Oct 17 2008
More Bad Polls For Obama
Some interesting poll news out this morning. First, a highly Dem slanted AP/Yahoo poll shows a tie race. Â The AP/Yahoo poll shows the race to be 44-42% in favor of Obama, well within the margin of error of 2.5%. What has got to have the dems shaking in their boots is the sample break down, which is 40% democrats, 27% republican and 21% independent. A 13% spread is a joke, which means Obama could be as much as 4-8% behind (just a ROM estimate in my part). Anyone buying that is just deluding themselves.
The next interesting poll is the Battleground Daily Tracking Poll out today, showing further tightening in the race. Obama’s one time 13% lead is now down 60% to only 4%. Â Losing 60% of your lead in a week is not a good sign.
And finally we know where are fighting men and women stand, and it is whopping 68%-23% for McCain-Palin. Here are the charts.
Also, the WSJ has a good article about these nature of today’s polls and some words of warning on turnout models. Some key snippets:
Surveys giving Sen. Obama a large and growing lead tend to assume that a growing proportion of voters are Democrats, and a shrinking percentage Republicans. They also point to a big increase in turnout, particularly among voters under the age of 30. Surveys showing a closer race assume less change in party affiliation in particular.
…
Differences over how to accurately gauge party affiliation also help account for the discrepancies. Some pollsters argue polls should be statistically “weighted” so that their results achieve a partisan composition that reflects long-term national averages — particularly if a poll shows that one party gets an unusually large share among the respondents, compared with past elections.
…
“What troubles me is when I see some of my colleagues have 27% of the respondents that are Republicans. That’s just not America, period,” says Mr. Zogby, whose polls have shown Sen. Obama with a lead ranging from two to six points this month. He argues that while party affiliation fluctuates over time, it doesn’t change “day-to-day, and it never fluctuates by eight points in a short time period.”
Emphasis mine. Â I have been saying for weeks now that the anti-DC sentiment clearly simmering in the electorate probably extends to the entire Political Industrial Complex – including pollsters as well as pols, the media, talking heads, lobbyists, etc. Obama’s biggest problem right now is he is the preferred choice of those people Americans find at the most fault for the wrong track. If they are simply avoiding being measured (as I suspect they are) then these lopsided Dem polls are all fantasy.
Speaking of polls… I have this theory that the stock market is voting… that is… anticipating a Barack presidency… 20-30% or so loss the last two weeks… Am I wrong?
Toes192 is partly right – anyone with capital gains is part of the selloff for tax planning since Obama took the lead in the polls. Better to pay 15% in 2008 than 29% in 2009. However, most of the sell-off has been hedge funds anticipating more cashouts, irrational panic, and increasing reality of a deep recession affecting 2009 earnings.
Where was msm (besides the French media) on this assault on Sept. 15 (so much for respectful, inclusive dialog):
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obama-supporter-assaults-female-mccain-volunteer-in-new-york/2/
Maybe more people are afraid to go public on anything. I’ve been hiding my name and location since mid-April because of threats from inside MyBO.
Is it true that Aaron “West Wing” Sorkin has ghost-written Obama’s best speeches in Feb/March?
AJ – couple thoughts – your first para shows a breakdown of 40/27/21 in one poll, but that’s only 88%. Where’s the other 12%? Explain?
Also, check out DJ Drummond at Wizbang. He’s noting that Gallup is now showing three voter models that have results outside each of the others’ error bars, meaning that Gallup is essentially admitting that they have no clue what is going to happen since the models fail rigid statistical analysis for determining their accuracy.
Things are not looking good for Obama.
The scariest thing is how the Media is still playing this as a landslide win for Obama — when things don’t turn out that way, the left is going to be shocked. That shock *should* turn to anger at the lying media… but it won’t.
I predict that at least one major news anchor — Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams, Katie Couric, or Charles Gibson — will openly speculate about massive GOP vote suppression and fraud, on the air, during election night coverage.
And if I lived in L.A. or Chicago, I’d plan on being out of town for Election Night.
conguy
since it is clear that you don’t understand ‘polls’, read this article about the mentality of polling and it will explain it clearly
http://www.zombietime.com/lefts_big_blunder/
NEDevil,
First off, I read DJ religiously – he and I see things pretty much the same on this topic.
2nd, I would have to look at the pdf (link) but some go to 3rd party candidates and the rest I would guess are undecided.
It has been mentioned before the number of undecideds in this race is larger than in recent memory. A good thing for McCain.
NewEnglandDevil-
That breakdown is how the poll respondents identified themselves. There’s a whopping 11-12% who responded “None of these.” Presumably, those are Greens, Libertarians, Communists, New Party, Constitution Party, Alaskan Independence Party, and such.
I’m fairly certain that’s either a vast oversampling of third-party America or else a bunch of people who refused to answer the party ID question, but refused to be clear that they were refusing.
AJ-
Reading the poll demographics is actually quite fascinating.
Some choice bits:
– 84% of the sample were from metropolitan areas — i.e. only 16% lived in rural areas.
– the 60+ demographic and the 18-29 demographic were equally represented in the sample — under-representing seniors and over-representing the youth vote.
– the education numbers are just way, way off:
HS Dropouts: 13 % in this poll vs. 4% in 2004’s exit polls
HS Grads: 32% in this poll vs. 22 % in 2004’s exit polls
Some College: 28% vs. 32%
BA or higher: 27% vs. 42%
((I’d guess that this just means that high school dropouts are more likely to be unemployed and able to answer the phone, while those with postgraduate degrees — like lawyers and doctors — work insane hours and are never home to answer polls…
But whatever it is, it’s a HUGE skew in the demographics.))
Similarly, there’s a huge skew at the top and bottom in the income data:
under 15k: 15% vs 8% in exit polls
15-30k: 18% vs 15% in exit polls
30-50k: 27% vs 22% in exit polls
50-75k: 21% vs 23% in exit polls
75-100k: 11% vs 14% in exit polls
100k+: 8% vs 19% in exit polls
Poor people are over-represented by a factor of two, and wealthy people are under-represented by the same margin.
There’s also quite a bit of push-polling in there…
Like the question on who is to blame for the financial crisis. The options are:
1) The banks and lenders that made risky loand [sic]
2) The people who borrowed money that they could not afford to repay
3) The federal government for not regulating the lending and housing markets closely enough.
Just a slightly slanted view of the issue, no?
“Just a slightly slanted view of the issue, no?”
Yes, where is the answer that blames Fannie Mae and CRA?
Couple of points
If you check the Gallup sample sizes for the two likely voter models to reach the percentages they have if you multiply by the sample size that means for the extended version 86% had to be obama supports of the gained sample size or at least heavily leaning even if you distribute it over the entire sample.
Acorn has been registering people since 1970. How many bogus registrations are inflating the numbers of Dems across the country.
Granted the larger pollsters use turnout models but many of the smaller guys use registration data. Thus they will over sample dems to match the model or weight to it and skew their effect.
Go to any of the polling aggregators like RCP (which is now excluding affiliate polling firms) or pollster and look at how many polls show on 2 or 3 % undecided. That defies logic and historic polling and makes their results suspect but they are also the ones with the widest spreads and thus pulling the candidates apart more than they should be. Those polls with more historic pattern 7 – 11% undecided have the race much closer which is the more likely reality.
Typically at least 4-5 % make up their mind who to vote for in the last 3 days prior to the election.
Any poll like the one heavily weighted in urban areas favors Obama since his base of elites/blacks and college kids mostly fit right there rather than rural.
Think the new Dukakis Caucus with college kids tacked on.
Not wanting to change the subject but it seems nobody is talking about Obama’s bomb out performance last night at that big hoornanny memorial serivce. . He came across as mean spirited and downright nasty mean, whereas McCain was funny and even those who were the brunt of his jokes were laughing. Obama’s calling Rudy Guilani a cross dressing exmayor of new York went over like a t–d in a punch bowl. It was obvious he was reading his speech and He definately needs new writers. That James Carville meaness doesn’t cut it when everyone is trying to “just get along.”
Semper Fi Marine Corps leading the way as always with a 75% to 18% against Obomb.
Strange that Obomb gets 36% from military females which is the next largest percentage he gets after the 79% black/ African American. That’s the one I don’t understand, it’s such a large percentage but makes no dent in the poll numbers. The Liberals have been screaming that the military is nothing but minorities, so one would think that Obomb would be closer with the military vote. But if you look at the poll break down the black/ African America poll is the only one he wins, all the wrest are not even close. He loses on the Hispanic Latino, and on other specified. I guess only liberals and black/ African Americans are voting for him?
Little background on that AP/Yahoo poll, from Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com:
“You may never have heard of the AP-Yahoo poll before. This is for good reason, since a look at the fine print reveals that it’s not really intended for its horse race numbers (the AP uses a separate agency, GfK, for those).
For one thing, the poll is not timely. It entered the field on October 3 — two weeks ago — and left the field on October 13, which was this Monday.
For another thing, it’s an internet-based poll.
For a third thing, it has no likely voter screen, and the horse race question does not even appear to have a registered voter screen … it’s a poll of all adults.”
I find it interesting that you had nothing to say about that part of the “math” of this one, AJ.
bresch? do they teach math in grade school in scotland?
Fraud you can believe in:
Voter registration in six Alabama counties exceeds the voting age population.
And more fraud:
Stealing the vote of the mentally challenged. No shame whatsoever. http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?s=9177991
The group home that took these folks to vote should have their tax status challenged and be investigated not only for voter fraud but for RICO violations to determine whether this was the act of 1 or an organized, group effort.
Hugo Chavez must be proud of the party of Jimmy Carter. Obama has not been elected or served one day as President, and he and his minions have already denigrated the name of the United States around the world. What credibility will he have championing free elections and democracy to rogue nations?
These people are willing to sacrifice the very fabric of our society for power. I’m disgusted, and I challenge Breschau and the other liberals who troll this board to convince us that these are isolated incidences. My guess is that what has been uncovered is only a fraction of what is actually occuring.
Ohio is already under protest due to a Dem. Sec. of State who refuses to do her job for the sake of Obama. 200,000 voters with questionable I.D.s are on the rolls that we know of. Are they legitimate? We’ll never know.
I sure hope the RNC has armed guard watching over their get-out-the-vote vans this year.
You know what they say in Chicago … on election day, vote early, vote often.
The Democrats are so transparent, it is sickening. They hire ACORN to file false voter registrations and then file complaints with the AG to investigate Republican voter fraud.
That is their calling card, do the illegal act and then get everyone to point at their opponent accusing them of doing what everyone knows you just did.
ACORN: GOP Suppressing Valid Democrat Votes
SBD