Posted on 10/31/2012 6:09:58 AM PDT by Ravi
Governor Mitt Romney has overtaken President Barack Obama by a very narrow margin in Virginia (49% - 44%), according to a Roanoke College Poll conducted after the Presidential debates. Republican George Allen also enjoys a 5 point lead over Democrat Tim Kaine (47% - 42%) in the race for the U.S. Senate seat in Virginia. The Roanoke College Poll interviewed 638 likely voters in Virginia between Oct. 23 and October 26 and has a margin of error of +4 percent. Employing a more stringent screen for likely voters (N=503) increases Romney's lead to 54 percent to 41 percent and Allen's lead to 51 percent to 39 percent.[1]
(Excerpt) Read more at roanoke.edu ...
Yet if it was the other way around, why Barack Obama would have moved out in front of Romney with a "commanding lead" of 49-44%. They just can't hide their bias can they?
5 points is narrow, eh?
I think they were being sarcastic since that is how the article described it.
The Tea Party in Virginia has been working its heart out in the exurbs of Northern Virginia since 2009.
I live in near Fauquier county - Republicans have ground game and signs for Romney are everywhere. There is a lot of hope in Virginia. I can’t imagine that it’s at all a purple state this time around. The goal of the outer counties is to get out the vote and overtake the margin won by the counties closer to DC.
I’m sure there must be some in Fairfax County thinking hard about Sequestration, too.
Off-year elections are when (R) turnout is highest, of course. That’s how we got Bob McDonnell and Ken Cuccinelli AG.
I live in Richmond and I wish I could say the same. But, it would be the end of the world if Richmond ever voted in a Democrat so hopefully this is just a local aberration.
They would be... they have a plethora of heavily D+ oversampled polls to choose from. They look at the top numbers and never check the internals.
No wonder they are supremely confident at DU that Obama will be re-elected. Why, Nate Silver says so!
FIVE points is a “very narrow margin” these days? When Obama’s leading by one they don’t talk margins, they talk about Obama being ahead.
>> MoE = 1.26 X sqrt((R% X O%)/(n-1)) <<
Are you sure? I thought the MOE was just two sigma, that is, the 95% confidence intervals.
Regarding internals, the college does provide some, although not directly a party breakdown. At least, I didn’t see one.
Battleground Watch has posted that the poll is D+4. 2008 was D+6, 2004 was R+4. Thus, D+4 may be a little on the high side for the Ds. I think it will be closer to even. But D+4 isn’t indefensible.
So, we have a poll that seems to have reasonable internals, if a little biased to the left, that shows Gov. Romney winning clearly, and outside the margin of error. With 5% undecided. And among the 36% of undecideds who would say which way they were leaning, they were going Romney 3 - 1. But 4% identify a third-party candidate. It would be unlikely that the two or three third-party candidates receiving votes in this poll will actually amount to 4% of the vote on election day. When pressed to choose between the two major candidates, the third-party voters choose the Kenyan almost 3 - 2.
From all this, I’d guess Gov. Romney will take Virginia by about 10 points. Not going to be close.
One hesitation is that the sample isn’t terribly large.
sitetest
Great news...glad to hear the PAC ads are running, as well.
1/sqr rt 638 is 3.96%
that’s how i’ve seen it on other threads
John Kass
Chicago Tribune
Sandy swoops in to save Obama - October 31, 2012 - What a difference a storm named Sandy makes, eh, Mr. President?
Click your ‘Print Preview’ to view the column without having to subscribe.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-kass-sandy-saves-obama-20121031,0,4768067.column
I understand the formula, but you still need a larger sample, or you could just poll 10 people. The larger samples just seem to be more accurate over time.
10 people would be a 31.6 MOE
i think
I am sorry if you do not like the result, but it is what it is.
has a margin of error of +4 percent
Thanks — I saw all the splits at the roanoke.edu site but they didn’t identify the partisan breakdown as far as I could tell.
If it really is D+4 and still shows Allen and Romney winning by as much as the poll refelcts, that’s fantastic but still enough of an outlier compared to other polls (even allegedly unbiased ones like Rasmussen) that a huge grain of salt must be taken.
I should have clarified, sorry. I live in the Hampton Roads area, so really can only speak to what I see around here.
All the internals reported, including party affiliation, are in the pdf from the college describing the actual results. They report D/R/I/Other (never saw that last column before of 35/31/29/4. Myself, I'da lumped independent in with other.
I don't think this is such an outlier. It's a late poll and is likely catching the movement toward Gov. Romney. This is backed up by the polls own internals showing that undecideds are moving pretty strongly in his direction.
Common sense suggests that the Quinnipiac poll is the outlier. Q has a reputation as being a hack organization. I've been following their polls for a long time - always biased. But concerning this poll specifically, it's a D+7 poll. Worse, it's an admitted PUSH POLL, asking nine leading questions favoring the anti-Christ BEFORE getting to the “who would you vote for?” question. Gee whiz! Why bother? Even still, after all that huffing and puffing, they only get to a 2% advantage for the Kenyan.
Common sense suggests ignoring products from the Wash Post/ABC folks. They don't even pretend.
Methodology matters.
sitetest
Governor Mitt Romney has overtaken President Barack Obama by a very narrow margin in Virginia (49% - 44%),
Wouldn’t a “very narrow margin” be 1-2% ?
LOL
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