Oct 30 2008

The Nightly Bi-Poller Report For 10_30_08

Published by at 6:10 pm under 2008 Elections,All General Discussions

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 +6.7%

10_27_08 = Ob +7.3%
10_28_08 = Ob +6.3%
10_29_08 = Ob +6.0%

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 +5), Gallup (Expanded) (Ob +7) and ABC News/Wash Post (Ob +8). Therefore the Extended Poll average for today is Obama +6.7% (close to the RCP average).

Strata-Sphere Traditional:  Ob+ 5.0%

10_27_08 = Ob +4.8%
10_28_08 = Ob +4.0%
10_29_08 = Ob +4.2%

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 +5), Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby (Ob +7), Diageo/Hotline (Ob +6), IBD/TIPP (Ob +4) and GWU/Battleground (Ob +3). Therefore the Traditional Poll average for today is Obama +5.0% (not very close to the RCP average).

Note: If I add in today’s Fox Poll (Ob +3) the ‘traditional poll tally is 4.7%.

RCP National Average: Ob +6.2%

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 ‘traditional’ family as a one off example today).

Analysis:

A bit more movement to Obama today in the traditional poll family, unless you count in the Fox Poll (Ob +3) which shrinks the movement a bit.

The extended poll model had a shift back to Obama as well.

Sometime in the coming days the RCP may dip dramatically as the wild Pew poll (Ob +15) rolls off their average. If I pulled it from today’s RCP equation the RCP average would be 5.3%, not 6.2%. What I would love to see is at least the Traditional poll family dip to 2-3% by Sunday, which would make the race a statistical tie. Will it happen?  Who knows.

I do know that one poll in PA and three polls in VA (here, here and here) have those two states down to Ob +4%, which could mean McCain wins both and blocks any hope of Obama winning. We will not know what the real story is until November 5th.

Previous Posts:

The Nightly Bi-Poller Report For 10_29_08
The Nightly Bi-Poller Report For 10_28_08
The Nightly Bi-Poller Report For 10_27_08
Bi-Poller Part II
Bi-Poller

3 responses so far

3 Responses to “The Nightly Bi-Poller Report For 10_30_08”

  1. spiff says:

    So, look who’s already RATIONING the Kool-Aid.

    Barack Obama lays plans to deaden expectation after election victory
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5051118.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093

    (Caps added) “In an interview with a Colorado radio station, Mr Obama appeared to be engaged already in EXPECTATION LOWERING. …… “The first hundred days is going to be important, but it’s probably going to be THE FIRST THOUSAND DAYS that makes the difference,” he said. He has also been reminding crowds in recent days how “hard” it will be to achieve his goals, and that it will take time.”

    No, ya don’t say. Do ya think it might be because Barry’s whole campaign is 90% hype, 7% “all non-believers are racists”, 2% “Record? I don’t need no stinkin’ record!” and 1% “chuck another one under the bus”? Do ya think maybe Barry’s starting to sweat a bit over the empty shell he’s really hiding behind all the smoke and mirrors?

    The Kool-Aid Generation can expect “change”. They can expect “hope”. Just don’t expect “MUCH”! And “Yes, (you) can.” But it looks like maybe, Obama “CAN’T”.

    At least not until re-election. But maybe not even then. “Change”, apparently, is really about “lowered expectations”.

    Looks like the McCain camp has been right all along. Behind all the smug “in your face” posturing is a whole lotta not so fast, not so much, and maybe even not at all.

    Welcome to the New Kool-Aid.

  2. […] The Nightly Bi-Poller Report For 10_30_08 The Nightly Bi-Poller Report For 10_29_08 The Nightly Bi-Poller Report For 10_28_08 The Nightly Bi-Poller Report For 10_27_08 Bi-Poller Part II Bi-Poller […]

  3. […] For 11_02_08 The Nightly Bi-Poller Report For 11_01_08 The Nightly Bi-Poller Report For 10_31_08 The Nightly Bi-Poller Report For 10_30_08 The Nightly Bi-Poller Report For 10_29_08 The Nightly Bi-Poller Report For 10_28_08 The Nightly […]