Rasmussen: R 46, O 46: With Leaners: R 48, O 48. Obama at -11%.

Rasmussen Reports ^ | 09/23/2012 | Scott Rasmussen

[SoftwareEngineer]

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows President Obama and Mitt Romney each attracting support from 46% of voters nationwide. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and five percent (5%) are undecided. See daily tracking history.

When “leaners” are included, the candidates are tied at 48%. Leaners are those who are initially uncommitted to the two leading candidates but lean towards one of them when asked a follow-up question.

[nhwingut]

Rasmussen still has Obama losing independents by 12 points as well. I can’t imagine there would be any scenerio that he could win the election while losing I’s by that margin.

Take a look at this...

Obama won indies by 8 in 2008. Won election by 7. (Indy margin off 1)

Bush tied indies in 2004. Won election by 2. (Indy margin off 2)

Bush lost indies by 2 in 2000. Tied national vote (essentially). (Indy margin off 2).

Bottomline: Whatever the indy vote is (i.e. Obama +3, Romney +7), subtract 1 or 2 (in Dems favor) and there is your national election.

Right now it would be Romney by 10.

[Happy Rain]

Does the political axiom that unless the incumbent has at least 50% the challenger wins?

The way the DOJ has been desperately fighting voter ID laws they must have a huge voter fraud offensive planned for November.

If so and Obama steals the election will the GOP, if they win both houses of congress, have the guts to impeach an in-your face corrupt president who committed well documented unconstitutional acts that easily exceed the high crimes and misdemeanors threshold?

Or will it be meet me in Texas with plenty of guns, gold and groceries?

[Jake8898]

A D+2 or +3 is a realistic poll. It will not be D+7 or D=R this election.

[BlueStateRightist]

The MSM and the Marxist campaign certainly see the Ras numbers. Watch for a redoubled effort this week to establish the Marxist as running away with the election, and Romney is definitely going to have some “stumbles” after hitting more “potholes” on the campaign trail. We need to EXPECT this type of response and remain strong. Romney is displaying a degree of Teflon and it’s very encouraging.

[tatown]

Bottom line is that if the polls are accurately reflecting his deficit among indies, he can’t win.

[mikrofon]

Were any previous campaigns tied like this for such a long period?

Or is this just good political “theater”...

[PLK]

That 15% Republican isn't voting for Obama...there are other candidates...others may just sit this one out...

The end result is the same. If they think they are proving a point by "sitting this one out," they need to remember it is the SAME as pulling the lever for Obama. Personally, I don't know how they can live with themselves. What a shame.

[Leto]

“A D+2 or +3 is a realistic poll. It will not be D+7 or D=R this election.”

Why wouldn’t it be D=R or R+2?

It was R+1.6 in 2010. What is better for Obama since then?

[dps.inspect]

You got it, the media has nothing if there is no horse race... if either one was leading by leaps and bounds, the media could not make the cushy living they now enjoy, both lib & con.

[who knows what evil?]

If they are ‘sitting this one out’ why are they called likely voters?

My apologies...I didn't catch 'likely voters'...in any event; I still don't see 'Republicans' voting for Obama...they are voting third party (Goode and so forth), or they are screwing with the pollster.

[Ravi]

My heart agrees with you but my brain disagrees. Too many moonbats but also very little enthusiasm for obama. Maybe R+2 will manifest. For now though, i’ll go with D+2.

[tatown]

There is zero chance they’re voting third party. My guess is that they’ll end up voting Romney.

[Mouton]

My sense about the 89% dem vote for O is a good indicator his stance on the marriage and fag issues are hurting him in the color community. That is a good thing because everyone who does not vote for O is half a vote for Romney IMO.

[GOPGuide]

Rasmussen still has Obama losing independents by 12 points as well.

What D/R/I model is Ras using?

Although I doubt Rasmussen is deliberately oversampling Ds, if Romney leads by 12 among Independents and is still tied with Obama then maybe Rasmussen needs to adjust his model. Morris says Ras is using a model that combines the 2008 and 2004 models, but that's still likely to D friendly because of the unusually good year Dems had in 2008.

How does his 2012 model compare to his 2004 & 2008 turnout assumptions?

[who knows what evil?]

Right now it would be Romney by 10.

You'll look like a prophet (no, not that one) if that comes to pass... :-)

[who knows what evil?]

He should be using the ‘Chick-fil-A’ model...

[nathanbedford]

Accepting Rasmussen's numbers at face value, both candidates stand at 48% and therefore the one who can pick up the lion's share of 2% will win.

There are three sources from which a candidate can draw these additional votes: 1) energize his own base; 2) garner votes from independents; 3) poach on the opponent's base.

1) Although Rasmussen has Romney attracting his base at a rate 4% less than Obama is attracting his base, common sense dictates that intensity is greater among Republicans than among Democrats. Rasmussen points out that intensity is less of a factor in presidential elections than it is in off midterm elections. I do not understand why that should be so this time around, or at least not true to the norm. Obama has done nothing to lessen the intensity Republicans felt in 2010 which was overwhelming. The question, of course, is whether the Republicans' relative intensity will match that of 2010? The answer is almost certainly that it will not but it will certainly be larger than 2008.

What of the Democrats? They almost certainly will not be able to match the intensity of 2008 and they might indeed not materially improve the numbers they posted 2010. Yet Rasmussen says that Obama is winning 4% more of his base than Romney is of his base.

My subjective belief is that Obama has probably registered all the Democrats he is going to register or very close to it at 89%. But Romney had 85% and is likely to get about 92% of Republicans. I say this because of the broken glass phenomenon of which we are all so well aware.

I also suspect that the softness in Romney's numbers reflect many conservatives who are distinctly unhappy with the choice of Romney because he is a Rino but I believe that more more of them will dutifully troop to the polls to stop Obama on election day. Further, I believe many of the same sort of conservatives, of whom I count myself one, are desperately disappointed with the Republican House. These conservatives might well be telling the pollster that they are not identifying as Republicans or they are not committed to the ticket yet. I believe they will be on election day and for the same reason.

2) By the same logic, one ought to concede that Romney will not fare as well among independents going forward relative to Obama as he is now because he is already leading by 12%. I reject that because I believe that independents have yet another 5 to 10% advantage to yield to Romney providing he does not screw up in the debates. If one accepts the general wisdom that independents are in that state because they are of a mood to reject the incumbent but have not yet determined that the challenger is credit worthy, one must conclude that Obama has almost nothing to offer these people. In fact he has offered nothing new, no new solutions for the economy, no new doctrines for foreign affairs, nothing new. Instead he is said that he will prevent the rich from getting richer. This might be an appeal which energizes Obama's base but I think it will have much less traction among independents who as a class look for positive solutions.

Therefore, I believe Romney will increase his advantage among independents.

3) I believe it is highly unlikely for Obama to make significant inroads into Romney's base. His seriously disapprove numbers are simply too high. There is no need to dwell at length on the visceral opposition among Republicans to Obama.

What of Romney's chances among Democrats? Here there appears to be a target rich environment for Romney. Lunchpail Democrats should respond to his program for employment. Gas prices and electric bills disproportionately affect middle and lower middle classes and Romney has the potential-if only he would wake up and see it-to make energy an issue which brings Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and other Rust Belt Democrats into his camp. Romney should be able to win Jewish votes in Florida if he presses Obama's record in the Mideast and particularly with Israel. Jewish vote in the suburbs of Philadelphia could help him. Romney might be able to dent the Hispanic vote if he concentrates on the jobless rate among Hispanics and emphasizes Obama's jihad against the Catholic Church. I would think, without actual data to prove it, that married Hispanic women would be amenable to this approach.

I think Romney as a tactical matter can plead his case to women, especially white single women with children, by emphasizing the misery Obama's policies have caused women as a class. This means that Romney has actually to go on the attack and actually connect the dots.

I would rather be in Romney's position looking for these extra votes than in Obama's but I just heard Ron Brownstein on CNN saying that Obama is holding his own among African-Americans as he did in 2008 and he need therefore only win 40% of the whites to put him over the top. I heard no one question Brownstein on the validity of his polling data especially as it related to the relative number of Republicans vs. Democrats polled.

I would be interested in reactions to my subjective musings.

[SamAdams76]

Skewing the poll D+2 doesn't matter if Romney is winning the Independents by 12 points. Obama won Independents by 7 points in 2008 so if this is accurate, we have a 19 point turnaround in what represents around 1/3 of the electorate.

I'm thinking we actually see a R+2 or R+3 turnout at least for this election - really don't think this race is anywhere as close as the mainstream media/pollsters are making it. I have a feeling the Romney people know this (through their internal polling) and that explains the "complacency" many of us are complaining about.

If I was running Romney's campaign and my internals showed me leading by 8-12 points, I would have the same approach. Play it safe, prepare my candidate for the debates and save my advertising blitz for the final four weeks.

[prov1813man]

Voting other candidates, sitting this one out, etc., still adds up to an Obama vote same exact result as Black Panthers in Philly got.

When we vote, we win. When we don’t, they win.

[tatown]

I have to agree and it’s why I posed the question, how can Obama win with such a large deficit among indies...even using 2008 turnout models??