Jan 30 2012
Tomorrow We Determine: Are Voters Engaged or Enraged?
Major Update: Looks like PPP also detected a late Gingrich Surge:
Meanwhile, a Public Policy Polling survey, conducted Saturday and Sunday, has Mr. Gingrich with a manageable-looking 7 points deficit. And he was down just 4 points in interviews conducted on Sunday alone, according to a cross-tabulation provided to FiveThirtyEight.
Well, well, well. I saw one poll claiming Romney is winning Evangelicals and the Tea Party. Sounds fishy to me. I would say tomorrow is going to be very surprising – end update.
The other day I noted that primary polls this year were not to be trusted, especially in Florida since the turnout modes used by pollsters has little prayer of being right given this cycle is like none other – so there is no historic basis to any turnout model. The factors I listed that made this year so unique in Florida primary history:
First off, we still have the 2010 insurgent voter out there. This can be seen in the fact that the current GOP voters in Florida are not the same ones from 4 years ago:
Republicans have narrowed the Democrats’ registration edge in Florida since November 2008, when Barack Obama carried the state. And with the Jan. 31 primary still nearly two weeks away, more than 446,000 Florida Republicans have requested absentee ballots — far exceeding the 307,744 absentee requests for the 2008 GOP primary.
Figures released by the Division of Elections today show Florida has 11.2 million voters, with 40.5 percent registered as Democrats and about 36.2 percent as Republicans. The gap of 4.3 percentage points between Democratic and Republican registrations compares to a 5.8-point gap that favored Democrats heading into the 2008 presidential election.
Assuming the number of voters has not changed in Florida (still 11.2 million), the number of new GOP voters is euqal to the change in the gap between registered GOP and Democrat voters. This change is 1.5% or 168,000 new GOP voters, out of a total number 4, 054,400. This represents 4% of the total GOP voters.
4% is a large number when candidates are even 8% apart. A 4% shift moves a blow-out to a tie.
Another factor I noted was how Florida is actually in the kingmaker position this cycle, something they are never really in since they were historically one of the many Super Tuesday contests. This new pivotal position in the GOP selection process is going to really change the turnout models:
Florida moved their primary date up again this cycle (cutting their delegates from 99 to 50, with no super delegates) to move off of one of the Super Tuesdays. One thing is true, if voters don’t feel their vote counts, they don’t take the time to vote. Florida has never been in this position, where their vote will make a huge difference in who takes on Obama. So voters are going to come out in historic numbers (like they did in SC).
Just to be clear, this prediction has already come true in the early, absentee voting. This is a record voter turnout year already:
Early voting began statewide nine days ago, and according to figures released Monday afternoon by the Florida Department of State, which runs the division of elections, 293,760 people have already cast ballots.
But wait, there’s more. According to the state, more than 531,000 people have requested and were sent absentee ballots, and 338,753 have been returned and received by Florida officials.
Add it all together and more than 632,000 votes have already been cast before primary day.
The story goes on to claim this will help Romney because he has the better GOTV organization. But if his GOTV is activating 2010 insurgent voters, he is turning out his own opposition. Romney is now the establishment candidate after his brutal campaigning.
But something else may be in play right now, and that is Team Romney’s over the top negative campaign against the Tea Party insurgents. In the 2010 GOP landslide, a whopping 41% of the voters were Tea Parry supporters.
Exit poll data indicate that 41 percent of those voting in House races Tuesday said they support the Tea Party. Thirty-one percent of voters said they oppose the Tea Party. And a quarter of voters take no position on the Tea Party one way or the other.
I was about to concede the state to Romney, but I was hesitant to understand why polls moved so quickly. There is no policy reason for the move. Yes, there was a lot of Romney mud-slinging, but that tends to smear both candidates in the mud pit.
One thing I noticed in 2010 and in 2011/20012 was that America is still enraged and fed up with the status quo and the party/political establishment. This anger and frustration resulted in these voters tuning out politics until action could be taken. This showed up in SC in spades, as the polls picked up the shift to Newt in the last week. I think these voters are not engaging until the last minute.
BTW, SC is accustomed to being a pivotal and early primary state. While they had a record turnout, the turnout models would hold up fairly well there since the SC role was not unusual.
A late poll coming out today lends credence to the possibility that Mitt Romney could be heading for a Dewey Moment:
The Sunday results of 646 likely GOP voters are as follows:
- Romney 36 percent
- Gingrich 31 percent
- Santorum 12 percent
- Paul 12 percent
- Other/Undecided 9 percent
“The race will be tighter than expected,” Matt Towery, chief pollster of InsiderAdvantage told Newsmax.
As is noted in the accompanying story, Insider advantage was the first to detect the SC shift to Gingrich.
My rose-colored theory is that the insurgent voters of 2010 are still out there, but running silent and deep. They are spurning the pollsters, becoming undetectable. Also, as I noted in the previous post, even if the insurgent centrist voter is answering the poll, they could easily be thrown out of the ‘likely voter’ pool because of the simple fact Tea Party insurgents are new to the political process, many voting for the first time in a long time in 2010. And very few participating in the primary process. No previous voting in primaries gets you punted out of the ‘likely’ voter pool.
What if this key voting block is being missed by pollsters?
Does it really make sense the 2012 voter is that much different from the 2010 insurgent voter? Did the 2010 insurgent voter all of sudden decide to go milquetoast and support Romney? I see no reason for them to shift from angry backlash to pragmatic lambs. What happened in 2011 or 2012 to make them passive supporters of more of the same in DC?
I would expect if their support for Romney was real, Obama would be sinking in the polls, not rising as he is. Even Democrats are showing a come back against the GOP in the congressional ballot. Seeing the backlash against Obama and the Dems drop off over the last three weeks just as Romney is rising has me questioning if the rise is real support, or the 2010 tsunami voter has just gone silent until they hit the voting booth tomorrow.
My guess is a large turn out tomorrow helps Newt. I see nothing for the 2010 insurgents to all of a sudden become passive establishment followers. In fact, given how lame the GOP House has been since 2010, I only see rising frustration.
Which is why maybe tomorrow will not be as the polls say. The only problem with this theory is the fact that so many polls show a Romney cake walk. Hard to believe they are all wrong – unless the voters are not cooperating and indicating the truth out there.
Needless to say, tomorrow evening will set the path for this nation for the next 4 years. In terms of stopping the out of control federal government, there are few options left. Romney and Obama will fight all bold changes. They are so similar is hard to believe its worth having an election. But we shall see….
If Romney wins, I don’t expect him to push for the repeal of ObamaCare.
Newt is now talking about repealing ObamaCare in spite of what he said in 09.
Santorum is the only one that’s consistent about ObamaCare.
The real question is what kind of people will they nominate to replace the retiring SCOTU judges?
It’s a shame late night posts can’t be deleted, since in the light of day they usually are regretted. Only a drunk in a bar or a democrat would try to claim that 15% of a small number is “bigger” than 14% of a large number. That kind of a claim marks the point where rational thought has ceased and crying in your beer has started – sad, really. Hope you’re over it.
Same thing goes for inverting the election numbers and claiming “most people voted against him, therefore they don’t want him!” In most races with more than 2 candidates, the winner will not get an absolute majority. The word is “Plurality”, look it up if you’re unclear on the concept. Inverting numbers, again, only makes sense to drunks in bars or democrats because no matter how you slice it the front runner still looks better than anyone else. The only possible argument that can be made from this is “everyone sucks! I hate them all!!!” but why bother? It happens in almost every race with 3 or more candidates.
disclaimer: most everyone knows that voting *for* someone does not necessarily mean you voted “against” everyone else in a multi-party race. So this analysis is ridiculous, but I do it just to make the point. If we assume this dubious assertion is true, then see if those standards make sense when applied to this vote:
In Florida, from exit poll data, IF we look at it in this foolish way:
59% of the Tea Party voted against Romney.
63% of the Tea Party voted against Gingrich
87% of the Tea Party voted against Santorum
and 93% voted against Ron Paul.
So remind me again, how does this make the case that the man “voted against” by 63% of Tea Party supporters is more viable than the man voted against by 59% of Tea Party supporters?
It doesn’t, and any “argument” based on this is just sad.
on a more serious note, the exit polls show what looks like the biggest weakness for Gingrich, both in the primaries and in the general election.
Men: Romney, 41%, Gingrich 36%
Women: Romney, 52%, Gingrich, 28%
An outright majority of women in this election voted For Romney, and against Gingrich. Looks like overall women aren’t as forgiving of serial adultery as Newt has hoped.
Went to bed last night and knew that when I awoke and checked this thread I’d be in for a good laugh.
Redteam: Klimt’s 2:57 am post nailed it. You’ve been making a lot of predictions based on your hopes and opinions. Sorry, but as they taught me in enginnering school: “The physical universe is the ultimate guru.”
Mitt had a good day and Newt didn’t fare so well. Take the good news -its really now a 2 man race! Build on the good and move forward. But stop with the lame analyses and wishful thinking. WWS is correct. If you want to flip the numbers around to prove your point against Romney then you must acknowledge the picture is worse for Gingrich. You can’t have it both ways – not if you want to be taken seriously.
And one last thing, you are right! Mitt’s collapse in SC was the big news and the story was if he could come back – which he did. If Newt can come back that will be the next big story, but if he just hangs in there treading water then its over.
Hey Lurker:
Maybe you can use Redteam’s analysis to prove that Santorum is really in the lead since he won Iowa and that proves that more people want him than any other candidate. You know, little itty bitty teenie tiny states count more than the big ones! 🙂
AJ needs a new thread. But the level of political ignorance on this site is palpable. Did I miss the Robamaney coronation?? There are two words why the GOP establishment is desperate to annoint Mitt and shut down the primary process. Their horror is absolutely delicious.
County Conventions.
anoint, fat fingers
I, for one, am ready to move on beyond the Florida race. Santorum won Iowa, Newt won SC, and Romney won NH and FL. Congrats to all on hard fought battles. I lost all hope of having a President that could support and implement the real change we need to our fiscal situation at the Presidential level when Cain got out of the race. Romney, Gingrich, Santorum all have pros and cons…..but, none have the big bold ideas and are willing to defend them. So, any real change to set our fiscal house in order (tax reform, entitlement reform, etc) will need to come from the House and Senate (hopefully led by Paul Ryan and Jim DeMint). I don’t think Romney, Gingrich, or Santorum would veto such legislation, so I can live with any of them. We’ll be ok if we can get a strong Congress. For those gloating about Romney’s win in Florida….remember one thing….he ran ads (mostly negative) at a rate of 65 to 1 against Gingrich, and spent about 15 million dollars to secure that one win in that one state. Also, the states Romney has won has had low GOP turnout compared to the states Gingrich/Santorum have won. Romney isn’t winning with a message; he’s winning with his money and negative attacks. He’s not as strong as you think because at the end of the day….between Obama and whoever…..it will be the message that wins. IN fact, if either Santorum or Gingrich got out of the race any time soon…..Romney could have a real struggle to win. Gingrich and Santorum have equal problems. However, it would be good to remember that we are all friends here. And, at the end of the day we will come together to try to defeat Obama. Let the race continue and may the best candidate win. Seane Trende wrote a good article at RCP yesterday and reminded us….”Romney and Gingrich are both unelectable….but so is Obama” (paraphrased). We can have our little spit spats now….but, we better get over it and unite when the primary is over because we have bigger fish to fry and we will need each other to win that battle.
No one was ‘annointed’ after FL. It’s only the 4th primary. However, it was the first ‘closed’ primary, meaning that only republicans were allowed to vote for the nominee of their chosing. The others, especially NH and SC were open ones, meaning anyone could vote and even register on the day of voting, casting more a shadow as to the ‘purity’ of the party vote.
Februrary 4th NV will come into play, and soon a trend will start to form. Either, the GOP will continue to jockey for frontrunner status (between the three viable candidates), or Romney will gain more strength and credibility as the probable nominee.
I personally feel that FL’s vote was a vindication of those of us who continue to believe that character issues are a huge stone on Newt’s back. As WWS pointed out, there was a huge woman gap between Gingrich and Romney. IMO, this will continue to be a negative factor, all the way down the line, for him, whether or not there are those of you who think it should be dismissed.
Conservatives can build an un-bossable Senate
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/conservatives-can-build-un-bossable-senate/352046
Yep, yep. Now you’re talkin’
Frogg1
I agree with you about the need to focus on electing a strong Congress, as that is where legislation is created and is the checks and balances on governance in the WH.
While Santorum technically won Iowa, it was achieved by not counting 8 precincts, which were said to have gone for Romney. So, I wouldn’t put too much stock in that win, dealing with turn-out being an ace for Santorum.
The SC vote was hyped by the raucous debates and the evangelical push for Gingrich. It was also a much more homogenous environment for someone extolling their anybody-but-Romney credentials to win over voters there .
Now, FL has a much more diverse cross-section of republican voters to appeal to — and Romney was able to win over most of these independent constituencies, including tea party people. Newt even lost the space coast after that absurd speech he made. I also think his blustery campaigning, leading up to the primary, followed by a graceless, napoleon-like non-concession speech will not serve him well going forward in the primaries.
Frogg1 at 2:26 pm
Great post! And you’re right. The key is to hold/strengthen the House and get a solid majority in the Senate. Sixty votes would be great but is highly unlikely. 54-57 is doable and then we only need to pick off a few Dems to get things through. None of these candidates – if they become President – is going to veto strong conservative legislation.
MarkN – does it make you fell better if you call Mitt “Robamaney” and insult the people on this site? You are exactly what I’ve been railing against.
Pick your candidate, make the case for him, acknowedge facts (good or bad), and let reality be the judge of where we end up. There’s no need to make use of 8th grade schoolyard insults. Please remember that when all is said and done we’re going to need one another to beat Obama. That is the mission… agreed?
Frogg, glad to see you bring some sense to a situation that had gotten nonsensical. You’re absolutely right, the real action is going to be in the House and the Senate, and the best we can hope for is a President that won’t veto what they do. I have no illusions that we can do any better than that.
Nate Silver has an excellent piece out today on where the race goes from here. Yes, he’s a democrat writing for the NYT, but this is a must-read piece for anyone who’s serious about understanding where we’re headed next in this race. He lays out 5 possible scenarios, and then analyzes the pros and cons of each scenario, along with a guess at how likely each one is. He does a very good job of thinking of the different possibilities, and at providing historical parallels for each candidates chances. For example, it *is* still possible for Santorum to win; but for that to happen, a huge number of different factors and people all have to break Santorum’s way at exactly the right times and places. He doesn’t need one lucky break, he needs about 10, all in a row and in the right order. Needless to say, the odds are against that happening. As Damon Runyan said, the race is not always to the swift nor the fight to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.
This race is going into a bit of a slow patch between now and Super Tuesday, but as the delegates start to mount up it’s going to be increasingly clear which of his 5 scenarios is playing out.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/five-paths-forward-for-g-o-p-nomination/
That is a good article by Nate Silver (see WWS’s post above for link). I highly recommend everyone take a look. It will all work out, one way or the other. And, keep in mind, even though all of the candidates have pros that will help them beat Obama, and cons that hurt their chances or make it harder to beat Obama…..
our candidate does not stand alone. He will have an army of citizens behind him, grass roots tea party groups behind him, and most of all he will have some really strong conservative politicians helping to make his arguements on balanced budgets, entitlement reform, etc. We have never had those strong politicians in the past. Bachman, Ryan, Rand Paul, Ron Paul, Rubio, DeMint, etc. They are all great messengers.
wws:
“It’s a shame late night posts can’t be deleted, since in the light of day they usually are regretted. Only a drunk in a bar”
So you’re saying you were out drunk at a bar last night and regret some things you said?
I accept your apology.
Thanks for the link WWS. I agree with you and Frogg1 that it is a good analysis of the alternative paths out there.
hey redteam, how you doing? Someone posted a video of your reaction to the news last night:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbC_K8gsx6Y
(the :59 mark especially!)
WWS: so you’re still at that bar?
I think we are all at the bar until next year. Where are you, Redteam? I’ve got a beer waiting for you.
Wow, it sucks to be Obama right now:
Obama Approval Above 50% in 10 States and D.C. in 2011
http://www.gallup.com/poll/152372/Obama-Approval-Above-States-2011.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=Politics%20-%20Presidential%20Job%20Approval
He barely breaks 50% approval in California????