These are the dog days, the period before the convention. This is nothing more than the Washington Post pleasuring itself in public AGAIN.
Posted on 08/08/2012 7:27:34 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Today's Washington Post/ABC News poll gives a little bit of good news to Barack Obama --- and therefore some bad news for Mitt Romney. In an advance look at the overall poll results, Obama leads Romney on favorability. However, the gap narrows when the poll reports only from registered voters, which the Post and ABC fail to mention:
Although 40 percent of voters now say they hold a favorable opinion of the former Massachusetts governor — virtually unchanged from May — those holding negative views of him ticked higher in the new survey, from 45 percent to 49 percent.
Meanwhile, President Obama remained in positive territory on that measure, with 53 percent of voters reporting favorable opinions of him. Only 43 percent say they feel unfavorably toward him.
To find the favorability gap among registered voters, one has to look at the report from the pollster, provided by ABC News. Among RVs, Obama leads in favorability 49/42. That represents a tie for the Obama low in this poll for 2012 (also 49% in February), while Romney's 42% is the second-highest report for him since the primaries started in January. Dropping three points in a month isn't exactly great news for Romney, but it's also not as bad as Obama's drift as an incumbent — especially an incumbent who has spent well into nine figures this spring and summer trying to destroy Romney’s credibility through harshly negative advertising.
Of course, we have a lot of problems in the WaPo/ABC poll series with sampling. In these advance results reports, the sampling data is not usually included, and today’s report is no exception. We can’t evaluate these results fully until we determine how well the modeling of the sample data matches that of the electorate in 2012. That doesn’t mean that the information is entirely useless, however, especially within party-affiliation demographics. Those results are a mixed bag for both candidates, too:
INDEPENDENTS – Obama’s gained back ground he’d lost among independents, customarily swing voters in national elections. In late May he fell numerically underwater among independents for the first time since December (45-52 percent favorable-unfavorable). He’s now back far in front of Romney in this group, largely because of gains among independent women.
Among all independents, Obama’s favorability rating is now 16 points higher than Romney’s (53 percent vs. 37 percent). At the same time, that narrows among independents who are registered to vote – 46 percent favorable for Obama, 38 percent for Romney – indicating, among other factors, the potential importance of voter registration drives in the few months ahead.
That’s an eight-point swing among independents between general-population adults and registered voters — which sounds a little odd to me. I’d expect to see some difference, but eight points is pretty large. Still, this isn’t good news for Romney, who needs to beat Obama’s seven-point win in 2008 among unaffiliated voters.
However, Romney has some good news on the Republican-unity front:
Among partisans, Romney’s caught up with Obama in popularity within his own party; 83 percent of Republicans rate Romney positively, as do 84 percent of Democrats for Obama. That’s Romney’s best-ever rating with the party faithful, up 25 points since mid-March.
Romney’s rated favorably by fewer conservatives, 65 percent, though this, too, is a new high.
That’s not a bad development, nor is Romney in desperate straits as we roll toward the conventions. Team Obama still hasn’t scored a knockout, and they’re three weeks away from getting seriously outpunched in the general election. Having an incumbent at 49% favorability among registered voters suggest that it’s probably lower among likely voters — and both are bad numbers for the candidate looking for re-election.
Update: Yes, I meant to say three weeks – or to be very precise, three weeks and two days. Romney can start spending general-election cash once he accepts the nomination at the convention, and that is the official start of the general election.
LOTS of leadinfg polls coming out in the last couple of weeks.
The headline polls are all “All Respondents, and NBC is using +16 Dems, NYTimes +9 Dems etc.
THEY ARE ALL BOGUS, but they are meant to DRIVE OPINION, not determine opinion.
+/-4 MoE means that there could literally have been no change from poll to poll. Sloppy.
The issue is Obamacare not re-election. People will come to the polls to vote against Obamacare and the only way to do that is to vote against Obama. In 1994 was an off year election where Clinton was not up for re-election. In 1994 not a single pollster predicted how pissed off the elctorate was that government wanted to take their health care. Not one and yet democrats and indies came to vote against Hillarycare. Nothing has changed. People have been consistently against Obamacare 60/40 and will come to the polls to vote against Obama 60/40. Simple math.
Democrats will not tell a pollster they will vote against their party being they are afraid of being found out. They will however throw Obama under the bus just as they threw the Dems under the bus in 1994. Nothing has changed. People want hands off their health care. That is why Scott Brown won Kennedy’s seat.
Given the trend toward more than 50% of the electorate voting early, and the large number of voters who have already decide who they are voting for, I think these polls are pretty meaningless. Those who haven’t decided yet are such a tiny percentage, that I don’t think the election hinges on them now.
These are the dog days, the period before the convention. “I think a lot of people don’t want to admit they don’t like him because of the “R-ism” issue.”
THAT, and Romney running like a scalded dog from the Chic Fil A episode, a master opportunity for the fool to stand up, for just once, on speech and religious liberty.
I guess his favorability would “plateau”, among devout Christians, and real conservatives, when he publically rebukes us by ignoring the constitutional concerns screaming in the Chic Fil A brouhaha. This is the Romney way of disinfrangizing, marginalizing the conservative Right.
I get the message and I am happy to return the favor he laid on us. Down ticket voting and letting Myth twist in the wind is the only answer if there is any future for conservative thought in the Republican Party, or elsewhere.
Random sample, not even registered voters let alone likely voters.
I tried to find the party breakdown. Shockingly, it was nowhere to be found. I did notice that the independents broke heavily for Obama (by 13 points). I thing there were a lot of Democrats in Independent clothing on this one!
Dang, you had me until I found out it was dick morris.
Those who find him likeable obviously haven’t seen him on the campaign trail. He’s one angry, nasty piece of work.
His likeability is a function primarily of two things;
1. Whites who think it would just be wrong, and probably racist to think ill of Obama.
2. Overwhelming media and pop culture bias. The image of Obama is that of a brilliant, cool, historic, transformation figure. That is the narrative the media and Hollywood push. Just listen to the late night jokes; Republican jokes are much more mean-spirited. Romney is an aloof, uncaring aristocrat. Bush was an idiot (and he actually was in many ways, but not the way the media portrayed it). Republicans hate women. Republicans hate blacks. Republicans hate hispanics, and so on and so on. The jokes directed at Obama are much more tepid, and never about his unassailable character.
A Republican with the same personality, speaking skills, and record as Obama would have been labeled arrogant, sneaky, and a total incompetent failure.
Plus in 1995 the economy was not mired in a multi-year recession
Your lips to God’s ears, but if Romney wins Rhode Island, I’m going to start buying lottery tickets again.
It is the cities which create culture and civilization as the very word implies. It is also true that it is the Blue states which pay more (in general) in federal taxes while the Red states (in general) are net takers. So it is a myth that welfare is only because of the cities.
Not only that but a large minority of welfare recipients, if not a majority, are people who migrated to the cities from elsewhere. Rural areas have sent people into the cities for centuries.
Republicans have to figure out how to get the votes of the cities in order to have a constant chance of winning elections.
You actually believe polls which DESPERATELY avoid polling “likely voters” and which routinely OVERSAMPLE Democrats can be depended on for providing the truth?
I have a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you.
100 million on welfare, 47% on food stamps? That is the reason Bama wins all the Blue states and some Purple. Enough to nip Mitt. We just do not have enough real Americans anymore to outvote the takers. The only hope is if the takers do not come out in full force to vote then and only then could Mitt enable enough states to cobble together for the 270 electoral votes. It is a real shame that so many people want a soviet America but that seems to be the case: likeable or not, Mitt has an agenda to stop that. Many Americans now do not want it stopped. The Makers, the Producers are their enemies. See Bama in Pueblo , Col. today promising to bail out all industries if they will only give their freedom to him. Sounds very Stalinist.
I think you are right. It reminds me of a businessman I once knew, people would say something like, “Yeah, I know he’s a crook but he’s a nice guy.” I could never understand how a person can be both.
“The electorate is completely different today and there are less thinking Americans than there were then.”
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You got that right, the myth is still being promoted that we have a higher level of education now. It is said that the average WWII soldier only had an eighth grade education which is true but what is left out is that the average recent college graduate has LESS THAN an eighth grade education by the standard of 1945. Anyone who doubts it need only read samples of the writing done by those soldiers and compare to what people write today. I am constantly amazed that TV “stars” of today don’t understand the use of pronouns, something which used to be taught in grade school.
One of the worst examples is Obama himself, we are told that he is a super genius but in samples of writing which are KNOWN FOR CERTAIN to be his own writing he cannot make subject and verb agree!
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