Poll: Romney takes lead over Obama in Pa.

abc27.com ^ | Oct 18, 2012

[hudsonohio]

Can someone explain how the sampling works? Do the pollsters decide on their sample percentages (say 40% dem, 30% repubican and 30% indep) and then call 40% registered dems, 30% registered reps and 30% independents or do they call a thousand people and if the amount of republicans happened to be 50% they eliminate 20% of those responses because their republican target was 30%.

Never understood how this works

[NY4Romney]

They just weight it based on their desired percentage. Think of it like homework - if you have two assignments, one worth 60% of your final grade and one worth 40%, it doesn’t matter what you get on each one, they multiply the final result by .40 and .60 respectively.

Likewise, if they called 10 republicans and 90 democrats, but they wanted an even sample, they would just times 50% by what the republicans prefer and 50% of what the democrats prefer to eat their sample.

[Claud]

You have a point. I’ve lived in the Philly suburbs all my 41 years so far.

McCain and Palin didn’t seem to be well liked in the area...Obama may have scared people, but there was little eagerness for the GOP ticket on its own in 2008.

I think Romney/Ryan is winning the suburbs over. Probably for the reasons you mentioned.

[Claud]

LOL...that would be funny.

[angcat]

I don't know I work with people who are still going to vote for Obama yet I have to explain things like the NASA Muslim Outreach program and Operation F&F and the Obamacare to these idiots. I have yet to even cover the murder of Stevens and the unemployment numbers.

[hudsonohio]

Thanks

[huldah1776]

““Bitter clingers” to God and Country, they.”

My first thought, also. All the hunters in PA should be reminded to vote and those who were lied to in Philly and suburbs MAY stay home. Every once in a blue moon I see a new lib bumper sticker. I find it hard to make myself use the breaks.

[huldah1776]

Philadelphia Population definition and source info Population, 2011 estimate 1,536,471 12,742,886

Pittsburgh
Population, 2011 estimate 1,227,066 12,742,886

Other large suburb counties 1,500,000

My Congress Critter is a Republican and Obama took this and so is the Gov. of PA

2008 Bucks County results
1 A Obama, Barack DEM 179031
1 B McCain, John REP 150248

Would PA be considered a swing state because the rural/suburb population is equal to or greater than the urban population?

I would not be surprised if PA goes to Romney

[Vigilanteman]

If Pennsylvania could only get rid of the cancer in Philadelphia, we’d vote like Kentucky.

[onyx]

We just got back from vacation. Every hotel we booked into required my wife to show her photo ID.

Of course. Democrats want voter fraud.

[onyx]

I like the “Non-Prophet Orgs.” :)

ROTFL. I do too.

I'm pretty sure it's a mistake, but I love it.

[onyx]

I’m pretty sure it’s a mistake, but a very funny one.

I laugh every time I post the graphic.

[PapaBear3625]

Can someone explain how the sampling works? Do the pollsters decide on their sample percentages (say 40% dem, 30% repubican and 30% indep) and then call 40% registered dems, 30% registered reps and 30% independents or do they call a thousand people and if the amount of republicans happened to be 50% they eliminate 20% of those responses because their republican target was 30%. Never understood how this works

I've gotten several poll calls. At the end, they ask me my party affiliation, sex, age range, and other demographic data. I'm guessing they use that to weight the responses according to a formula.

I like having fun with them on automated polls, by selecting that I'm a black, female, democrat who hates Obama.

[swpa_mom]

I’m sure you didn’t really mean to call Pennsylvania republicans idiots.

The bedroom communities of Philly have been invaded by East Coast liberals. The same is happening to the once very conservative suburbs of Pittsburgh.

I really do hope that this poll is correct, although my realistic nature tells me it will be very difficult to overcome the union vote and the welfare vote of Philly and Pittsburgh.

Coal miners aren’t going to be fooled this year, many were in 2008. Central PA turnout in 2008 was horrible. There were so many conservatives who did their best to convince others to not vote for McCain, remember teach the party a lesson stuff? (some are still trying but they’re being ignored). Get the central part out, hope for a bad weather day and PA just might be in play.

JUST VOTE!

[pettifogger]

It’s the supposedly “Republican” counties surrounding Philly that have put Democrats over the top for 20 years.

Chester County PA bump.

Not an Obama sign to be found in my neighborhood this year -- very different than 2008. Several Romney signs and a few bumper stickers. A lone, annoying royal blue "2012" bumper sticker on a neighbor's car taunts me regularly, but it belongs to an elementary school teacher, so I suppose it can't be helped.

Laughed out loud on the PA Turnpike this week when a flashy white Mercedes with that same 2012 sticker passed my respectable Ford with the understated Romney magnet. 1% indeed.

[jarofants]

Good night Dad.

[Michael Barnes]

I cross into Allegheny county quite a bit (Pittsburgh’s county). I am amazed at the number of NoBama signs, empty chairs on peoples front lawns; one really starting to pop up is “Free America, Fire Obama”. I don’t know about the eastern side of the state however. Philly is our problem child in PA.

[GlockThe Vote]

I live in NYS and gladly say my state is full of idiots and morons.

[haircutter]

OK all...
I've got the message...
I'm much too old and uneducated to compete with you all..

so I'll set back and read your advice, maybe once in a while I'll even follow it...

it's hard for seniors to coop with the world of genius's we have created...I've had a wonderful life, so I'll allow you all to lead and I'll take the obama blue pill...

Carole
haircutter....southwestern Somerset County, where we felt and will always remember 09/11/2001 and flight #93

[FredZarguna]

We talk about fraud in Philadelphia, and it exists. But I've been both a Clerk and a Judge of Elections in my little precinct in rural PA, and I can tell you that there are actual safeguards in the system, and it's impossible to pull off fraud on the scale that would be necessary for us to lose the Presidential elections in PA on the scale we have.

The Republicans do have supervisors and poll watchers in Filthydelphia; achieving a 1% fraudulent rate by ballot stuffing is virtually impossible. Even getting to 1% with misidentifying yourself as a dead or invalid voter is extremely difficult. Now, before I get flamed by all of you FReepers who are convinced that we lose elections in PA because of fraud, let me just finish my point: We lost the Philly suburbs in 2008 by staggering numbers. Those areas are nothing like the 8:1, 10:1 Dem advantage precincts in some parts of the city. You break even in those counties and the rest of PA is more than enough to overcome the Philadelphia advantage.

Furthermore, Allegheny county is down to less than 2:1. Pittsburgh is nowhere near the size of Philly, and in 2008 0bama carried that county by only net 100,000 votes. It's simply not where the problem is.

My point, and I will not back down from it: The so-called "Republicans" in the suburban "West Camden" counties are our problem in PA. [That, and a nearly moribund Republican Party in the Commonwealth.] If you want to keep losing national elections, keep pretending a large number of those "Republicans" aren't really Democrats [and therefore, manifestly idiots,] and keep pretending our problems in Pennsylvania are the result of "fraud."

Good news? a net 45,000+ Registered voters changed party from Democrat to Republican in 2012. The bad news? +125,000 net new voters registered as Democrats. The Democrats now have about a 4:3 registration advantage in a state where most people do register with one of the two major parties because of a closed primary system.