Of Polls and Pols
Posted: September 26, 2012 Filed under: 2012 elections | Tags: Poll Sample Truthers, polls, Romney is losing badly 50 Comments
Recent polls show Obama leading in his bid for reelection by an increasingly larger number.
For weeks, Republicans in Ohio have been watching with worry that the state’s vital 18 electoral votes were trending away from Mitt Romney. The anxiety has been similar in Florida, where Republicans are concerned that President Obama is gaining the upper hand in the fight for the state’s 29 electoral votes.
Those fears are affirmed in the findings of the latest Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News polls of likely voters in both states, which show that Mr. Obama has widened his lead over Mr. Romney and is outperforming him on nearly every major campaign issue, even though about half said they were disappointed in Mr. Obama’s presidency.
The polls, along with interviews with supporters and advisers in the nation’s two largest battleground states, lay bare an increasingly urgent challenge facing Mr. Romney as he prepares for his next chance to move the race in his favor, at the first debate with Mr. Obama next week.
Mr. Romney’s burden is no longer to win over undecided voters, but also to woo back the voters who seem to be growing a little comfortable with the idea of a second term for Mr. Obama.
Romney is losing key constituencies.
Women in Ohio prefer Barack Obama to Mitt Romney by a margin of 25 points, according to a new poll. In Pennsylvania, it’s 21 points and in Florida, another swing state, women gave the president a 19-point edge.
It appears the so-called war on women has taken its toll. In Ohio, Romney is actually winning with men by 8 points, but the gap among women is so wide that Obama leads the state by 10 points, according to the Quinnipiac University/CBS News/New York Times poll of likely voters.
In other bad news for Romney, those polled gave Obama the edge on the economy.
Ohio appears totally out of reach for Romney.
But Romney appears to be in deeper trouble in Ohio than elsewhere, an alarming development for Republicans who know that the candidate’s White House chances begin and end with the kind of middle-class voters who reside in places such as Akron, Cincinnati and Zanesville.
So why exactly is Romney trailing?
Two surveys released in recent days, one from the Ohio Newspaper Association and another from The Washington Post, crystallized the challenge facing Romney as he embarks on his second straight day of campaigning in the Buckeye State.
The topline numbers — Obama led by 5 points among likely voters in the Ohio poll, and a startling 8 points in the Post poll — only tell part of the story.
Fresh polls give Obama advantage in four battleground states
Romney’s favorable rating is underwater. Almost two-thirds of voters approve of Obama’s decision to bail out the auto industry, a staple of Ohio’s manufacturing economy. The president leads Romney by a wide margin on the question of who would do more to help the middle class.
Republicans–in an attempt to overcome their deep-seated need to live in the land of surreality–are calling the pols skewed and untrue. Rush Limbaugh is calling it a liberal media conspiracy to depress Republicans. (Warning: the links go to the sources.)
RUSH: The purpose of the people right now, most of them doing these polls, they’re trying to make news, not reflect it, they’re advancing an agenda. They’re all Democrats. They’re all liberals. They just have different jobs. The polls are the replacement refs. They see certain things. They don’t see other things. They don’t call certain things, and other things go by. In this case, what they’re trying to do is exactly what they’ve done in your case: frustrate you, make you pull your hair out, say, what the hell’s happening to the country? They want you thinking the country’s lost. They want you thinking your side’s lost. They want you thinking it’s over for what you believe. And that makes you stay home and not vote. That’s what they’re hoping. That’s why you have to fight it every day, Stephanie.
CALLER: I do; I do. And it’s so frustrating. You know, I wish somebody could say, “Hey, this is what’s gonna happen on Election Day.”
RUSH: Well, I know, I would love to be able to tell you, but see, nobody knows. Nobody knows. Not even the pollsters will predict that their poll is right, right now.
Notice that Rush conveniently ignores the FOX news poll that shows the same results. But, Fox is playing the same game. It’s a “Democratic” Skew and not the response of the electorate to the Romney Ryan agenda and incompetency.
Conservatives and the Romney campaign may say that the swing state polls which shows a widening lead for Obama are out of whack, but the trend is unmistakable. A month ago in must-win Ohio, Romney trailed in the Quinnipiac University poll commissioned by the New York Times and CBS News by 6 points. It’s now 10 points.
Polls may not be predictive, but even a poll that doesn’t reflect the actual condition of the electorate can still show you the trend line. And right now, there aren’t any indications that Romney is closing the gap. Romney may be closer than a double-digit deficit, but he’s sure not where he needs to be.
Romney’s attack slogan on President Obama has been “Obama isn’t working,” but it’s clear that Romney’s strategy hasn’t been working.
Romney’s even lost seniors. He only has a clear advantage with one group. That would be White Men. So what does the Quinnipiac Poll indicate?
Gov. Mitt Romney had a bad week in the media and it shows in these key swing states,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “The furor over his 47 percent remark almost certainly is a major factor in the roughly double-digit leads President Barack Obama has in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The debates may be Romney’s best chance to reverse the trend in his favor.”
“The wide difference between the two candidates is not just a result of Romney’s bad week. In Ohio and Florida votes are basically split down the middle on whether the county and they and their families are worse or better off than they were four years ago. If voters don’t think they are worse off, it is difficult to see them throwing out an incumbent whose personal ratings with voters remains quite high,” Brown added.
“The president’s strength results from the fact that for the first time in the entire campaign, he is seen as better able to fix the economy than is Romney, the issue that has been the Republican’s calling card since the general election campaign began. And the economy remains the overwhelming choice as the most important issue to voters’ presidential choice.”
TP just published a list of six prominent reactionaries that think the media are manipulating the polls. Republicans appear to be delusional. Dave Wiegel is calling them “Poll sample Truthers”. They simply refuse to believe reality.
Nicknamed “poll sample truthers” by Dave Weigel, the skeptics are falling over each other to explain how the numbers are lying:
Erick Erickson
Erickson, Editor-in-Chief of RedState.com and CNN political contributor, accuses the media of a “confirmation bias” that makes them conform their data to what they want: “The polls are confirming what the press thinks and that they have a larger than 2008 Democratic turnout is of no consequence to them.”John McLaughlin
The Republican pollster explains the poll conspiracy: “The Democrats want to convince [these anti-Obama voters] falsely that Romney will lose to discourage them from voting. So they lobby the pollsters to weight their surveys to emulate the 2008 Democrat-heavy models. They are lobbying them now to affect early voting. IVR [Interactive Voice Response] polls are heavily weighted. You can weight to whatever result you want.”Hugh Hewitt
Radio host Hugh Hewitt thinks the CBS/Quinnipiac/NYT poll is “junk”, choosing instead to focus on Rasmussen and Gallup’s daily polls, which have Obama leading by a smaller margin. These polls, he says, amounts to “lots of evidence this morning that their campaign is in terrific shape.”Dick Morris
Tea Party icon Dick Morris insists if the election were held today Romney would win by “4 or 5 points,” carrying Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania — leading Sean Hannity to exclaim, “Oh, come on!” Morris later declares, “The polling this year is the worst it’s ever been.”
The question is will Republican just blame Romney for this when they eventually wake up to reality or will they see that entire swatches of the voting populace reject their agenda?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
All the polls are bullshit. Romney is winning and he is winning BIG.
It’s all a conspiracy of the “lamestream media”. Just go and check unskewedpoll.com for the real results and see for yourself how great the Mittmentum is.
lol … you’d be surprised how many former posters from the old haunt keep posting these things … I can’t remove them fast enough from my twitter or facebook STILL!! It’s weird!
The fun part is that it’s written by people who have absolutely no clue about descriptive statistics or about statistics at all. The genius who runs unskewed polls takes sampling for one poll and applies it to another.
I think even funnier are the desperate people who keep trolling the Intertubz with that stuff.
Yeah, pollsters are conspiring everywhere to hide the fact that Mitt Romney is winnnig.
I just updated this with a funny thing .. Weigal’s calling them “Poll Sample Truthers” and there’s a TP link to some of the most delusional
UR serious! Dak? You still have haunts? I thought they had moved along. Silly me.
Ever so often, one of them pops back up again … just when I think I had fumigated my places. Stench’s stenchies all!
“Ever so often, one of them pops back up again … just when I think I had fumigated my places.”
They’re making their last stand, like a termite infestation in it’s death throes. 🙂
Mitt Romney calls Jack Nicklaus the “greatest athlete of the 20th century.”
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/09/jack-nicklaus-really-greatest-athlete-20th-century/57293/
Let’s see, that would make him greater than Babe Ruth, Wilt Chamberlain, Ted Williams, Bill Russell, Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Jesse Owens, Jim Thorpe, and on and on.
I don’t buy it. The poll must have been skewed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0K1U0FcDPs
OMG, That was funny!! 🙂
LOL!!!!
“Mitt Romney calls Jack Nicklaus the “greatest athlete of the 20th century.”
What he really meant is that Nicklaus is the greatest athlete “Who’s supporting” Mitt!
Mitt Knows Dip!!!
http://www.boston.com/politicalintelligence/2012/09/26/principal-chief-cherokee-nation-denouces-tomahawk-chops-brown-staffers-offensive-and-racist/YTbCW5NQdqpUwXh5ycrpNJ/story.html
RCP has updated the Electoral Map & Obama is within 5 of having the necessary 270 to win. Romney would have to get all 82 Toss Up states to win.
Link: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html
Nice map he’s got there. TPM shows him at 328 and I think that’s the same as HuffPo.
Look up to see the flying pigs, down to see hell frozen over: #Obama opens up lead over #Romney with #NASCAR voters. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2012/0924/Obama-opens-up-lead-over-Romney-with-NASCAR-voters-Another-straw-the-wind#.UGNugGAddyc.
That 47% tape may have hurt even more than I had imagined 🙂
But at least Mitt Romney still has the lead among the NASCAR team owners
That’s not a very big constituency.
Drew Linzer’s model shows Obama currently winning with 341. He also addresses the poll truthers.
http://votamatic.org/projecting-ahead-to-election-day/
Maybe the ratfuckers think everyone is as bad as these morons on Fox?
TPM: Fox & Friends Distorts Data On Obama’s Spending Record
No, they’re just personally heavily invested in an Obama loss.
As a commenter said, I won’t be happy until Stench and Gilligan slap the shit out of each other.
Posted below but I love the visual! I can’t stop thinking about it, HA! So sorry.
House Majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC, has canceled ad buys for airtime in three television markets, according to Roll Call:
Are the Dems here ahead or too far behind for continued support? Who would a House PAC cancel on in the Boston market?
I’m not sure who they were supporting, but if they are pulling out that must mean they are confident of winning or losing. I can’t imagine and Dem congresspeople are losing in MA. That would be unbelievable with Obama getting 64% in the polls.
That’s what I was thinking. I hope they are pulling out of the Miami buy because Murphy is leading Allen West.
The Unreality-based party. No understanding of statistics, of economics, of science or of lives of the non-rich.
Build a man a fire and he is warm for a night. Set a man on fire and he is warm for the rest of his life.
What scares me is the last time we had “erroneous polling” was when all the exit polls showed that Kerry won Ohio in 2004 and yet, thanks to Diebold electronic voting, Bush won it.
“If we have to issue horse blinders to everyone on our campaign staff, we will.”
— Obama spokesperson Jen Psaki, quoted by Politicker, on the President Obama’s unexpectedly good poll numbers.
Here’s a campaign story. I think of these as political human interest maybe.
Obama campaign has momentum _ and nerves
They need to start competing in Indiana. Mourdock is behind the Dem candidate for Senate now. Also the woman running for Senate in North Dakota is still ahead and the Repub. has a corruption scandal brewing.
Yes, Obama needs to compete in Indiana. At least run some ads showing how the auto bailout helped turn around the economy in places like Kokomo, which was dying.
According to polling data Ralph posted this week, Obama is now down -4 or -5 in Indiana. A few weeks ago, Romney was up +16! Obama won Indiana in 2008. He could do that again this year if he puts some effort into it.
Mourdock is a lunatic with big-time cooties. Lugar has refused to support him and Daniels is staying away. I think Donnelly has a good chance to win.
Can’t forget Richard Carmona in Arizona.
Ralph Reed, what a good Christian – NOT! Check out Alternet & then click to see the survey his group mailed out to folks on their list. http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/ralph-reeds-faith-and-freedom-coalition-multiple-choice-survey-obama-nazi-or
I saw it and it made me sick. First, Ralph Reed should be in Jail. But beyond that, I am really tried of a life time of racist tropes in every political race in my memory. It just makes me want to scream. I have seen this shit all my life. I honestly did not see it in my teens, because I just didn’t think anyone living in America would do harm to this country just to win an election.
I kept working for Democrats. By the 80’s it exploded, I admit I didn’t see it coming. My parents were FDR democrats, and I still thank them for the history they gave me. And as I sit here today, and seeing clips that Chris Matthews played today, back to back, of republicans saying Obama (democrats) are not American and want to destroy this country, I want to know where the hell the Media is. Do they not see what is in front of them?
I just want it to stop. This is NOT politics. The fact that Romney has gotten away with no plan and what he would do, is amazing! Isn’t that what campaigns should be about?
Sorry for the rant.
I am quite agitated today, my sister, accidentally took double her medication, she is home now and seems ok. But hell, I have a short fuse right.
Actually, all polls are skewed. For example, if the poll is conducted over the phone it will have a Republican bias, since such calls usually go to landlines, not cells, and those who have a landline are usually older and/or more well-off, and therefore more likely to be Republican. And any poll results is also skewed by the fact that not everyone who answers the phone will agree to participate in the poll. (I don’t, in general) If the poll is over the Internet, it is skewed towards younger and more liberal. In fact, the Internet polls are so skewed that no self-respecting pollster uses them. So there is no way to get a truly random sample. But a series of random polls within even somewhat skewed populations can still be very good in identifying changes over time, and that’s what they are finding now.
I think that’s right. However some of the large media polls now call both landline and cell phones for a good mix. Nate Silver has a good discussion of that from earlier. Each individual poll has not a lot of value but when the all, or almost all, agree they’re not a bad predictor. Especially for trends.
Still, none of the polls can avoid the bias that some people will choose to participate and some won’t. And actual elections will not necessarily make things clearer since it is just another skewed poll of just the people who bother to show up.
Making myself sane again, on to something completely different.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/26/joan-crawford-oscar-sells-for-over-420000/
It turns out I was right that Roger Simon’s “Stench vs. Ryan” post was intended to be satire. I think the reason people didn’t quite get that is that the description of Ryan’s behavior was so realistic–particularly the power point presentation with only four slides.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/some-people-didnt-really-understand-that-romney
You were right bb, But I swear to god , it’s out there! And it’s such a good comparison I don’t it will matter, it’s stuck.
He said it was satire at the end of the post. There was a note there. I posted it on Cannonfire … he didn’t see the note either.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/09/26/917651/phoenix-mayor-attempts-to-live-on-a-food-stamp-budget-im-tired-and-its-hard-to-focus/
I should have added this SOB said “Stanton concluded on Facebook at the end of the challenge: “The best ‘program’ for any struggling family is a job that pays a living wage.” No Shit.
Also, if you want to really slap someone, Huffington Post’s headline said he lost 4 pounds!
Mitt Romney’s ‘Them’ Problem
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/mitt-romneys-them-problem/262890/
commentary about Romney’s new ad. Spot on.
Yes, Ralph it is. And have you noticed there is still left wing hate of Clinton in the comments?
Karma bites Republicans in the ass!
RNC-Backed Company Accused Of Voter Registration Fraud
I think, (tin foil hat) the Republicans are sitting up a fight after the election in close races. Here we come Supreme Court.