When I see the MSM reporting a virtual tie between Obama and Romney, my bullshit meter goes off. The MSM is overwhelmingly liberal, with only Fox News openly rooting for Romney. The liberal press hates Romney. Therefore, I believe their polls are probably skewed in favor of Obama. The article below makes a good case for a Romney victory. I believe he is right.
Flawed Poll Models Underestimating Romney’s Lead
Courtesy of Russ Winter of Winter Watch at Wall Street Examiner
Partisans on both sides have been making claims of a lead in the polls — the Republicans cite the national polls and the Democrats the state. I’m not a partisan or a Romney supporter, but I feel compelled to argue that the poll models are flawed and underestimating Romney’s lead.
As far as modeling in these polls, the example of Marist and Mason-Dixon in Florida is illustrative of skewing. Marist tends to report big Obama leads, and M-D has reported decent Romney results.
From the Tampa Bay Herald: “Mason-Dixon, which has been polling in Florida for 28 years, uses a survey sample based on people’s voter actual registration to match the electorate in Florida, while Marist uses a sample based on whether people say they consider themselves a Republican, Democrat or independent. About 20 percent of the likely voters in the Marist poll were Hispanic, while 13 percent were Hispanic in the Mason-Dixon poll, more in line with the Florida voting patterns.”
Nationally, Pew Research illustrates Obama’s problem, as does a new Washington Post poll. The first Pew chart shows Romney’s strong supporters exploding in October, once he showed up at the debates appearing to be a moderate. Right now, each candidate has about the same level of strong supporters..
However, the badly flawed state polls don’t show that 5 percent fewer strong Obama supporters are more likely to vote than among Romney’s base.
Obama’s problem is even worse among leaning Democrats. This support, as I have predicted, hasn’t materialized. Only 62% of Democrats and Dem leaners were likely to vote or even registered to vote, and figure that hasn’t budged since September. That’s the real knockout blow for Obama.
Meanwhile, GOP and GOP leaners likely to vote have risen from 69% in September to 76% this month, which is a big 14% spread over Dems. This suggests that Dem leaners could be over counted in these polls relative to Republican leaners.
The Washington Post/ABC poll considers “partisan independents,” for which the gap is 8 percent Republican. Of Republican-leaning independents, 92 percent say they plan to support Romney, while 84 percent of Democratic-leaning independents are backing Obama.
The less partisan the voter, the worse outcome for Obama. When tracked for likely independent voters (including true independents), the Washington Post poll reveals an even more disastrous scenario for Obama. In the Post’s last three polls, Obama trailed Romney among independent voters by a range of 16 to 20 percent. That’s a striking reversal since 2008, when Obama won independent voters (who were 29 percent of the electorate) by 8 points over Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Another poll NPR gives Romney a 50-37 lead among independent voters definitely or probably going to vote.
Finally, Obama has lost considerable support among two groups of likely voters: whites and seniors. In 2008, Obama trailed among white voters by 12% over McCain. This election, it’s 20%. It’s even worse among voters over 65. Obama trailed seniors 8 percent in 2008 and lags 19 percent today, according to the Pew poll. Obama has overwhelming support among black voters, but turnout is expected to drop to 59 percent this year, compared to the record breaking 65% in the last election. Among more unlikely voters ages 18-29, Obama has lost 13% of his margin since 2008, and can expect a much lower turnout to boot.
Purple Strategies (PS) illustrates some of the skewing issues with the state polls. It gives Ohio to Obama by 2 percent and Colorado to Obama by 1 percent. However, the PS independent-vote tally doesn’t square with the Post/ABC at all. PS labels 32 percent of Colorado voters as “independent” and surveyed a 42-42 split between Obama-Romney. They label 38 percent of Ohio voters as independent and gave those votes to Romney, 42-40. Yet, as mentioned before, the Post/ABC poll has consistently scored independents as favoring Romney, 16-20. PS used a 34(D)-33(R) sample in their registered-voter split, yet there are 837,732 active registered Republicans and 739,778 active registered Democrats in Colorado.
Further, even if the PS assessment is correct or even close, the likelihood of an Obama-leaning independent showing up to vote is much less likely than a Romney-leaning independent. Among all registered voters, 69 percent of Republican-leaning independents say they are following the election closely, while just 49 percent of Democratic-leaning independents say the same. Among “pure” independents, 41 percent say they are closely following the election.
Democrat-voter registration is down in many key battleground states, and there has been a big increase in Independents — even more so than Republicans. In Ohio, about 7.9 million people are registered to vote in Ohio for the November election. That’s down from about 8.2 million registered to vote in 2008. In Cuyahoga County alone (a Obama hotbed in 2008) , there are about 80,000 fewer registered voters than there were four years ago.
The Gravis poll in Iowa identifies its sample as 41 percent Democrats, 35 percent Republicans and only 24 percent Independent. The Dems and Reps surveyed said they were voting along party lines, while the Indies favored Romney 48-36, or 12 points. Because of the Dem-skew in the survey’s sample, Gravis gives Iowa to Obama by 4 points. Current Iowa voter registration figures show 35 percent are registered Independent, 33 percent GOP and 32 percent Democrat.
Even a more balanced national poll like IBD/TIPP, which gives Obama a 1.4% lead, shows a heavy 38-31 Dem skew in their sample that’s almost along the lines of the 2008 vote. The reason Romney is close is that the poll scores the Independent vote fairly high at 32 percent, although the 8-percent spread to Romney is lower than with other polls. The poll’s details: Sample size reflects 942 likely voters, who were identified from 1,091 registered voters with a party affiliation of 38 percent Democrat, 31 percent GOP and 32 percent Independent.
In sum, my election prediction is a 3-percent edge for Romney in the popular vote, and 301 to 237 lead in the electoral vote (see second to last chart) — and that’s giving Obama’s battleground-state ground-game strategy considerable credit for getting leaners into the voting booth. I project Pennsylvania will be close, with the outcome dependent on whether the 828,000 people without power get services restored before the election. Michigan may be closer than generally believed. Gasoline should be spiking by Election Day, which could psychologically effect voter outcome. Turn out nationally will be 6 percent below 2008 levels.
A Romney outcome would be perfectly consistent with Europe, where incumbents are booted out and replaced with new incumbents, who quickly become unpopular. Romney will have a huge mess on his hands.
This final chart shows national polls that are more accurately skewed and show a small Romney lead.
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Copyright © 2012 The Wall Street Examiner. All Rights Reserved. The above may be reposted with attribution and a prominent link to The Wall Street Examiner.
Reds fan says:
Obama is going down!
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1st November 2012 at 9:22 pm
John says:
I hope so. Fuck Obama.
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1st November 2012 at 10:12 pm
Llpoh says:
Hope Admin is right. I second John’s sentiment.
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1st November 2012 at 10:22 pm
Jackson, with a bet for the Administrator, says:
I voted for Gary Johnson because Ron Paul wasn’t on the presidential ballot in my state and because Johnson was the best of those who were.
Between the Frank Marshall Davis’ boy, Barack, and Bibi’s boy, Mitt, I prefer the latter. The reasons: Mitt hasn’t won the Orwellian War is Peace prize and he’s violated the Constitution less than the President of the Drones has.
Unfortunately, unlike the hopeful Administrator, I think B O will win. I’m persuaded by the Intrade put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is poll.
In fact I’m so sure that the sun, now setting on our republic, will sink after November 6th and that gloom and maybe doom will follow, that I’m willing to back my convictions with bucks.
Adminstrator, here’s my offer: If Mitt wins, I’ll contribute $25 to TBP; If Obomba wins, I and my disAlter Ego, IraK, want your promise that you’ll continue to berate politicians, the government, Paul Krugman, Ben Bernanke, and especially Dick Cheney, with the most scurrilous language for as long as you have interest and energy enough to write . Do we have a bet?
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1st November 2012 at 10:52 pm
SSS says:
I question Ohio’s 18 electoral votes for Romney and Iowa’s 6 votes. That’s 24 off Romney’s column, which still leaves him with 277 and still enough to win by a whisker.
Ron Paul for Chairman of the Federal Reserve or Secretary of the Treasury. I can still dream, can’t I.
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1st November 2012 at 10:55 pm
SSS says:
“Adminstrator, here’s my offer: If Mitt wins, I’ll contribute $25 to TBP; If Obomba wins, I and my disAlter Ego, IraK, want your promise that you’ll continue to berate politicians, the government, Paul Krugman, Ben Bernanke, and especially Dick Cheney, with the most scurrilous language for as long as you have interest and energy enough to write . Do we have a bet?”
—-Jackson
I’ll bump that bet up to $100.
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1st November 2012 at 10:59 pm
Here you go John says:
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1st November 2012 at 11:38 pm
Stan says:
Obama will win. I have said it all along.
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1st November 2012 at 11:38 pm
Here you go John says:
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1st November 2012 at 11:40 pm
IndenturedServant says:
When attending the Silver Summit last week, Road to Roota (Bix Wier) gave out “Write in Ron Paul” ballpoint pens. I just used mine to do exactly that so now Obutthole will likely win.
I_S
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1st November 2012 at 11:58 pm
AKAnon says:
Admin, I’ll tell you what: If Ron Paul wins, I’ll send in $1,000. And I’ll be smiling as I mail it in, too.
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1st November 2012 at 12:06 am
ecliptix543 says:
I quit giving a shit about this charade many, many years ago. My only hope at this point is that whoever wins does so with notably less than 50% of the popular vote, and is in opposition to a majority in at least one house of congress. Then, nothing will get done, none of them can claim any sort of mandate, and the system collapses under its own fetid corruption and dies. Fuck ‘em all.
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1st November 2012 at 1:56 am
Administrator says:
Jackson & SSS
That sounds like a can’t lose bet for me. I’m good at berating.
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1st November 2012 at 7:48 am
TJF says:
Does it really matter which one of these two wins? There won’t be any appreciable difference.
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1st November 2012 at 8:22 am
flash says:
Early on , The homo-infested godless ilk of MSM , most of whom have never set foot in Christian church blathered incessantly on how Christians wouldn’t support a Mormon cultist for POTUS.
Well, if the the homo infatuated multi-colored and delusional MSM had the slightest clue about what fundamentalists actually believe they would know that Christians are taught from birth that the Jews are God’s chosen people and during the tribulation no nation that attacks Israel will be spared, therefore no Christian want to be on the wrong side of God and Israel.
Now whether fact or fiction,for the last 4 years it has been purposefully drilled drilled into the minds of the majority of Christan that Obama is a Muslim and which by default is anti-Semitic and thus makes him a pariah amongst Christian voters.
Obama has effectively lost the Christian right vote which in the southern State is the majority…with the possible exception of the heathen Yankee infested state of Florida.
Across the broad spectrum of Unions, Christians , military and gender Romney owns the white vote.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203707604578090962267200892.html
Henninger: Romney’s Secret Voting Bloc
Mitt Romney’s margin of victory in Ohio could be evangelical Christians.
By DANIEL HENNINGER
You’ve heard about Mitt Romney’s problems with the women’s vote, the black vote, the Hispanic vote, the union vote and the young Democrats vote. But there’s one major voting group that’s fallen off the map since the primaries.
The evangelical vote.
When Mitt Romney’s 2012 candidacy was gaining traction in the primaries, the conventional wisdom instantly conveyed that the evangelical vote, skeptical of Mormonism, would sink him.
What if in Ohio next week the opposite is true? There and in other swing states—Wisconsin, Iowa, North Carolina, Florida—the evangelical vote is flying beneath the media’s radar. It’s a lot of voters not to notice. In the 2008 presidential vote, they were 30% of the vote in Ohio, 31% in Iowa and 26% in Wisconsin.
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Reuters
Mitt Romney meets with Billy Graham at his North Carolina home, Oct. 11.
Back in April, the policy director of the Southern Baptist Convention, Richard Land, predicted that evangelicals in time would coalesce behind Mitt Romney. Yesterday he endorsed Mr. Romney, the first time he has done so for any presidential candidate.
Ralph Reed, the president of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, has been spending a lot of time in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in the belief that evangelical support for Mr. Romney could be decisive. He notes that when George W. Bush won Ohio in 2004, the Kerry camp thought their dominance of Democratic Cuyahoga County around Cleveland had the state locked up. But Mr. Bush’s solid support in evangelical-dominated counties from Cincinnati to the West Virginia border carried Ohio by two percentage points.
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1st November 2012 at 8:45 am
sensetti says:
Flash, spot on analysis
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1st November 2012 at 9:48 am
GreasedUpWillie says:
Voted for Gary Johnson, which of the other two turds wins doesn’t make a difference. they are both statist, big government, pro bailout douchebags. The only difference I can see is that Romney is more likely to get us in a war with Iran, since him and Netanyahu have been best friends for decades. So IMO Romney is Obama, but with an additional war for us to fight with Iran. So based on that I guess I might have a weak preference for Obama, but not enough to actually vote for the douche.
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1st November 2012 at 4:34 pm
Ron says:
No decent Catholics or Right to lifers well vote for Obama. Today i saw a quote from Harry Reid that if Romney wins he wont work with him.My dad asked me if the president can get rid of idiots like Reid,I said no only the union guys can do that and they support this idiot in Nevada.
If Romney loses,it would be interesting to see if the write in votes did it.Ive said Romney should have thrown RP a bone and gotten his supporters votes.
I sadly removed my RP stickers from the van.While i like almost all his thinking,he sure did run a stinker campaign.When the Iran war is finally talked about.And peoples lives are finally effected.Then people well remember RP and his antiwar position.
My dad was asking me when people well finally wake up?I told him when the free shit stops.Most sheeple are asleep.
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1st November 2012 at 1:41 am