Just go vote. Forget 2008, remember 2010 and Chik-fil-a Day. If people waited an hour for a chicken sandwich, do you think they are going to forget to vote? There is too little bandwidth for all the nervous-nellies and eeyoring going on around here.
” Three days out from election, the CBS/NYT poll had Reagan up by ONE point. Reagan won by TEN.”
That’s the key.
Carter had us in a horrible situation at that time and STILL the pollsters had it “too close to call”.
We look back in hindsight and we wonder how people could have been so stupid to feed such garbage to their viewers. And you have to wonder what was the reaction of those that were old enough to vote back then seeing someone like Reagan TIED with Carter just before an election that netted a landslide so epic that Carter quit before the sun went down.
Dont fret polling. Do your part, keep your nervousness to yourself, Dont spread garbage you get in your email, on blogs, and on Twitter to others, and just show up on Tuesday.
Obama himself underperformed to what he polled with heavy D turnout. He’ll underperform even worse Tuesday due to a number of polling factors that now skew things in a D direction. The GOP has narrowed the gap on absentees and I expect alot of D crossover as well.
Ummm ... we're on the same side, but let's be honest about 1980. Reagan won by 10% but his vote total was only a tad above 50%, at 50.7%. He won by 10 because independent John Anderson had 7% of the vote. These are voters who specifically didn't want Reagan, voters who were extremely displeased with Washington DC, and voters who, had Anderson not been running, would've voted reluctantly for Carter or just stayed home.
None would've voted for Reagan. Why? Because if they were leaning Reagan, they would've known that a vote for Anderson was a vote against Reagan already.
My guess is that without Anderson, the vote would've split 80% Carter and 20% stay at homes.
Curiously, this means a margin for Reagan of about 4 points (51-47), which is about as good as we might expect from Romney.
Implications:
Reagan's revolution didn't really cement until after the economy got worse and then turned around. Regardless of how well we loved him.
Americans don't like to fire their Presidents, even Presidents as incompetent as Obama.
The only one of those stories reported with repetition was Carter racing back to the White House. He tried the same stunt with Kennedy in the spring and won a slew of primaries.
NBC had a great political show on Sunday late night. It was objective and had the Reagan states in blue. I waited for it every week of the campaign. I felt really good after that last show. I feel the same way now.
Good article, but the report then goes on to stay its purpose is to show that earlier polls showing Reagan ahead were flawed and only those polls showing statistical ties were “correct”. How? Well, they claim that a repolling of 90% of prior respondees showed 8% changed their mind after the prior poll, just as they went to the booths.
I would call this “Grabbing at ‘straws polls’.” (Pun intended)
Do not be surprised almost every "battleground state" goes for Romney and even the normally Left-leaning Minnesota will be a up for grabs--even though it will not affect the election because Romney would have won decisively anyway.
Tight races are good for TV ratings. Follow the money, better ratings = higher advertising rates.
Carter’s Job Approval was much worse than Obama’s. Also there are a lot more polls now. The election’s going to be close, but looks like Romney’s doing OK, assuming Rove’s analysis of Ohio is correct (Romney wins by 80,000 to 120,000, base on EV results so far.)