Oct 27 2008
3rd Early Voting Indicator National Polls May Be Way Off – Now 4th!
Major Update: DJ Drummond (another poll skeptic like me) has discovered another indication that the poll weighting of party for party ID are nonsensical and Obama may be in some serious trouble. Before I get to DJ’s analysis I want to address comments about early voting typically being led by Republicans. While true, early voting is not stagnant but a growing phenomena. In some states it is approaching 30-40% of the electorate. As early voting expands the GOP edge will disappear and the early voting results will simply mirror the state as a whole. This is pure mathematics and obvious to anyone who thinks about it.
While early voting my have been at one time only 10% of the voting population, it would be dominated by GOP friendly groups who use it (military and older voters). But when it approaches 40% of the vote, the early voting will reflect the general population – it has to. Just as 1% of precincts will not give a good estimate of the final state wide vote, when you get 40% of precincts in you can tell how the race will end up. It either favors one candidate or is too close to call. Right now early voting looks to show ‘too close to call’.
Now, onto DJ Drummond’s 4th indicator the polls are critically flawed:
I found serious problems in their fundamental assumptions, not the least being the heavy weighting of democrats in the polls (and let’s not mince words – any poll weights by party affiliation, the ones which simply accept what is called in are just accepting the raw data as demographically accurate, which is just as absurd in terms of party affiliation, as it would be if they assumed that race, gender, age, or educational demographics did not need to be reweighted)
This is what many call as circular logic. This is a statistical no-no, so from the start we know the polls have gone from scientific to fantasy. But DJ notes something else in the Gallup early voting data that belies a large differential in democrat turnout:
Says Gallup; “Early voting ranges from 14% of voters 55 and older (in aggregated data from Friday through Wednesday) to 5% of those under age 35. Plus, another 22% of voters aged 55 and up say they plan to vote early, meaning that by Election Day, over a third of voters in this older age group may already have cast their ballots.â€
The last two statements are very good news for McCain and bad news for Obama. This is because it demonstrates that enthusiasm to actually vote by republicans is equal to enthusiasm to vote by democrats. This runs directly against claims made in polling up to now, demonstrating that participation in polls is not directly related to voting this year.
Clearly the older, reliable McCain voters are getting out and voting, while those new, unreliable younger voters are NOT getting out and voting. So much for the vaunted Democrat Obama wave. – end update
I have been noting that national polls and some state polls may be way off based on optimistic voter turnout models which are historically nonsense (see posts here and here). One of the first indicators of whether Obama really is enjoying some massive lead is the early voting opportunities, which have not shown what Obama and the media have been saying is a huge democrat wave, like 2006.
First there was early voting and registration in Ohio, where Obama’s campaign promised to make huge gains – only to fall 80% short of their mark. All the hype in Ohio was pure fantasy when it came to Obama getting out the vote with this massive wave, which turned out to be barely a ripple.
Second, Gallup came out with poll numbers showing the amount of early voters between Obama and McCain show no huge wave for Obama, but actually a dead even race. Even though Gallup’s own national poll models showed a huge lead for Obama, it was not showing up in the early voting.
But today there is a 3rd indicator from early voting that things are just not going Obama’s way, and this time it is from deep blue California:
The results are simply shocking. The polls showed Barack Obama with an 18 point lead in California just a few days ago. The results thus far are the complete opposite. In the most liberal state in the entire country,the results are that 99,000 Republicans have voted and 96,000 Democrats voted. In the mail-in balloting the results so far are that 9,000 Democrats sent in their ballots and that 5,000 Republicans did so. So with nearly 210,000 people having voted,the Democrats have only a 1,000 vote advantage !
If we take the liberty of assuming that all Republicans will vote for John McCain and all Democrats will vote for Obama,then the race is incredibly close. I’m sure that Obama will eventually win in California,but if he is struggling here after he pushed so hard for early voting,then he will lose the election ! Everybody thought he would win California in a landslide,but so far anyway,it’s very tight. That means that in the less liberal states he is in real trouble.
This election is all about turnout. And I confess Obama’s crowds of 150,000 in MO and 100,000 in Denver has me worried he might pull this off. But there may be an equal force out there, a very quiet but very large and very much determined to vote against Obama. And if that is true, then Obama will not win. If there is a fight in CA in early voting, then there will be a fight across this land.
That AOL poll, as of this Monday morning has seen a major shift
from previous weeks.
It now shows McCain 69 – 21, and winning all states except Washington DC
McCain gets 535 electoral votes, Barry gets 3.
Yeah, it may be wrong, but it has more likelihood of being right
than all our major in the tank mainstream media owned polls.
Anyways, I’m just looking at the movement, the poll has been running
for weeks, and is started over every week. During the last two weeks
the race had tightened giving Obama a position not so far behind
McCain. This week it has moved far the other way.
Something’s going on.
I particularly liked obama’s proposed 25% defense spending cut
and the elimination of our missile defense program. Classy. Why
should we be able to stop an Iraninan Electro Magnetic Pulse
strike from a freighter 500 miles off the East Coast? Obama sez
“We shouldn’t”.
The poll can be seen at:
http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/10/24/aol-straw-poll-oct-24-31/#comments
You have to be an AOL member to vote, though you can register with
them and then vote.
breschau,
You list a bunch of republican elites as proof that the rank and file will not vote. One of the themes of this blog the past couple weeks is the growing rejection of the bi-partisan status quo as a way for McCain Palin to get over the finish line. I do not know what will happen, but the race will be tight and we shall see.
On a serious note, what is the Obama appeal to you?
I thought breschau left in a huff.
Too bad, the little bootlicker is still here.
I saw this link about polls, it is anecdotal but interesting.
And breschau:
I don’t care who those people support. The interesting thing is that Obama is attracting the support of people that you would have called war criminals or fascists a few months ago. I call them opportunistic, and they know one of their own when they see him. So pucker up and get ready to kiss a** for the big guys.
Because, hey – going by the recent Presidential election history of CA, who *knows* which way it might lean, right?
The last time anybody had this kind of air campaign in this state was in 1992, when it was not entirely certain that Clinton would carry this state. Commercials cost a great deal of money. Obama is running them to the point of saturation in a state he’s supposed to have in the bag.
Are you arguing that Obama is merely a wasteful fool?
[…] Obama’s campaign promised to make huge gains — only to fall 80% short of their mark,” adds A.J. Strata at the Strata-Sphere: All the hype in Ohio was pure fantasy when it came to Obama getting out the vote with this […]
A word of clarification…
In my post yesterday writing about why the prospect of an Obama presidency is so troubling, I may have given off the impression that I had “given up” on the presidential race. I assure you, I have not. And in spite of any polling news you…
But what started to happen under (I believe) the Roosevelt administration was that corrupt Democrat political machines (mainly in New York and Chicago) decided to change state laws to make them “winner take allâ€.
If by “Roosevelt administration” you mean “by the middle of the 1800s” and if by “Democrat” you mean “Democrat, Whig, Republican and other national parties” and if by “New York and Chicago” you mean “all the states”, you are entirely correct.
The winner take all system evolved when the states decided electors based on popular vote (which they all did by 1836, except South Carolina which came on board by 1860). Because of the way the system worked, parties made sure to only run as many candidates as there were electors: if a state had 10 electors, a party would run only 10 candidates. If people voted a straight Republican ticket (which included the electors), and the Republicans won, all the electors would be Republican and presumably voting for their party’s ticket. The only way for this not to happen was if for some reason the voter chose to vote for a mix of electors, or perhaps missed voting for some on the list. The last time there was a mixed result from a state was in 1916 in West Virginia. That would be before FDR was president, by the by.
In some states (again starting in the 1800s), state laws formalized what was effectively a winner take all system in practice into a winner take all system in law. Maine and Nebraska actually stepped back from that only relatively recently.
So once again, you statement was entirely correct. Except for the part where it was entirely wrong.
This lesson in American electoral history is brought to you by a Canadian. Canada, educating Americans about America since 1867 ™.
[…] is abuzz with stories from RedState, Strata-Sphere and elsewhere that the massive early voting so far isn’t going overwhelmingly for Barack […]
Bresch?
CA, you owe me $1,000. If McCain wins CA, I owe you $1,000,000.
is that in Scotch dollars or US dollars?
It depends, some states are still not “winner take all”. Different states changed at different times. In New England I believe Maine still splits theirs and one other state that I can’t remember. Maybe it was earlier. I know the Senate changed from Legislature to popular vote in the eary 1900’s. And I thought I remembered the debate in the state where I was living when I was young but now that I think about it, I believe I might have confused winner take all electors with winner take all primaries.
But that notwithstanding, the fact remains that by going back to the per-district system, the electoral vote nationally will more closely match the popular vote nationally and give a voice back to the rural areas as originally intended as the purpose of the electoral college. As it stands now, one or two cities carry an entire state. Most of Pennsylvania is Republican except Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. All any candidate needs is one popular vote more and they gets a share of electoral votes completely out of line with his popularity as a candidate.
And I believe “Winner take all” didn’t start until the late 1800’s when states were given control of their electors.
crosspatch
“Breshau, you don’t know very much about politics, do you? Or history, for that matter.”
Not US history anyway, he’s from Scotland. I googled him. He denies it, but I checked him out. He posts on several blogs and they all refer to him as being from scotland.
I’m reasonably sure also that he comments as conman and norm on this blog…
I live in one of those states that no one ever considers going red. However, I do believe we will get rid of our Democratic governor this year because her administration failed big time. She even has the sports fans in Seattle against her for her failure to act to save the Sonics for Seattle.
Anyway, if commercials are a sign of how a candidate is doing in a state, this state is staying blue. There are very few ads from either side. There have been more of Obama lately but that might be because he has to spend his ill-gotten campaign funds somewhere.
If I was McCain one of the first thing I would do after being inaugurated, I would call for an investigation on Obama’s campaign funds. It is so clear that there has been massive fraud in that area.
KeithM
“This lesson in American electoral history is brought to you by a Canadian. Canada, educating Americans about America since 1867 â„¢”
and not very well. Your thesis is so full of errors it’s not worth the effort to refute all of them. You could learn a lot from Google.
Funny how we keep getting told how to vote by Canadians, French, Scotch, Aussies, etc. Notice how those countries all vote for Socialist black leaders in their countries?
breschau,
In an interview on the Colorado Springs station KOAA yesterday (video available at POLITICO and HotAIR among others), Obama said: “I don’t think we’re going to have time to engage in a bunch of crazy things that people, the McCain campaign specifically, has suggested we might.â€
Obama does not think he will have the time to engage in crazy things; what does that say about the case if he suddenly finds the time?
It is unbelievable to hear somebody asking for your support/vote saying that only lack of time will stop him from engaging in stupid things.
Anybody voting for Obama will get their just reward and they do so being fully warned by none other than Obama.
[…] said that, let’s look at the other piece of extremely interesting news: All the hype in Ohio was pure fantasy when it came to Obama getting out the vote with this massive […]
But that notwithstanding, the fact remains that by going back to the per-district system, the electoral vote nationally will more closely match the popular vote nationally and give a voice back to the rural areas as originally intended as the purpose of the electoral college. As it stands now, one or two cities carry an entire state. Most of Pennsylvania is Republican except Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. All any candidate needs is one popular vote more and they gets a share of electoral votes completely out of line with his popularity as a candidate.
And…Barack Obama would still (likely) be elected president. Assuming that the congressional districts would tend to vote for the president of the same party as the person they elected to the House, you did notice that the Democrats hold the majority, yes?
Besides, if one or two cities carry a state, well, that’s still the majority of the population of the state who voted. There’s nothing magical about living outside cities that makes one’s opinion worth more or more important.
Besides, almost 60% of the US population lives in rural areas of 200,000+ population, and over 80% in metropolitan areas. Only 20% of the population lives in areas that can be considered rural. Why should that shrinking 20% have a greater say than the 80% that’s growing?
WA State Voter
“I live in one of those states that no one ever considers going red. However, I do believe we will get rid of our Democratic governor this year because her administration failed big time. ”
And you might point out that she was never elected in the first place, she got in by ‘counting’ fraud.
Nebraska is the other state, besides Maine, that allocates two of their EVs by CDs.
I do not have the list handy, but many states do NOT require their Electors to abide by the popular vote. The total EVs in those states is about 240 as I recall. I researched this a few months ago to see if Hillary would carry her fight to the Electoral College.
I am NOT a PUMA, nor did I vote for Hillary on Feb. 5 because she isn’t a very good senator. However, I was reading Hillbuzz yesterday, and someone there estimated 14 million Hillary voters would vote for Obama, one million would stay home, and three million for McCain. Hard to know where they live.
I always thought a lot of Hillary voters starting with Ohio on March 4 were actually votes against Obama, just like my vote on Feb. 5 was a vote against Hillary.
As to Massachusetts being deep blue? 49% of voters are not registered with either party. Gov. Romney’s legacy has improved with the disappointment of Gov. Patrick (Axelrod’s test run for Obama approval rating is seeking to move up to 45%). Lots of veterans, lots of very patriotic people who fly their flag every day. Employment is holding up ok. You just never know what may happen on Nov. 4, even in Massachusetts. It will depend on turnout. Same for New York.
BTW . . . how come we never, ever see a survey that addresses the PUMA issue? Am I to believe that it’s obviously a complete non-issue? Or have such surveys been done . . . and immediately suppressed because the results are not in line with the media’s obvious bias toward The One (PBUH)?
PUMA’s are the difference in this election that no poll has taken into consideration. They will deliver the election for McCain, he carries 40 states. Over 18 million voted for Hillary in a bitterly contested primary and they are bitter about the DNC selecting Obama.
It is not out of the realm of possibility that McCain carries California, maybe even New York if enough of the Hillary vote goes to McCain/Palin. The PUMA’s love Palin.