Interesting explanation for Obama's "Surge" of late in Gallup Poll

Wizbang ^ | 9-19-2008 | DJ Drummond

[grey_whiskers]

(snip) It's only a point, but again we see McCain's numbers in this group went up.

So, put it all together, and in the past week Obama has stayed steady or lost support in every party identification group, yet Gallup says his overall support went up four points. And McCain stayed steady or went up in every party identification group, yet we are supposed to accept the claim that his overall support went down by four points? Anyone have an answer for how that is even possible?

Well, actually I do. There is one, and only one, possible way that such a thing can happen mathematically. And that way, is that Gallup made major changes to the political affiliation weighting from the last week to now. Gallup has significantly increased the proportional weight of Democrat response and reduced the weight of Republican response. (snip>

[goldstategop]

Agreed. They had to change the ratio of respondents to do it and that's dishonest. I find it hard to credit there are suddenly X number of Democrats more in the electorate than were in the previous two weeks. Party allegiance is not something people change over night. And McCain has held steady if we look at the data, with independents. So Obama's gains have to come from somewhere. Not from Gallup's own data.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Don@VB]

I’m from Virginia and Doug Wilder was ahead 20 points (governor’s race) the day before the election and actually won by only a single point. That was, of course, 20 years ago, but still and incredible divergence.

[grey_whiskers]

Thanks for pinging me to my own thread.

Now at last...

I'm a REAL FReeper! :-)

Cheers!

[KeatsforFirstDog]

I did’t see this blog until now, but I noticed the wacko Gallup internals the last few days....pointed it out to my spouse this morning....basically:

1. In the national polls, the internals show the following:

Preference for General Election by Region

Week of 9/1 to 9/7 2008
Obama McCain
East 51% 40%
Midwest 48% 42%
South 39% 54%
West 50% 43%

Week of 9/8 to 9/14 2008
Obama McCain
East 49% 41%
Midwest 46% 46%
South 39% 54%
West 47% 47%

In the week of 9/8 to 9/14, if the midwest and the west cancel, Obama leads by 8 in the East and McCain leads by 15 in the south. Given that the south holds at least the same or even more electoral votes, shouldn’t McCain be up?

Also, in the ideological breakdown, McCain gained in every category but moderate democrats during the same period, while Obama lost ground:
Week of 9/1 to 9/7 2008
Obama McCain
Liberal Dems 93% 4%
Mod Dems 81% 12%
Cons. Dems 70% 21%
Pure independ. 29% 28%
Liberal/mod Rep. 16% 78%
Conserv. Rep. 3% 94%

Week of 9/8 to 9/14 2008
Obama McCain
Liberal Dems 93% 5% +1
Mod Dems 81% 12% 0
Cons. Dems 66% -4 24% +3
Pure independ. 27% -2 32% +4
Liberal/mod Rep. 10% -6 75% +7
Conserv. Rep. 3% 95% +1

Amazingly, McCain gained percentage points in every category, while Obama lost points, and yet Obama closed the gap with McCain. Something is fishy.

Going one step further, McCain went from +5% to +11% lead over Obama among men, and Obama’s lead among women fell by 2 points.

Moreover, McCain gained ground among White and Hispanic voters:

Week of 9/1 to 9/7 2008
Obama McCain
Non-hispanic white 39% 53%
Non-hispanic black 89% 7%
Hispanic 60% 31%

Week of 9/8 to 9/14 2008
Obama McCain
Non-hispanic white 37% -2 55% +2
Non-hispanic black 93% +4 4% - 3
Hispanic 55% -5 35% +4

[Dawn531]

Thanks for posting that. I really liked how he broke down the individual numbers among the different groups to show how overall poll numbers didn’t match. Very interesting!

[roaddog727]

“Of course they would do this, 0bama does inspire “hope”.”

But as we all know, Hope is not a plan.

[goldstategop]

I agree. Obama's lead can't be explained by the data. The data shows McCain is up among all demographics. So how does the lead flip in two weeks when all the data contradicts that movement? There's some factor that Gallup isn't explaining when it puts out its daily tracking figures. And no other polling organization has put Obama in the lead, apart from CBS/NYT.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[word_warrior_bob]

Good post. I have been reading all the nitty gritty in the polls too.

McCain has shored up his base and they ARE motivated because of Palin. This is the first election since 1984 that there is a conservative on the ticket. We have someone to vote against AND someone to vote for.

Obama is losing the Dem base to a tune of 17-19% in about every poll (I’ve seen it higher as well). This will be the unreported story of the election (unless we rub it in their face) that “racist” democrats cost Øbama the election.

McCain is winning his precious Independents, we have all heard for years from dems who say the only rep. for Prez they will vote for is McCain.

McCain will easily win the male vote as we do every election. The female vote which is traditionally Dem will swing in a big way to the Republicans.

I stand by my statements that Øbama has Ø chance of winning in November.

[VRWC For Truth]

McLiberal sucks and the election is Obama’s to lose. McLoser is TOO OLD and TOO DC. With the economy floundering and Bush failing to address the ‘Rats with his NEW TONE, it plays right into Barry’s hands. The GOP is stuck on stupid .. Palin is hope but the current GOP are spineless.

[word_warrior_bob]

I’m tired of hearing how this is going to be a landslide for us.

_____________

It’s going to be a landslide for us. ; )

That doesn’t mean anyone has stopped working.

[Smokin' Joe]

You can't keep showing Fauxbama losing support across EVERY demographic, yet show him gaining, just doesn't add up.

Maybe they are just including areas with dead democrats (graveyards) in the polls...

[nailspitter]

I went to the Gallup site and clicked on the link to the internal results. It says “how the race stands today” or something like that, but the latest figures appear to end at Sept. 14. That’s almost a week ago. During that week they show Obama surging into a lead. I’d like to see those internals updated to say, yesterday. I wonder why they haven’t updated them.

[Katya]

of course he does...but so did Kerry. so what? We haven’t had one debate yet. And ask good as a teleprompt reader Obama is...and HE IS GOOD. McCain is GREAT at answering questions directly. This is where his lengthy military background comes in handy. He gets to the point.

[se_ohio_young_conservative]

God is in control.

He has always blessed us with the right leaders at the right time.

[lt.america]

The racism is all within the Democratic Party too. That is what the MSM tries to gloss over. They call the Republican party rednecks, not as intelligent and bigots, but the statistics don't lie.

[KeatsforFirstDog]

I know those are a ton of numbers, but they are meant to show that McCains support went up in almost every single subsection except African americans, but still lost ground on the overall poll results....huh???

Another gross error in their data is that it looks like they made a MASS calling/weighting to those in the East....look at these numbers from their internals:

Week of 9/8 to 9/14 2008
Obama McCain
East 49% 41%
Midwest 46% 46%
South 39% 54%
West 47% 47%

**************
tied in the west, tied in the midwest...so a wash

up by 15 in the South
down by 8 in the east

so, you would think that he’d probably be somewhere AT LEAST between 6-7 points up on average for the week if the South and East were weighted equally, right??

I added McCain’s numbers for the week of Sept 8th-14th (49+48+48+48+47+47+47=336) and it averaged to 47.78

Then Obama in the same time frame (44+43+44+45+45+45+45=311) and it averaged to 44.42

47.78-44.42 = 3.35 for the week +McCain

this is roughly HALF of what it should be unless Gallup’s “random” calling is calling A LOT more Easterners or weighing their votes more.

[Names Ash Housewares]

You have to fight for things in life.
Just the way it is.

[1035rep]

Republican party affiliation went up 2% in August. We have gained a lot of ground since June and the trend is on our side. McCain is in a much better position than Obama. Many of these polls are manipulated to boost enthusiasm and/or depress turnout.

Always fight like you're behind no matter what the polls say. As Rush said...When Republicans are fired up, they don't lose.

[Pharmer]

This is one of the things that has mystified me ever since I have been following politics. This concept of a convention “bounce” to me has always been a bogus claim. Adults just do not wake up one morning and say “Wow what a speech he has MY vote” and the next day go “I knew he was a bum all along! I'm voting for the other guy now...What? he said what? Oh! never mind!”. No responsible adult does that unless they are completely retarded. Don't get me wrong there are retards out there but I really don't think they vote much. Republican do not vote Democrat or vice versa based on one speech or the the events of 2 days.

Republicans and Dems have already made up their mind. They will vote for their guy or they wont vote at all.

There is also a sizable undecided block and these folk either will decide after the debates or they also won't vote at all. I feel that the Independents are looking more on single issues which will be addressed in the debates or they are the realy shallow folks who go for style, charisma and intelligence also brought out in the debates. The strength of the candidate is what effect the outcome as party faithful vote and independents come along for the ride. Which explains why we got smoked in 2006 we didn't show up as our candidates sucked.

As a result I read polls with a grain of salt. Lets not forget in 2000 Rasmussen, Gallup, and Battleground all indicated a sizable win for Bush.

The debates will be telling, then I will worry about polls.

[KeatsforFirstDog]

I would suspect that we’ll get new internals after sept 21 as it would be the week of the 15th-21; so maybe on Monday, tues, or wed

I’ve caught gallup in the past with these “weird” errors...I remember in 2004 that they had Bush up by only 5 points in the south one week, and up by only a 3-4 among men overall nationwide the week or so before the vote.

Voting patterns can change, of course, but they are not usually drastic and can sometimes take generations to swing in a certain direction...

I’ll be interested to see how the next internals look to...

(and you want my opinion? I think they are all a little off anyway right now because you have to remember that a LARGE region of the south got displaced with Ike, including the 4th largest city in the nation, Houston (4-5+ million people probably were affected in some way); other places lost powers among the south/midwest, etc, all this past week...who answers the phone to answer a poll during a natural disaster?? )