Oct 21 2008
More Poll News – Updated
Update: Very bad news on the poll front with Gallup.  The ‘traditional’ model shows a +7% lead for Obama which means Obama is either still getting his debate bounce or the nation is accepting his ascendency. This should not dampen the opposition. We don’t know where this race will come out. Get out to vote and bring 5 like minded friends. We must go down with a fight and not a surrender. Thats for the liberals. The IBD poll illustrates there is still a chance to turn this around. – end update
Again we see polls moving up and down today. Â The one that caught my eye was the Battleground Daily Tracking Poll which showed the race down to a single point statistical tie. This is one week after Obama had opened up a 13% lead, which is truly a stunning move. Is this poll an outlier? Not really. Rassmussen showed a drop from 7% to 4% around the same time period. Â Each poll as a different sensitivity and reaction time. Many showed a rise in Obama support and now some level of drop off. The one I am waiting to see is the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll. It showed a large shift to Obama yesterday going from +2% to +5%. I want to see if it shows a sustained bump or something more transient.
As I said before, I don’t expect to see something steady at least until the end of the week.
This is D J Drummond evaluating the media polling to date, using an AP/Yahoo poll, and basically saying that by polling this year without using past models as a base, has hosed any ability the media pollsters have to predict the outcome.
http://stolenthunder.blogspot.com/2008/10/yahoo-indeed.html
There is a voting block of 15% undecided for whom no one knows how they will break and for whom the pollsters have little real understanding because they have been cooking the books so long.
See here regards the invalid in 2008 compared to 2004 demographics found by Drummond:
Looking at the end-poll demographics, more information is revealed which helps us see the bias. 22% of respondents are identified as 18-29 in age, versus 17% in that age group’s actual voting in 2004. In this poll, 13% of the respondents did not complete High School, versus only 4% of voters in 2004 who did not complete High School. 31% of the poll respondents have a High School diploma as their highest education, versus 22% of voters in 2004 in that category. The overweight is obvious.
Whites in the poll made up 69% of the pool, versus 77% of voters in 2004. Hispanics in the pool counted for 13%, versus 7% who voted in 2004.
In the poll, 84% of respondents live in urban areas, versus 30% of actual voters in 2004.
In the poll, a staggering 41% of respondents do not have a job.
And finally, 58% of respondents to the poll make $50,000 a year or less, versus 45% of the actual voters in 2004.
This poll is biased in six distinctly invalid ways relative to known demographics, and even then the AP/Yahoo poll admits the race is close, though they do everything they can to hide that conclusion in the press release.
and here regards what it means for polling:
The polls appear to have bought into a foolish circular logic – Obama is a “game changer”, so that means the old weights do not apply, so they over-weight younger voters, urban voters, and assume that newly registered voters from the primary season will vote in much greater proportion than the known historical norms. So when they over-weight these vectors, the polls show big gains for Obama and that makes the pollsters believe they were right.
Until …
Until someone tests the models for collinearity and finds out they do not work in a controlled setting.
And that’s where we are now. The polls are invalid and they know it, but they have to scramble these last two weeks to make the final numbers come out close to the actual election, but they cannot get a handle on where that will actually end up, because of the undecideds.
The 13% point lead was a little of an outlier. 53-40 was a bit too much. 51-43 was more in line, which are the bookends to Battlegrounds 53-40 blowout. So lets call it a stable 3 day eight point lead. To go down from an 8% lead to a 1% lead in a week is stunning. Joe the Plumber?
The point I like to make is that this is close to McCain taking the lead. Even though a 48-47 McCain lead is a statistical tie, it would show McCain ahead. If McCain pokes his head in front in any of these tracking polls then the whole premise of inevitability is shot. See Bob Beckel below. Calling the PIC and MSM.
Mark,
Rapid shifts in a specific poll like the Battleground poll is mostly an indication that they changed their party turn out weights.
You can expect a lot of polls to be doing that over the next week for reasons of reputation.
They want their individual closing poll to be “within a reasonable margin of error” for measurable performance reasons.
One telling sign to me that the polls are wrong or are being manipulated is the absence of Obama/Biden bumper stickers. Not sure if there is any statistical basis but a definite observation and a noticeable difference from the last 2 elections. I haven’t been seeing many McCain/Palin bumper stickers either but it is usually the Dems who lead the charge in this form of advertising or attention seeking.
why are you looking at nationwide polling?
The polls are crazy. Gallup goes up 2 and Battleground goes minus 3 on the same day. At least Rasmussen stayed the same.
Maybe Rasmussen is trying to keep his numbers steady so as not to give up the game that nobody knows where this election is going. It is all up to the undecided, leaners, and those who could change their mind before voting.
Kauai Boy,
I noticed the same thing about the absence of Obama signs/bumper stickers – in cities other than my own. I live in Pittsburgh, PA, and (to my disgust) my neighborhood is plastered with Obama signs in front yards. However… two weekends ago, I ran the Chicago Marathon (26.2 miles worth of Chicago neighborhood streets) and counted a mere 6 Obama signs in yards and only 4 spectators with Obama signs/clothing. I didn’t notice any Obama displays/visible supporters around the downtown/touristy areas, either. Is Chicago just not that into him, or are they not into showing their support??? I spent the remainder of last week in the San Francisco area and also noticed a lack of Obama stickers/signs there as well. (In a drive out to Lake Tahoe, I was pleasantly surprised to see numerous McCain-Palin signs along the roads!) Maybe I was in the wrong areas in Chi and SF for seeing BHO support… but I thought deep-blue northern CA and Chicago would surely be gushing tribute to ‘the messiah’.
Pew has a new poll that goes heavily for Obama.
I don’t think Obama is getting a debate bounce, because I think McCain did better than he did in the debate. At the very least there was a parity, no way was it a bounce worthy debate for Obama. Of course if the media did not kiss his butt all the time and would actually do their jobs and vet the man the polls would be different.
I think that if Obama turned out to a serial killer not only would the major news networks not cover it, they would help bury the bodies.
On the other hand, I saw this at Ace:
]
Battleground Poll: Obama By One, 48-47, 6% Undecided*
* Note: “Undecided” Has Been Redefined as “Racist”
—Ace
Did I say “racist”? I only meant “redneck” (and also racist).
This link is just a PDF of the trendline. So if you don’t like PDFs, don’t bother, it’s will just tell you Obama’s edged down as McCain has creeped up.
The polls are all over the place. I’m choosing to believe polls like this. There’s no real reason to favor the Big Obama Lead polls over the Margin of Error Obama Lead polls, so might as well go with the ones that offer a shot of victory.
Thanks to CJ.
Hillbuzz: On those undecideds. I mean racists. No, I meant rednecks. By which I meant racists.
Undecideds will go to McCain at a rate of 4:1 or higher, the same way they broke for Clinton. That means in this Battleground Poll, it’s actually McCain 52%-Obama 49%.
The other interesting thing to keep in mind is that, on average, Obama overpolled by 7% in our primaries.
Meanwhile McCain is doing better in Florida and Ohio.
I don’t know, this is a screwy year.
Even with the massive lopsided Pew poll Pollster was forced by their model to put Fl back into the toss up bin and Obama’s EV count was reduced.
Digging into all the polls data and internals make you wonder if they are polling the same planet.
Undecideds run from 18% to 1%
Independent preference runs from 65% Obama to tie to 20% McCain.
Well in a couple of weeks we will know just how accurate the polls were or at least the first cut before all the court actions to follow settle it all out.
“Very bad news on the poll front with Gallup”
Nah, I ain’t buying it. This is an election of firsts that will be unlike past elections. There is a big undercurrent out there and it can’t be measured for certain. I agree with the end of your update, let’s keep fighting (but I don’t think we’re going down).
Terrye, I saw that at Hillbuzz, too. Very interesting regarding the 7%. There are a lot of very active PUMA’s as well.
One thing that worries me is a “pile on the bandwagon” effect by undecided voters. That could get ugly.
On the other hand, I’m not giving up. Not with two weeks to go.
But I STILL wish I knew where the RNC is spending its money.
I’m not buyin’ it either. I know enough to NOT trust any of the polls.
I know that the polls are rigged to demoralize us Repubs and depress our vote.
Personally,I don’t know of any who are falling for this ruse.
It may be a depressing time, but we’re voting come hell or high water.
…
Mike:
I think that is the point with the polls, they want people to pile on. They want to manipulate the events rather than poll on them. I think they did the same thing with Bush’s approval numbers. Once they started going down, they made sure they kept going down. Every time they started to go up again, Something would happen to effect the polls and then the slide began again.
I just think it is a strange year, with some strange stuff going on.
kitty:
Yes, I think the reason so many are not buying it is the volatility and the range of the polls.
FWIW, Gallup had McCain winning independents 34/27. http://www.gallup.com/poll/108049/Candidate-Support-Political-Party-Ideology.aspx
Something weird is going on here.
More from DJ Drummond that Trent cited in the first post:
In 1948, Gallup screwed with the weighting, assuming the republicans would turn out much in much larger numbers than the democrats, but they were wrong, and badly miscalled the election. In 1952 Gallup assumed the other way, that the race would be tight and down to the wire, but they blew that call as well. In 1976, Gallup assumed the opposite, that democrats would overwhelm republicans because of Watergate, but when it became obvious that republicans would vote anyway, Gallup had to change its model to show their participation more accurately. In 1980, Gallup called Carter ahead until the very end, when they grudgingly granted Reagan a small lead, yet another case where Gallup’s assumptions were well off the mark. In 1996, Gallup overstated Clinton’s support and understated Dole’s support throughout the campaign, and in 2004 Gallup called the race too close to call. This year, trying to gauge the effects of Barack Obama’s ‘rock star’ charisma, Gallup decided to abandon historical norms and overweight urban and youth voters, and to over-sample democrats all campaign long. This model, dubbed the “expanded voter”, has proven a disaster for Gallup, so much so that the group reintroduced a more historically balanced model, which they call the “traditional” model. The problem for Gallup, however, is that their methodology became so skewed throughout the campaign up to now, that it may be impossible for Gallup to correct its procedures before the final election poll. In the light of past blunders, this year missing the call may not be unreasonable at all to expect.
So OK, Gallup is having a bad year, but what about the rest? Well, there the phrase to consider is follow the leader. Gallup has been doing this stuff for longer than anyone else, and the other polls have often fallen into the habit of chasing what they see Gallup do. But for an objective look at their performance, I direct you to another of my past articles, where I noted the NCPP’s record on poll accuracy. From what I see here, if Gallup is having problems, it’s likely just as bad or worse for everyone else.
So, could I be wrong? I have to be honest and admit that I could. But in that case, we’d have to ask why the polls do not generally agree with each other, why Gallup is trying to spin three different models at the same time to get a grasp of the picture, why McCain and Obama are both so interested in Pennsylvania, yet neither is working very hard in Ohio right now. We’d have to explain why McCain-Palin rallies are now attracting thousands more people than Obama-Biden rallies, why Letterman suddenly found it cool to have McCain on his show and SNL decided they wanted Palin on theirs. We’d have to explain why there are not a lot of Obama signs visible, but we hear about his army of lawyers getting ready. We’d have to explain why McCain and Palin appear to be so relaxed while Obama and Biden look like they’re worried.
What I think is happening, is this – the polls’ headquarters were based deep in liberal territory, where the assumption was that Obama’s candidacy would actually create a groundswell of pro-democrat voters unseen in the country since 1932. That McCain is more experienced with the key issues than Obama was ignored, that the historical significance of the debates shows that the effects appear several weeks later was also ignored. That the economy could be as reasonably blamed on the democrat-controled Congress as on the republican President was never considered. That character would be a salient factor in the decisions of voters was rejected out of hand.
Changing channels just now from MSNBC Chuck Todd citing Sarah Palin as key reason for today’s slipping polls to Fox News on this story:
Russia, Iran, Qatar discuss OPEC-style gas cartel
By NASSER KARIMI – 9 hours ago
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran, Russia and Qatar discussed the formation of an OPEC-style cartel among some of the largest natural gas producing nations on Tuesday, a prospect that has unnerved energy-importing nations in Europe and the United States. …
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jbcV-6jA645GdBXJLw9eJfrYLiBgD93UTQKG1
Sounds like a good reason for more of the media to follow what NPR did last week on Fresh Air: talk about Palin’s serious accomplishments as governor and that natural gas pipeline…
Palin has been so unfairly savaged that only a re-focus on her accomplishments in energy and linking it to national security by this weekend can offset what may be at the heart of the polling problem.
By the way – it is NOT helpful to be casting this as a liberal v conservative battle to the death.
INDEPENDENTS are socially moderate, fiscally conservative, and 2/3 of us agree with McCain on Iraq.
By distorting the nomination process for president, the extremes of both parties since 1980 are killing this country
The chances that a Republican wins this time around is about zero. But there is hope that the American people would not elect someone like Obama. Hillary yes, but Obama? I guess in really nobody cares who Obama is or was, who he allies with, what his beliefs are. People love him, they are not rational. McCain is a lousy communicator, an uninspiring candidate, and in this climate is lucky to be where he is today. What a sad commentary on the thoughtfulness of the voting population.