If the Election Were Held Today, Mitt Romney Would Be Elected President of the United States

http://libertarian-neocon.blogspot.com/2012/10/if-election-were-held-today-mitt-romney.html ^ | libertarian neocon

[libertarian neocon]

I know the meme that has been going around is that the Romney campaign is in trouble and Obama has this thing won.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  People are basing this conclusion on polls that are using 2008 as a basis for their turnout estimates, which is just not going to happen.

2008 is what is called a "wave" year where one party has a tsunami of votes that pushes them to victory across the board.  Besides winning the Presidency, the Democrats were able to pick up 21 additional House seats and a whopping 8 Senate seats, giving them a filibuster proof majority.  This came on the heels of a two term Republican presidency in which the incumbent became very unpopular due to a financial meltdown, which coincided almost exactly with the election, and the ongoing angst over the war in Iraq.  It also didn't help the Republicans that their nominees for President and Vice President hardly exuded competence or readiness for the job.  Besides Sarah Palin's disastrous media interviews there was that whole thing with McCain suspending his campaign to work on the financial crisis, then not doing anything.

For obvious reasons, 2012 is very different.  This time the Democrats are reaping what they have sowed with a 4 year recession, an inconceivably high debt and regulations that are felt nationwide.  Based on Gallup data, there have been some major shifts from 2008 in terms of party identification.  Let's take a look (h/t Michael Franc):

Party identifications shift as does turnout.  You can't assume that an election will look like the last one.  In 2004 in Ohio, Republicans had a 5% advantage over Democrats, which turned into an 8% deficit in 2008, that's a 13 point swing in 4 years!

As someone who works with models all the time (excel not fashion), one thing I've learned is that it is garbage in, garbage out.  If you want to get a certain answer you almost always can get it, irrespective of the underlying data.  In the polls we are seeing, it almost doesn't matter what people say, what is driving the results are the party turnout assumptions made by the analysts.

What you have to do to combat this is look at the underlying data itself and try to make adjustments to the assumptions.  Let's take a look at some polls.  In the National Journal poll that came out today, Romney and Obama were both tied at 47%, however this was based on a Democratic advantage of 7 points over Republicans essentially in line with 2008, which is obviously not going to happen.  Also, Romney is leading Obama by a full 8 points amongst Independents.  It's not hard to see that if Republican and Democratic voting is even close to parity, Romney is going to win this thing, and probably by 5-7%

I realize the National Journal poll is just one poll, so let's look at another one, CNN, which showed that Obama supposedly had a 3 point lead over Romney, 50-47.  Once again, they used 2008 as their model with an 8 point Democrat voter advantage but once again Romney is winning amongst Independents by 8%.

What about the state polls you ask?  Most of them are highly questionable with methodologies all over the place.  As we have seen from the Gallup table above, party identifications have shifted markedly since 2008 so as most pollsters are using 2008 numbers they are very wrong.  In fact, in some cases pollsters seem to be expecting a year even worse for Republicans than 2008, which is laughable.  In the Columbia Dispatch poll of Ohio voters, only 43% of their sample voted for McCain in 2008.  He took Ohio with 47%.  So that knocks off 4% off of Obama's 9% lead right there!  If you go state by state, you see similar issues.  In a We Ask America poll of Nevada voters, Obama supposedly has a 10 point lead over Romney despite the fact that Romney is actually winning independents by 15 points!  Given that party identification is almost at parity according to Gallup, I'd put Nevada in Romney's column.

And let's not forget the lesson from the Wisconsin recall election.  The Wisconsin exit polls were a great reminder how wrong polls can be.  Remember that they showed Walker tied with his opponent while in actuality he won by 7 whole points.  These polls were conducted the exact same day as the election and interviewed people as they were leaving the voting booth.  This means that you wouldn't get any skew due to people saying that they are likely voters when instead they are playing their PS3 on election day and yet it was still off by a whole 7 points!  

If Mitt Romney wins, I'm sure there will be liberals going nuts shouting how the Republicans stole the election because the results don't match the polls.  Well guess what, that is what happens when you take polls at face value and don't look at the details.

Now, let's just hope he does well tonight so he can make this election a real landslide.

[ozzymandus]

The election is next month, and that’s when Romney will be elected.

[Buckeye McFrog]

So if those numbers were to change between now and Election Day, what will be the cause of that?

- Sudden emergence of files of dirt on a Mormon?
- Wag the Dog attack on Libya?
- Obama proposing student loan forgiveness and mortgage principle cramdowns?
- National Emergency that forces postponing the election?

[chris37]

It isn’t being held today.

[Gaffer]

There are some very unhappy media liberals out there (and even a few pseudo-conservatives like Chris Wallace who blew up at another pundit for deigning to question the propriety of skewed samples in polling)...

They are becoming increasingly testy and taking umbrage at the most gentile probes into “this media process of pushing Barack Obama - again”....

Their biggest ally right now seems to be just outright friggin lying. On CNN today, they commented on the Obama 2007 “I’m really a black man” performance... they actually said they had “extensively reported on” the address. Their “extensive” coverage consisted of admitting he was there.In the end, they boiled it down to a “been there - done that” proposition where it was ‘old news’ not worth discussing any more.

If you want a real clue as to how fatalistic some of these sychopants are becoming, watch “The Five” sometime...that damned liberal fat ass Bob Beckel can barely summon up the energy to argue or come-back with anything convincing. Right now, he’s just collecting a paycheck, much like Obama’s constituents.

[alloysteel]

Wait at least until the 4th of October, AFTER the first debate has time to filter out to the far corners of America.

If the entire population of the United States also could see the motion picture documentary, “2016, Obama’s America”, MANY more hearts and minds would be moved to re-examine all the premises upon which the Current Regime has based its justification for ignoring much legal precedent and failure to enforce the legal code that already exists.

Dinesh D’Souza has shown that he recognizes and understands what motivates and drives the ideology to which the Current Occupant of the White Hut subscribes.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

“If the Election Were Held Today, Mitt Romney Would Be Elected President of the United States”

Not really. I just took a poll among my kitty cats. They voted for the Lion King.

It was K-7, R-0, O-0.

To there.

[alloysteel]

Wait at least until the 4th of October, AFTER the first debate has time to filter out to the far corners of America.

If the entire population of the United States also could see the motion picture documentary, “2016, Obama’s America”, MANY more hearts and minds would be moved to re-examine all the premises upon which the Current Regime has based its justification for ignoring much legal precedent and failure to enforce the legal code that already exists.

Dinesh D’Souza has shown that he recognizes and understands what motivates and drives the ideology to which the Current Occupant of the White Hut subscribes.

[libertarian neocon]

“So if those numbers were to change between now and Election Day, what will be the cause of that?

- Sudden emergence of files of dirt on a Mormon?
- Wag the Dog attack on Libya?
- Obama proposing student loan forgiveness and mortgage principle cramdowns?
- National Emergency that forces postponing the election?”

Since nobody has ever heard of the culprits in Libya I dont think that will be effective. Its not like getting Bin Laden, plus there are the ongoing issues of incompetence in the wake of the original attack. Besides not providing security despite requests, Obama also didnt allow our air force to intervene.

I think there could be dirt that they are saving for 5 days before the election like with W and his DUI but Romney is actually a pretty squeeky clean individual on a personal basis. He never went wild like W.

I think what can torpedo the whole thing would be bad debate performances that will get played over and over again in the media.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Not “to there.”

My finger got stuck on the wrong key. It should have been “so there.”

Sorry.

[muawiyah]

I find it difficult to believe anybody is still writing about polls, and theoretical turnout models, and all that when Pew said the standard response level these days is 9% of those randomly called or selected for interview (paper or in person) which means the age of the poll is over ~ done ~ kaput ~ fine ~ gone ~ wrecked!.

First off, the theoretical turnout models ~ my experience in reading about turnout is people are talking about RAW NUMBERS, not about modeling polls.

In fact, I've mentioned the actual turnout in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010 and even 2011 over the past few months in these discussions and actually had people get all upset that I was using an unsuitable "Turnout Model" ~ so, let's get this straight, if 10,000,000 people show up that's not a model ~ that's 10 million people.

The Democrats had 10 million more folks show up to vote Democrat in 2008 than the Republicans got to show up to vote Republican.

Or, another way to state it is the Democrats had 15% more voters than the Republicans.

They won all they needed to sit there and rule by dictat ~ which is what they did. Fortunately for the rest of us the Democrats are stupid and wasted their time focusing on looting the treasury first, then looting your pockets second (which is what Obamakkkare is all about ~ just in case you missed that part.

In 2010 Republicans turned out 15 million fewer voters than they had in 2008. Democrats, though, turned out 30 million fewer voters than they had in 2008.

Frankly, that sort of change in turnout is absolutely mind-boggling. Almost half the Democrats who'd voted in 2008 didn't bother in 2010! In living memory we've had presidential elections were we didn't get 30 million Democrats or Republicans out to vote, and the Democrats lost that many voters!

It's not likely the Democrats will do that again, but they could come in where Lurch did in 2004, and that'd beat the Republican turnout in 2008 ~ be a little tighter but we really did bad in 2008.

Right now I"m pretty sure nobody in the GOP-e cares one way or the other. They know they can't beat the Democrat 2008 turnout, and they probably can't get as much as "W" did in 2004, and might not even get as many as McCain did in 2008.

For their part the Democrats have no idea how they're going to do because polling ~ even the very expensive inhouse polls ~ just went belly up. If the background conditions are such that pollsters can only get 9% of those called to provide an answer that means there's simply no answer to get.

So, here's my guess ~ 63 million Republican voters to 63 million Democrat voters ~ and every exit poll is wrong ~ btw, exit polls are garbage because you can't do a random sample of the entire universe of folks covered by the poll and the result is they end up with a very large statistical error.

The concentration of Democrats in the blue states will continue to provide a basic modicum of electoral votes, and the concentration of Republicans in the red states will continue to provide a basic modcum of electoral votes.

Mistakes will be made, mistakes were made, and mistakes are being made ~ maybe tonight ~ maybe next week.

The outcome will depend on minute changes in the voters' attitudes which would be unmeasureable even back in the good old days when people didn't depend on their answering service to screen pollsters out of their calls!

One of the unknowables is how I will vote in Virginia, and in the end, this will be the most critical and most evenly divided state in the entire nation. How I vote will control the whole outcome. Nothing else counts.

So, who's offended me the most?

[muawiyah]

"W" didn't go wild like "W" and you know it.

BTW "W" did his military duty. These two guys didn't. NO skin in the game really.

From those who have, much is expected; from those who haven't, little is expected.

[garageconservative]

If you’re right, why is Romney trailing even at Rasmussen?

[libertarian neocon]

“”W” didn’t go wild like “W” and you know it. “

I read his memoirs and it sure sounded like he did. Anyway that was before he found God. It sounds like Romney has led a religious and upright life for the duration.

[fortheDeclaration]

True.

[fortheDeclaration]

Still overcounting Democrats, just less so.

[muawiyah]

Wrong religion ~ which usually isn't much of a problem here. My goodness we've elected three out and out Unitarian church members, and a couple more who some thought had Unitarian leanings.

Romney would do much better as a Baptist

[muawiyah]

BTW, never was a heavy drinker but when I developed diabetes I gave up even vanilla flavor for my high protein low carb gluten free pancakes!

"W" gave up stuff that people give up all the time even without earlier having had any sort of problem with it.

Democrats are the only folks who assume he was a falling down drunk 24/7 ~ that's what they do!

[libertarian neocon]

“If you’re right, why is Romney trailing even at Rasmussen?”

I don’t really know. I only mentioned national polls where I could see the Democrat vs Republican split and the Independent percentage. I dont subscribe to Rasmussen so I have no idea what the under the hood numbers are to his latest poll.

[Leto]

Ras’s model is like +3% D, it is indeed skewed.