LFR Poll: Prez, Senate Races Within Margin of Error (Pennsylvania now a toss up?)

A poll commissioned by conservative non-profit group Let Freedom Ring, Inc. and obtained by PoliticsPA shows President Obama leading Mitt Romney 47 percent to 45. Sen. Bob Casey leads Tom Smith 44 percent to 41.

The survey of 1,000 likely Pa. voters was conducted by Pulse Opinion Strategies on Oct. 8 via automated dials. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percent.

Obama holds a positive job approval rating, 51 percent to 48. His personal favorability is nearly identical, 50 percent to 48. Romney’s personal approval rating is split, 48 percent favorable and 48 unfavorable.

Obama wins women 49 percent to 43. Romney wins men 47 percent to 44. They split independent/other 36 percent each.

Casey leads women 48 percent to 40. Smith leads men 43 percent to 38.

Smith leads among independent/other voters 36 percent to 28.

Pulse is a subsidiary of Rasmussen Reports; it does the nitty gritty of conducting and processing their polls. So, for all intents and purposes, this can be looked at through the same lens as Rasmussen numbers. That means that its sample includes only households with landlines, not cell phones – something that critics contend can skew polls because they underrepresent younger voters, who tend to lean Democratic.

Rasmussen released a poll Wednesday, conducted Oct. 9, that showed a much healthier 51 percent to 46 percent margin for Obama in Pa.

Let Freedom Ring, Inc. is a conservative issue advocacy organization that works with Tea Parties. Its website describes it as, “a non-profit public policy organization committed to promoting Constitutional government, free enterprise and traditional values.”

All internal polls should be taken with a grain of salt. However, unlike most organizations or candidates that commission polls, Let Freedom Ring shared the survey’s crosstabs and poll questions with PoliticsPA.

The survey’s sample includes 53 percent women, 47 percent men. 45 percent of respondents identified as Democrats, 39 percent as Republicans and 15 percent other.

Here are some tidbits from the Presidential race:

77 percent of respondents said they watched the debate. 66 percent of those said Romney won.

Obama leads self-described moderates 55 percent to 31.

And here are some notable details from the Senate race:

Smith leads voters 65 and older by double digits, 52 percent to 41.

Casey has a wide lead among self-described moderates, 51 percent to 25.

This is extremely rough mental math. I don’t know the internal numbers on these polls, but if we assume 30 percent of the electorate in Pennsylvania are independent, then look what happens. We know that 72 percent of independent voters in this poll are already committed, 36 for Obama and 36 for Romney. That leaves roughly 28 percent who would be classified as undecided and independent. I’ll round down just to make things easy, so we will that 25 percent of independent voters are still undecided. If independent voters are 30 percent of the overall PA electorate, that means about 7.5 percent of the electorate is independent and undecided. If those people break two to one for Romney, that adds a little over 5 points to Romney’s total, and roughly 2.5 points to Obama’s. With Obama currently up by 2 points, that would mean a Romney win. The larger the percentage of independents, the more Romney would presumably gain.

PA Voter Registration and Party Enrollment as of June 28, 2010
Party	Number of Voters	Percentage
	Democratic	4,309,604	51.00%
	Republican	3,122,036	36.95%
	Unaffiliated	492,077	5.82%
	Minor Parties	525,962	6.22%
Total	8,449,679	100%

If....if Zero and Mittens were even tied right now, that would still mean a 5% margin of victory for Zero. It’s Pennsylvania.

We got screwed on Voter ID, which was the only thing that would have kept fraud down to moderate levels.

Pennsylvania will go one of two ways: if Obama is within 5 points of Romney, the Dem fraud machine will go into overdrive, and will produce just enough votes for Obama to win.

If Romney is 6 points or more ahead, they may decide not to spend the money on shill voters, and Romney will win PA in a blowout. Republicans almost NEVER win on squeakers.

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