Oct 29 2008
The Nightly Bi-Poller Report For 10_29_08
Tonight I continue my monitoring of the two families of polls being produced this year by pollsters in order to provide our readers insight into how the presidential race is playing out based on two  different assumptions on turnout models.
The tracking polls in the ‘traditional’ family use historic voting trends to weight things like party ID affiliation in their turnout models.  The ‘extended’ family of polls are based on the unproven assumption this year’s turnout will favor the Dems by 2-3 times the highest historic advantage ever seen in memory. Over the years there have been times when the Democrats have seen up to a 4% edge in voter turnout. The polls in the ‘extended’ family assume a Democrat edge of 8-12% in their turnout models – crazy, eh?
Strata-Sphere Extended: Ob +6.0%
10_27_08 = Ob +7.3%
10_28_08 = Ob +6.3%
First, for the Obama supporters we provide the ‘extended’ poll of polls. This group includes the following daily tracking polls (with today’s horse race numbers in parentheses): Rasmussen Reports
 (Ob +3), Gallup (Expanded) (Ob +7) and ABC News/Wash Post (Ob +8). Therefore the Extended Poll average for today is Obama +6.0% (identical to the RCP average).
Strata-Sphere Traditional: Â Ob+ 4.2%
10_27_08 = Ob +4.8%
10_28_08 = Ob +4.0%
Now, for the McCain supporters we have the historically proven polling method. This group includes the following daily tracking polls (with today’s horse race numbers in parentheses): Gallup (Traditional) (Ob +3), Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby (Ob +5), Diageo/Hotline (Ob +7), IBD/TIPP (Ob +3) and GWU/Battleground (Ob +3). Therefore the Traditional Poll average for today is Obama +4.2% (not very close to the RCP average).
RCP National Average: Ob +6.0%
RCP has other, non-daily tracking polls, in their average. I have decided to just go with the daily polls for this analysis (though I did add them into the ‘extended’ family as a one off example today).
Analysis:
Not much change in the traditional family of polls because of some noise in the various polls offsetting each other. IBD and Hotline dipped a point each, Zogby went up two and Gallup up one to more than offset those changes. So for the traditional model it has not changed much today.
Rassmussen gave McCain a 2 point jump, but Rasmussen still uses a large Dem advantage so he only impacts the ‘extended’ family (yes, I have been tempted to swap Rassmussen and Hotline since other variables in their turnout models make them look out of place – but this analysis only looks at the predicted dem advantage and whether we will see differences in line with history or some new history being made this year). The ABC/WaPo went up a point – so again a wash.
Bottom line – The RCP average is tracking closer to the ‘extended’ class of polls than the ‘traditional’ set. Turnout is key. But I do find it interesting that the ‘extended’ model family is starting to drop towards the ‘traditional’ family.Â
Previous Posts:
The Nightly Bi-Poller Report For 10_28_08
The Nightly Bi-Poller Report For 10_27_08
Bi-Poller Part II
Bi-Poller
A few observations. Hotline is still an outlier although Zogby is catching up. I have had my questions on the Hotline poll for a couple of days, and Zogby’s movements cannot be correlated to the other polls. Battleground and Gallup show the same %. 49-46. While IBD shows 47-44. All within the MOE.
I would question Battleground’s steady performance even though there are many crosscurrents going on under the headline numbers. 3% down is still 3% down and I am still waiting for McCain to go ahead in one poll. I’m also still waiting for the Clinton’s to endorse McCain as well as the PA gov. Dream on.
It looks to me like it is getting tighter.
Have you seen this yet AJ?
I heard on O’Reilly tonight that Rasmussen will report tomorrow that there has been a shift from Obama to McCain as to who can best handle the economy. This is big since the economy is the number one issue. Also 43% of the country still do not believe Obama is qualified for the job. We are hitting crunch time and 10-12% undecided is a big number.
I think the “spreading the wealth” comment and the unbelievable attacks on the personal life of “Joe the Plumber” are making people think twice about the Chosen One.” Add to that the list of radicals in Barry’s address book.
So check this out. My daughter is in 5th grade. Her homework assignment was that her class had to watch the 30 minute Obama commercial and write a paragraph about it. Interesting way a teacher forces families to watch the Obama campaign material, isn’t it?
…This just in…
From the Wizbang Blog (http://wizbangblog.com/)
“McCain Up in Florida Early Voting Poll”
According to an LA Times/Bloomberg poll of those who voted early in Florida, McCain leads Obama 49-45% even though more Democrats voted than Republicans:
Apparently they all must have just finished watching that infomercial…
[…] this is an indication of things to come, the liberals are in for a rough week. H/T Reader Archtop and […]