Nov 05 2006
Gallup Sees Same Slide
The USA Today/Gallup poll just out gives the Reps a perfect trifecta in the polls as, again, a huge lead is cut. Today the Dems only enjoy a meager 7 percentage point lead over the Reps. A month ago it was a 23 point lead, and two weeks ago it was 13 points. Updating this in a few minutes.
A Democratic advantage of 23 percentage points a month ago and 13 points two weeks ago is now down to 7.
Gallup and USA Today are spinning like whirling dervishes to claim this still indicated dems will take the house. We know the senate is out of their grasp. Truth is, their supporters are very fragile. They feel like this election is slipping away they will stay home in a temper tantrum fit. In fact, Gallup admits as well they have had to adjust their turnout models and dems appear less likely to vote than before and the GOP supposeldy surges (or is finally talking to pollsters)
What’s shifted is the determination of Republicans to vote. The Democratic advantage among registered voters was 11 points, but Republican voters were more likely to be judged as sure to go to the polls, making the edge among likely voters smaller.
A month ago, the Democratic margin among registered and likely voters was identical.
Granted, in 2004 the margin had shrunk to where Dems where only up by 1 point by election day. In 2002 Gallup had Dems up by 3 points. In both years the Dems lost seats. Clearly, though, there is no wave. The average performance in the 6th year of a President’s term is for his party to lose 6 Senate seats and something like 24 House seats. The Dems will be performing below average this year – again.
Update: One last observation about the Gallup sample pool. In the PEW poll out today we saw GOTV efforts hitting 54%-64% of their sample voters. In the Gallup poll their sample is only reporting GOTV contacts by 15% by one party, and 27% by both. That is a GOTV contact rate of 42%, well below the Pew numbers. Seems these folks are not getting the same random samples! The GOTV contact numbers should be very close if the samples were both random measurements of the same population.
Don Surber–the House polls are outdated..He sees D’s getting no more than 10 and perhaps picking up some.
http://donsurber.blogspot.com/
“I think there is a very good chance that undecided voters will break disproportionately towards the GOP in this race – especially in Congressional races. By common admission, the putative appeal of the Democrats is limited to essentially one issue: Discontent with progress in Iraq. It is worth noting that that discontent has not been enough to beach Senator Lieberman in his deep blue state, but such is supposedly the Democratic advantage.
But problems in Iraq have been absolutely pounded by the media for a long time now. The information is all out, and has been force-fed for weeks to virtually every voter. Anyone who is going to make a decision to vote one way or the other on the basis of that issue has almost certainly done so already. The rest of the major issues favor the GOP: nearly historic low unemployment, historic stock market highs, stabilized low interest rates, historic high home ownership rates, declining gas prices. Then, of course, there is Karl Rove’s famous “get-out-the-vote” machine, for which the Democrats have no real counterpart.
I therefore see the race likely sliding towards the GOP in the next three days, even as the mainstream media proclaim that the Democrats are “taking new territory” and “opening new fronts.” This race has some dynamics similar to those of the build-up to the 2004 Democratic Convention: The media played Kerry up prior to the Convention, just as the media have saturated the political marketplace with pro-Democratic Iraq negativism this time around. The result in 2004 was that the Democratic Convention itself could produce little or no “bounce” – in fact, Kerry may have experienced a “negative bounce” from his own Convention. Similarly, most new information and considerations entering the campaign and voters’ thinking in the next 3 days will probably of necessity favor the GOP because the Iraq issue has done all it can do already.”
http://musil.blogspot.com/2006_11_05_musil_archive.html#116274424477986068 (Much more about bad poll assumption–i.e. strength of Dem support–Jews conflcited, Blacks not happy , etc..
I am hoping for a huge landslide in favor for Shelley Sekula-Gibbs by end of Tuesday!
This poll is similar to the 2002 …
This is what Frank Newport wrote about the 2002 election on October 01, 2006:
In 2002, Gallup’s final generic ballot among registered voters – in the poll conducted Oct 31-Nov 3, 2002 – showed a 5 point- Democratic edge, 49%-44%. Among likely voters it was 51% to 45% Republican, for a difference in the gap between registered and likely voters of 11 points. The final national House vote in 2002 was 50.5% for the Republicans vs. 45.9% for the Democrats, a 5 point Republican advantage).
We gained two seats that year from 221 to 223 seats! Gallup was right then, wonder if its right now
Thanks Belkin for the correction!
Fox has all seats listed by state on their site. Maybe able to keep up with results that way.
I am in Hostettler’s district in Indiana and while Ellsworth’s people have been calling me and filling my mailbox with propaganda I have heard nary a word from Hostettler. What gives? Have the Republicans given up on IN8?
The plan didn’t work…
During the last two months several so-called setbacks failed to depress the evangelical right, one was the Foley incident, then the David Cho interview followed lately by the Haggard set up. All of these events, while not excusing the behavior or Fole…
The Trifecta…
Both AJ and Mickey Kaus note the USA Today poll that puts the generic Democrat edge at +7; that makes three polls in the final weekend that show a considerable tightening of the race…will it be enough? We’ll find out soon enough…
……
Terrye,
At RCP you can read up on Hostettleer. He doesn’t take PAC money and actually doesn’t do a lot of money campaigning. Therefore he is always underfunded. But he also gets elected!
Polling methods, as practiced today, have become obsolete. The first major polling organization to admit that fact and act on it will be far ahead of the others.