, where their vote will make a huge difference in who takes on Obama. So voters are going to come out in historic numbers (like they did in SC).
Just to be clear, this prediction has already come true in the early, absentee voting. This is a record voter turnout year already:
Early voting began statewide nine days ago, and according to figures released Monday afternoon by the Florida Department of State, which runs the division of elections, 293,760 people have already cast ballots.
But wait, there’s more. According to the state, more than 531,000 people have requested and were sent absentee ballots, and 338,753 have been returned and received by Florida officials.
Add it all together and more than 632,000 votes have already been cast before primary day.
The story goes on to claim this will help Romney because he has the better GOTV organization. But if his GOTV is activating 2010 insurgent voters, he is turning out his own opposition. Romney is now the establishment candidate after his brutal campaigning.
But something else may be in play right now, and that is Team Romney’s over the top negative campaign against the Tea Party insurgents. In the 2010 GOP landslide, a whopping 41% of the voters were Tea Parry supporters.
Exit poll data indicate that 41 percent of those voting in House races Tuesday said they support the Tea Party. Thirty-one percent of voters said they oppose the Tea Party. And a quarter of voters take no position on the Tea Party one way or the other.
I was about to concede the state to Romney, but I was hesitant to understand why polls moved so quickly. There is no policy reason for the move. Yes, there was a lot of Romney mud-slinging, but that tends to smear both candidates in the mud pit.
One thing I noticed in 2010 and in 2011/20012 was that America is still enraged and fed up with the status quo and the party/political establishment. This anger and frustration resulted in these voters tuning out politics until action could be taken. This showed up in SC in spades, as the polls picked up the shift to Newt in the last week. I think these voters are not engaging until the last minute.
BTW, SC is accustomed to being a pivotal and early primary state. While they had a record turnout, the turnout models would hold up fairly well there since the SC role was not unusual.
A late poll coming out today lends credence to the possibility that Mitt Romney could be heading for a Dewey Moment:
The Sunday results of 646 likely GOP voters are as follows:
- Romney 36 percent
- Gingrich 31 percent
- Santorum 12 percent
- Paul 12 percent
- Other/Undecided 9 percent
“The race will be tighter than expected,” Matt Towery, chief pollster of InsiderAdvantage told Newsmax.
As is noted in the accompanying story, Insider advantage was the first to detect the SC shift to Gingrich.
My rose-colored theory is that the insurgent voters of 2010 are still out there, but running silent and deep. They are spurning the pollsters, becoming undetectable. Also, as I noted in the previous post, even if the insurgent centrist voter is answering the poll, they could easily be thrown out of the ‘likely voter’ pool because of the simple fact Tea Party insurgents are new to the political process, many voting for the first time in a long time in 2010. And very few participating in the primary process. No previous voting in primaries gets you punted out of the ‘likely’ voter pool.
What if this key voting block is being missed by pollsters?
Does it really make sense the 2012 voter is that much different from the 2010 insurgent voter? Did the 2010 insurgent voter all of sudden decide to go milquetoast and support Romney? I see no reason for them to shift from angry backlash to pragmatic lambs. What happened in 2011 or 2012 to make them passive supporters of more of the same in DC?
I would expect if their support for Romney was real, Obama would be sinking in the polls, not rising as he is. Even Democrats are showing a come back against the GOP in the congressional ballot. Seeing the backlash against Obama and the Dems drop off over the last three weeks just as Romney is rising has me questioning if the rise is real support, or the 2010 tsunami voter has just gone silent until they hit the voting booth tomorrow.
My guess is a large turn out tomorrow helps Newt. I see nothing for the 2010 insurgents to all of a sudden become passive establishment followers. In fact, given how lame the GOP House has been since 2010, I only see rising frustration.
Which is why maybe tomorrow will not be as the polls say. The only problem with this theory is the fact that so many polls show a Romney cake walk. Hard to believe they are all wrong – unless the voters are not cooperating and indicating the truth out there.
Needless to say, tomorrow evening will set the path for this nation for the next 4 years. In terms of stopping the out of control federal government, there are few options left. Romney and Obama will fight all bold changes. They are so similar is hard to believe its worth having an election. But we shall see….
The real story tonight is Ron Paul collapsed to 7%. most polls had him in double digits.
The race is still anyone’s to win.
WWS, how do you conclude how many tea party votes Newt got?
My main disagreement with that conclusion is that I don’t believe Romney got any tea party votes. If a former tea partier did vote for Romney, i think by definition he is a ‘former’ tea partier. Very few or no tea partiers vote liberal.
I’m still gonna vote for the Republican nominee.
WWS: get off you high horse and the stick out of your butt. Towery under estimated Mitt’s total and over estimated Ron Paul. He was dead on with Santorum and Gingrich.
The question is why would Paul collapse and why did his supporters go for Romney???
Landslide? margin was about the same as in SC last week. Was that a landslide? I think the results of the vote in Fl make no more difference than the results in SC. Still wide open. Wasn’t Romney leading at this point in the ’08 race?
Florida has a “Feevah” and it’s Mitt Romney. His margin of victory held up big. According to exit polls he took almost every category (age, education, income, male, woman, etc). The only three categories he did not take were Tea Party, very conservative, and evangelical). However, he was very close to Newt in all those categories. Romney had a good night. I expect he will get a lot of momentum off of it due to the next handful of states to vote next (lean Romney). Looks like it may all be down hill for Romney from here. His speech tonight was good; and, his skills have improved due to the rough and tumble he has gotten from the other candidates.
Here you go, WWS:
Explore exit polls from Florida 2012
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2012/florida-primary-jan-31/exit-polls
Robamaney needs to drop out for causing such animosity and rancor in the GOP. He is unfit for higher office
Newt had a great speech tonight. We will see about momentum in next week’s MO advisory primary. Santorum is way ahead now.
Look, to me the real news is Newt’s collapse. He came out of South Carolina on fire and was in a double digit lead. You can blame Romney’s negative ads, but Obama is going to run the same negative ads no matter who our candidate is. Better to find out now that Newt can’t handle the heat.
Dbostan:
Layman1,
“Mittens” given name is Willard.
Does that make you feel better?
Sure. Does acting like an 8 year old make you feel better?
Seriously folks, we’ve got a 4 year Obama disaster on our hands, we’re facing four more years of the same, and you’re focussed on making a few snotty points by calling Romney either Mittens or Willard? Really???WWS said that maybe we deserve Obama. I’m starting to agree with that sentiment.
Trouble ahead for Romney?
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/01/trouble-ahead-for-romney.html
excerpt:
Mitt Romney’s headed for a big victory in Florida today but new PPP polls in Missouri and Ohio find the road ahead might be a little bit tougher for him, especially if Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum drops out of the race and leaves a single conservative alternative.
Rick Santorum is leading the way for next week’s ‘beauty contest’ primary in Missouri with 45% to 34% for Romney, and 13% for Ron Paul. Newt Gingrich is not on the ballot for that, but he will be in the picture for Missouri’s caucus and leads the way for that with 30% to 28% for Santorum, 24% for Romney, and 11% for Paul.
In Ohio Gingrich is at 26% to 25% for Romney, 22% for Santorum, and 11% for Paul.
What might be most interesting in both states is what happens in a head to head between Romney and either Gingrich or Santorum:
-In Missouri Santorum leads Romney 50-37 and in Ohio Santorum leads 45-38.
-In Missouri Gingrich leads Romney 43-42 and in Ohio Gingrich leads 42-39.
It’s beginning to look as if the final margin in Florida is closer than Newt’s blowout in SC. 14% diff vs 15% in SC. Seems to indicate that the race is very tight. if you combine the two states, Newt would have come out a little ahead. It’s gonna be close for a while yet. Still believe it’s gonna be Newt the last man standing.
“My rose-colored theory is that the insurgent voters of 2010 are still out there, but running silent and deep.”
You are even dumber that that attention loving eggplant you were telling us to support 4 months ago.
Go Pokeman!!!
“Major Update: Looks like PPP also detected a late Gingrich Surge:”
I’d say that instead it looks like PPP is another polling outfit that is full of crap and is just making up numbers. Take that into account when deciding how much credence to give to all these PPP predictions about Romney fading in other states. Rasmussen had Florida nailed, as did a couple other outfits. I don’t know what they’ll report tomorrow, but if I give any poll credence, it will be theirs.
some math games:
Redteam, you can’t take a small population state vs a large population state, compare the percentages, and say “oh! the race is tight!” Math doesn’t work that way.
Combining the vote totals for SC and Florida:
Romney: 939106 43.3%
Gingrich: 774647 35.7%
Santorum: 224303 10.3%
Paul: 104769 9.0%
other: 1.3%
(and in delegates, it’s now Romney 71, Gingrich 23, Santorum 13, Paul 3)
As to why Paul’s vote totals dropped so dramatically, allow me to suggest a reason: Florida was the first closed primary, allowing only Republicans to vote. Apparently a large part of Paul’s vote has been coming from independents and disaffected Obama voters who have been crossing over and voting for him. Not bad in a general election, but it’s no way to win a Republican primary.
Redteam, as to why I say that you were obviously mathematically wrong about your prediction that 80% of the tea party would support Gingrich is that the numbers just don’t add up. Newt got 31.9% of the vote in Florida. If that represents 80% of the Tea Party vote, that would mean that the Tea Party only totals 39% of Republican vote in Florida. If that were true (and I for one don’t believe that at all) but IF that were true then it would mean that the Tea Party, with only 39% of one party, would not have a hope of a chance of winning an election. Not enough votes.
On the other hand, if the Tea Party supporters are a majority of the Republican electorate, which I believe, then clearly a large number of them voted for Romney today. It’s simple mathematics.
ah – just read the exit polls, which prove my reasoning was accurate. Tea Party supporters accounted for 65% of the Florida electorate tonight. 41% of them voted for Romney, while only 37% of them voted for Gingrich. (15% Santorum, 6% Paul)
So it looks like Newt Gingrich is NOT the Tea Party candidate after all!
Which is the point I’ve been trying to make for awhile now.
Layman1: you said:
“Look, to me the real news is Newt’s collapse. He came out of South Carolina on fire and was in a double digit lead.”
do you really think that is important, let’s change it just a little and see what you think.
“Look, to me the real news is Mittt’s collapse. He came out of New Hampshire on fire and was in a double digit lead.”
why is either one of these ‘collapse’s’ more important than the other?
Oh how quickly we forget….
so the tea party vote was 41% romney, 59 % anybody but Romney.
I’m not gonna argue the numbers, but it’s obvious the tea party wants somebody other than Romney.
Redteam,
A better theory is that the tea party is not unified. 41% went to Romney, and 38% Gingrich.
The better theory to me is that Romney only got 41% of the tea party vote. They don’t want him…
Redteam,
It’s obvious you don’t want him. And it’s obvious your bias is clouding your brain. You may want to come down from the strata-sphere and back into reality. Even though every poll taken in the last 5 days included Romney well ahead in Florida you some how thought Newt was going to win:
“I think Newt might actually edge Romney, but in any case , within 2 points.”
Obviously with no explanation or logic. And you some how thought the tea party was united behind Gingrich:
“I’d guess 80% plus of tea partiers will be voting for Newt.”
No logic or explanation provided but of course completely wrong.
The tea party vote was split between Romney and Gingrich with more of them preferring Romney. It was not — as you somehow derive — a unified tea party rejecting Romney.
But nice try…
Klimt, when did you get into standup?
when I studied math, 59% was more than 41%.. has that changed?
Newt beat Mitt 42-27 in SC that’s 15%,, fl was 14%.. sounds like a wash to me..
I don’t really feel like an explanation is needed for why the Republicans need to nominate a conservative rather than a liberal. do you?
One thing I’ve learned over time is that you can’t trust the MSM. Do you agree with that?
If the MSM is making a prediction, it is usually aimed toward what they ‘wish’ it to be rather than what it is ‘likely’ to be. They are clearly in the tank for Obama and they are pushing what they see as the best situation for Obama. They clearly see Romney as the best opponent for Obama. Since they are so similar, there is less likelihood that the voters would change horse in mid stream. They see it as a wash. It is clearly not in their interest to have a conservative running against Obama. The tea party might actually support the conservative. They will be luke warm toward a liberal(Romney). You do agree that Romney is the liberal in the group, right? (Nope the lib is not Obama, he’s the marxist, muslim)
The numbers were actually closer between Romney and Newt on the actual voting day. Romney had an advantage from the huge number of early voting ballots already on the books.
People can boast all they want about Romney, but all I see is a progressive liberal, an Establishment elitist candidate the GOP is fostering on the people, and really, a Republican Party that is leaving the traditional American voter, not the other way around.
You check today’s jobless claims report? It is a dramatic drop but probably misleading. The real question is: How many are looking for jobs?