Morning Jay: A Polling Quandary—in the Buckeye State

weeklystandard.com ^ | 10/31/12 | JAY COST

[TBBT]

here is a peculiar divergence between various public opinion polls at the moment. On the one hand, Mitt Romney has built a narrow but durable lead in the national polls, averaging around a 1 percent advantage over the last three weeks. This has cheered the hearts of conservatives everywhere. Obama in Strongsville, Ohio

Yet, liberals retort, Obama has a lead in enough swing states to add up to 270 electoral votes, and that is really what matters.

What to make of this?

For starters, they cannot both be right. If Mitt Romney wins the popular vote by 1 percent or more on Election Day, the odds that he will lose the Electoral College are quite small. To put this into perspective, there have only been four times when the popular vote winner and the Electoral College winner were different in predominantly two-way matchups: 2000, 1960, 1888, and 1876.

[TBBT]

Duh... What would be The One's margin if a poll consisted of entirely 100% Democrats? O-88, R-9?

Same thing here, but on a smaller scale...

[vbmoneyspender]

1960?

[Mr. Silverback]

My answer is that the Ohio polls are being skewed, and that would be my answer even if I wasn’t aware of the early voting and absentee buttkicking we’re delivering to The One.

If the pollsters and the media report that Ohio is over, they have nothing to sell papers, ad time or polling services on. So, Ohio won’t be reported as over, not even on Monday.

[fortheDeclaration]

The fact is that Romney is ahead by far more then 1% in the popular vote, they have him from 4-6% ahead.

No way Obama wins the EC with that much of a loss in the popular vote.

[Buckeye McFrog]

If Fast Eddie Rendell is sending up the panic signals that Pennsylvania is in play, I think Romney must have Ohio in the bag. Between Philly and the army of blue hairs cashing government checks, we tend to pull much bluer over here.

[11th Commandment]

One the state level, the polling becomes not only composition of Dem, Rep and Ind, but the geographic make-up. A freeper posted an excellent opinion on Ohio demographics. Basically, only four counties in Ohio went for Obama in 2008. All of these counties are down in registration and anticipated turnout.

They guy from Suffolk has pointed out that many polls are over sampling cities and not accounting for the shift in affluent upper middle class suburbs from Dem to Rep. His poll has Ohio dead even. However, he thought Rassumen's methodology on his recent poll was sound and it has Romney by 2.

[StAnDeliver]

Gallup	Final	2000	48%		46%
Rass	Final	2000	40%		49%
Natl	Bush	2000	47.9%	50,456,002	48.4%	50,999,897
Ohio	Bush	2000	50%	2,351,209	46.5%	2,186,190
Gallup	Final	2004	49%		49%
Rass	Final	2004	50.2%		48.5%
Natl	Bush	2004	50.7%	62,040,610	48.3%	59,028,444
Ohio	Bush	2004	50.8%	2,858,727	48.7%	2,739,952
Gallup	Final	2008	55%		44%
Rass	Final	2008	52%		46%
Natl	Bobo	2008	52.9%	69,456,897	45.7%	59,934,814
Ohio	Bobo	2008	51.5%	2,940,044	46.9%	2,677,820
Gallup	FnlWk	2012	51%		46%
Rass	FnlWk	2012	49%		47%

In Ohio, the GOP candidate consistently receives votes equal to, or greater than, his National popular vote.

< / argument >

[csmusaret]

If any body can figure that chart out please explain it to me.

[StAnDeliver]

"They guy from Suffolk has pointed out that many polls are over sampling cities and not accounting for the shift in affluent upper middle class suburbs from Dem to Rep. His poll has Ohio dead even. However, he thought Rasmussmen's methodology on his recent poll was sound and it has Romney by 2."

I caught that too last night on PhoneJob. The best part was Sabato (subbing in last-minute for Rasmussen) deer-in-the-headlights when PhoneJob ate his lunch.

[Raycpa]

This is the main flaw in Nate Silver’s analysis. He is attempting to average or combine polls which have very different underlying methodologies.

Many Freepers still look at the relative trends of each pollster rather than get caught up with the averages at RCP and Silver. The first wave of analysis is despite the built in sampling bias, it is possible to see what your candidate’s trend is from poll to poll. Then the second analysis is which poll is best at capturing where the population is.

As far as averaging that RCP does or fancy combining that Silver uses, it is not sound to combine the results of separate polls. In grade school we learned how to add and subtract fractions. We learned that the first step is to find the common denominator and therefore 1/2 becomes 2/4 when adding 1/2 + 1/4. Likewise, averaging or fancy combining that Nate Silver does is not sound unless he creates a common denominator for each poll. Making a common denominator cannot be done without creating a bias.

[StAnDeliver]

• The GOP candidate wins Ohio votes equal to or greater than his National vote
• Rasmussen nailed 2008; and both Gallup and Rasmussen have Romney ahead nationally
• Romney wins Ohio

[goldstategop]

Agreed.

I don’t see how Romney wins the national popular vote without being up in OH.

If he loses IN, its a gonna be a bad night but no one is expecting that to happen again this year.

[Mr. Silverback]

Agree.

[Mother Mary]

>>The fact is that Romney is ahead by far more then 1% in the popular vote, they have him from 4-6% ahead.<<

Didn’t several states, including California, change their laws so that whoever wins the popular vote will take all of their electoral votes?

[Mr. Silverback]

Then there’s the Pew report that noted only 9% of the people they call actually complete the survey. If that pool ends up being more Dem and more urban than the nation as a whole, it could throw a lot off, and the +D results in the polling are not political tricks, but a result of them having to call several thousand more people to get enough Rs to make the sample good.

[The Free Engineer]

The amount of information the campaigns have on you is scary.

If you have ever given money to a political campaign they know your name, where you live, and who you gave to.

It has been publicized that the Obama campaign has a sophisticated mapping system - house by house tracking.

This is invitation enough for political abuse of the common man to at least think about.

Consider if you worked in a job where you had to join a union. An a-hole union organizer came by every day and let you know who you were going to vote for. Your union is robo and live calling you daily. And most importantly you are being constantly push-polled - which essentially is spying on you by campaigns.
Are you going to be honest with the mob and push the button for Romney? Really? Why ask for trouble?

[jim_trent]

OK, now I see it. Thanks for summing it up.

[SoothingDave]

Didn’t several states, including California, change their laws so that whoever wins the popular vote will take all of their electoral votes?

That's only to take effect when a number of states totalling 270 EVs all approve the same things. Which hasn't happened. And it will be challenged as an unconstitutional "interstate compact" unless approved by Congress.

So, not a factor this year.

[Mr. Silverback]

Yeah, RCP averages are a joke (saw one cited on Fox back in September that combined polls taken over a FIVE WEEK period and Bill hemmer was discussing it like it meant something) and Nate Silver is an even bigger joke. RCP says, “Here’s an averag of some polls with completely different methodologies” and Silver says, “Look at these polls with different methodologies, even though several of them are D +9 they totally prove this race is over!!! Wooooooo!!!! Four more years! Four more years!!!”

Oh, and he says that kind of stuff in June. :-)

[Mother Mary]

Thank you for the clarification.