The final Pew poll is out today and it is very, very bad news for Mitt Romney. Obama is up by 3 among likely voters.
The polling averages are always the best indicator of where the race stands, especially relative to any single poll. But the Pew poll does have all the characteristics of a good poll.
1) Pew has a good historical track record
2) Pew has a very big sample; 2,709 likely voters were interviewed
3) Live interviews
4) Large numbers of cell-phone only voters were interviewed
This one poll can be wrong because of sampling error. The margin of error among likely voters is +/- 2.2 points which means the margin between Obama and Romney is highly likely to be within the range of Obama +7.4 and Romney +1.4. So there is room to interpret this poll as consistent with a small lead for Romney. But it is a narrow space.
The possibility of bias exists here too. But Pew's methodology is very, very solid in every way a pollster can control. Romney's hopes increasingly depend upon some "X factor" that pollsters are not currently able to identify.
Showing posts with label Pew. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pew. Show all posts
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Why Watch the Popular Vote?
The Electoral College elects the president and we all know Obama has an advantage there. But Nate Silver provides a layman's approach to the popular vote for election night.
Put Silver's current Electoral College estimate (Obama is about 85% to win) together with that and what does it tell us? It tells us the national polls are starting to converge with where the state polls are. Silver points out that the 15% chance Romney has is almost all riding on the state polling displaying systemic bias. Now the national polling average is approaching a 1-point lead for Obama (currently +0.6 for Obama). This was not the case a week ago. So now, the national polls AND the state polls are indicating a likely Obama victory.
In the next 24 hours, we're going to see a bunch of final national polls released including Gallup and Pew. NBC/WSJ released their final national poll this morning and they have Obama up 48-47. Gallup being Gallup, they will likely have some outlier result based on their odd likely voter screen. Pew had the race even a week ago.
A week ago, the discussion was all about why the national polls and the state polls were so different. Now they are not as different. Romney NEEDS pollsters to be wrong at this point ... a lot of them.
UPDATE: Pew has their final poll out and Obama is up by 3.
Put Silver's current Electoral College estimate (Obama is about 85% to win) together with that and what does it tell us? It tells us the national polls are starting to converge with where the state polls are. Silver points out that the 15% chance Romney has is almost all riding on the state polling displaying systemic bias. Now the national polling average is approaching a 1-point lead for Obama (currently +0.6 for Obama). This was not the case a week ago. So now, the national polls AND the state polls are indicating a likely Obama victory.
In the next 24 hours, we're going to see a bunch of final national polls released including Gallup and Pew. NBC/WSJ released their final national poll this morning and they have Obama up 48-47. Gallup being Gallup, they will likely have some outlier result based on their odd likely voter screen. Pew had the race even a week ago.
A week ago, the discussion was all about why the national polls and the state polls were so different. Now they are not as different. Romney NEEDS pollsters to be wrong at this point ... a lot of them.
UPDATE: Pew has their final poll out and Obama is up by 3.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Will the Second Debate Affect the Polls?
It depends on how you understand how the first debate affected the polls. I argued here that the effect of the first debate was to energize Republican voters and to depress Democratic voters. As post-debate polls rolled in, like the Pew poll that had Romney ahead by 4, we saw more Republicans and fewer Democrats identified as likely voters.
One thing that is not happening as a result of last night's debate is some big swing among "undecided" voters. There just aren't very many undecided voters and, if you're undecided at this point, you're a low-information voter who is not paying any attention at all to these debates.
So, what did last night's debate do for Republican and Democratic voters? Republicans who were already energized about Romney will remain so. Romney made mistakes last night but he does a very good job of delivering Republican talking points related to the question asked. Republican viewers came away satisfied with that. The question is whether the debate and, more importantly, the day-after media discussion will energize previously-depressed Democrats/Obama supporters.
My sense is that the debate will do that at least to some extent. The President was feisty, was hitting the key themes Democrats want to hear about, and hit Romney in three ways that Democrats had been worried about:
1) The President reminded everyone of his commander-in-chiefyness with the Libya exchange
2) The President helped fire up women on a number of answers (Ledbetter Act, contraception/abortion, Romney's silly binders answer)
3) The President emphasized over and over that Romney is going to cut taxes for the most wealthy, will favor the most wealthy, and finished the debate by finally raising the 47% issue and, because it was the last response, Romney couldn't bat it down.
How much will this move the polls? Very, very little in my view. But, to the extent it has an effect, Obama will gain a little ground.
One thing that is not happening as a result of last night's debate is some big swing among "undecided" voters. There just aren't very many undecided voters and, if you're undecided at this point, you're a low-information voter who is not paying any attention at all to these debates.
So, what did last night's debate do for Republican and Democratic voters? Republicans who were already energized about Romney will remain so. Romney made mistakes last night but he does a very good job of delivering Republican talking points related to the question asked. Republican viewers came away satisfied with that. The question is whether the debate and, more importantly, the day-after media discussion will energize previously-depressed Democrats/Obama supporters.
My sense is that the debate will do that at least to some extent. The President was feisty, was hitting the key themes Democrats want to hear about, and hit Romney in three ways that Democrats had been worried about:
1) The President reminded everyone of his commander-in-chiefyness with the Libya exchange
2) The President helped fire up women on a number of answers (Ledbetter Act, contraception/abortion, Romney's silly binders answer)
3) The President emphasized over and over that Romney is going to cut taxes for the most wealthy, will favor the most wealthy, and finished the debate by finally raising the 47% issue and, because it was the last response, Romney couldn't bat it down.
How much will this move the polls? Very, very little in my view. But, to the extent it has an effect, Obama will gain a little ground.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Where are the Good Pollsters?
The national polling numbers are not matching some of my predictions about Romney's bounce from the first debate and I've been trying to think about why that is. I had predicted that Romney's bounce would ultimately boil down to 1-2 points after fading but it should have faded by now. The various polling averages do not bear that out. Some possible explanations are:
1) My predictions were wrong / based on faulty assumptions, etc. or
2) The national polling numbers are not right
I'm generally skeptical when I hear other people making argument #2. It is not so much that pollsters are never wrong. Of course, there are bad polls and there are bad pollsters. But when all the pollsters are moving in one direction, there's only one way to argue they're all wrong and that is if they are all doing something systematically incorrect. That's possible but not very likely.
That said, there is one thing that jumps out at me when I look at the national polling numbers and the arguments I've made: I don't think many pollsters are good. This occurred to me as I was looking at the recent national polls. I've listed below all of the national polls recorded by Pollster.com in which either most or all of the sample has been since the first debate:
The pattern here is pretty clear and Obama's not doing well in these polls. If you average them, Romney is ahead by 0.8 points overall. I've said elsewhere though that pollsters who interviewed on 10/4 (the day after the first debate) showed huge bounces for Romney. If we include only polls that were in the field from 10/5 and after, Romney still leads though it is a slightly smaller average lead of 0.4 points overall.
So, what's going on? Am I wrong? Is Romney's bounce really this big and this lasting? Maybe. The one thing that jumps out at me when I look at that list of pollsters above is that there are only two pollsters there that I think do a good job. One of the pollsters I think is good is PPP though PPP generally has a bit of a Democratic lean. Their poll giving Romney a 2-point lean seems like really bad news then, right? True, except it does include some respondents from 10/4 and the poll is getting a little long in the tooth now. The other pollster I think is good is Pew. They have Obama down by 4 points ... but the same problems are there as with the PPP poll.
What's most striking about this list when we look at it this way is that I don't think any good pollsters have been releasing national polls this week. Who are the good pollsters in my view? Aside from PPP and Pew, I think NBC/WSJ, ABC/WP, CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac, and CNN are pretty good pollsters. None of them has any national poll that has been in the field since at least last Sunday. That's very strange to me.
Maybe my predictions are wrong. But I really want to see a national poll from one of those outlets before I apologize.
1) My predictions were wrong / based on faulty assumptions, etc. or
2) The national polling numbers are not right
I'm generally skeptical when I hear other people making argument #2. It is not so much that pollsters are never wrong. Of course, there are bad polls and there are bad pollsters. But when all the pollsters are moving in one direction, there's only one way to argue they're all wrong and that is if they are all doing something systematically incorrect. That's possible but not very likely.
That said, there is one thing that jumps out at me when I look at the national polling numbers and the arguments I've made: I don't think many pollsters are good. This occurred to me as I was looking at the recent national polls. I've listed below all of the national polls recorded by Pollster.com in which either most or all of the sample has been since the first debate:
The pattern here is pretty clear and Obama's not doing well in these polls. If you average them, Romney is ahead by 0.8 points overall. I've said elsewhere though that pollsters who interviewed on 10/4 (the day after the first debate) showed huge bounces for Romney. If we include only polls that were in the field from 10/5 and after, Romney still leads though it is a slightly smaller average lead of 0.4 points overall.
So, what's going on? Am I wrong? Is Romney's bounce really this big and this lasting? Maybe. The one thing that jumps out at me when I look at that list of pollsters above is that there are only two pollsters there that I think do a good job. One of the pollsters I think is good is PPP though PPP generally has a bit of a Democratic lean. Their poll giving Romney a 2-point lean seems like really bad news then, right? True, except it does include some respondents from 10/4 and the poll is getting a little long in the tooth now. The other pollster I think is good is Pew. They have Obama down by 4 points ... but the same problems are there as with the PPP poll.
What's most striking about this list when we look at it this way is that I don't think any good pollsters have been releasing national polls this week. Who are the good pollsters in my view? Aside from PPP and Pew, I think NBC/WSJ, ABC/WP, CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac, and CNN are pretty good pollsters. None of them has any national poll that has been in the field since at least last Sunday. That's very strange to me.
Maybe my predictions are wrong. But I really want to see a national poll from one of those outlets before I apologize.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Have Voters Changed Their Minds About Obama?
No. That's the short answer.
Much of the criticism of the Pew Poll leveled from despairing Democrats has centered on the partisan makeup of the poll. 36% of likely voters in the poll self-identified as Republicans while 33% self-identified as Democrats. Democrats charge that in 2008 exit polls, 39% of voters self-identified as Democrats compared to 32% who self-identified as Republicans and in 2004 (when Democrats lost a close race), Democrats and Republicans each made up 37% of the electorate. So what gives Pew?
The fact is that the Pew poll is a really well-run poll and there is probably nothing significant wrong with their sampling. As Nate Silver has pointed out many times, party identification is a fluid thing and is more a reflection of where the electorate is at any point than a determinant of where the electorate is. And this brings me to my point.
Romney's post-debate surge is driven by enthusiasm among Republicans (and despair among Democrats) rather than voters changing their minds about the President. More Republicans say they're definitely voting now than before and more voters are willing to say they're Republicans than before. These "new" Republicans have been with Romney all along but were less sure about voting and were less willing to call themselves Republicans. Romney's debate performance energized them and reinvigorated their Republican-ness.
We can see this is the case by looking at some other polls. Gallup has started to release likely voter poll numbers in addition to their registered voter numbers. There is a 5-point swing towards Romney when we move from registered voters to likely voters. That's a BIG swing and it is explained by greater enthusiasm among Republicans. But, what's interesting is that when Gallup breaks out their polling over the last seven days, we see this:
Among registered voters, Obama's standing appears not to have eroded at all. Indeed, Gallup has Obama at a 53% job approval rating, slightly higher than it was before the debate.
We see something similar (from a different angle) looking at the Rasmussen poll. Rasmussen weights their sample by party ID. This means their poll has a consistent number of Democrats and Republicans across time. Not surprisingly, Rasmussen's poll has hardly moved since the debate. It has ranged from Obama ahead 49-47 to Romney ahead 49-47 over the last 10 days. This could be seen as mere statistical noise rather than the effect of a "devastating" (Sullivan's words) debate performance by Obama.
Now, I'm not trying to say that all of this increased enthusiasm among Republicans and depression among Democrats is not a problem for the President. But I am saying that people (I'm looking at you Sullivan) need to be careful about interpreting what's happening as a bunch of undecided voters or a bunch of Obama voters suddenly deciding to vote for Mitt Romney.
The lesson of what I'm saying is that the Obama campaign needs to rally its base. That can be done and the best place to start is with better debate performances from the President and the Vice President that re-energizes Democratic voters. I expect that's going to happen starting with Thursday night.
Much of the criticism of the Pew Poll leveled from despairing Democrats has centered on the partisan makeup of the poll. 36% of likely voters in the poll self-identified as Republicans while 33% self-identified as Democrats. Democrats charge that in 2008 exit polls, 39% of voters self-identified as Democrats compared to 32% who self-identified as Republicans and in 2004 (when Democrats lost a close race), Democrats and Republicans each made up 37% of the electorate. So what gives Pew?
The fact is that the Pew poll is a really well-run poll and there is probably nothing significant wrong with their sampling. As Nate Silver has pointed out many times, party identification is a fluid thing and is more a reflection of where the electorate is at any point than a determinant of where the electorate is. And this brings me to my point.
Romney's post-debate surge is driven by enthusiasm among Republicans (and despair among Democrats) rather than voters changing their minds about the President. More Republicans say they're definitely voting now than before and more voters are willing to say they're Republicans than before. These "new" Republicans have been with Romney all along but were less sure about voting and were less willing to call themselves Republicans. Romney's debate performance energized them and reinvigorated their Republican-ness.
We can see this is the case by looking at some other polls. Gallup has started to release likely voter poll numbers in addition to their registered voter numbers. There is a 5-point swing towards Romney when we move from registered voters to likely voters. That's a BIG swing and it is explained by greater enthusiasm among Republicans. But, what's interesting is that when Gallup breaks out their polling over the last seven days, we see this:
Among registered voters, Obama's standing appears not to have eroded at all. Indeed, Gallup has Obama at a 53% job approval rating, slightly higher than it was before the debate.
We see something similar (from a different angle) looking at the Rasmussen poll. Rasmussen weights their sample by party ID. This means their poll has a consistent number of Democrats and Republicans across time. Not surprisingly, Rasmussen's poll has hardly moved since the debate. It has ranged from Obama ahead 49-47 to Romney ahead 49-47 over the last 10 days. This could be seen as mere statistical noise rather than the effect of a "devastating" (Sullivan's words) debate performance by Obama.
Now, I'm not trying to say that all of this increased enthusiasm among Republicans and depression among Democrats is not a problem for the President. But I am saying that people (I'm looking at you Sullivan) need to be careful about interpreting what's happening as a bunch of undecided voters or a bunch of Obama voters suddenly deciding to vote for Mitt Romney.
The lesson of what I'm saying is that the Obama campaign needs to rally its base. That can be done and the best place to start is with better debate performances from the President and the Vice President that re-energizes Democratic voters. I expect that's going to happen starting with Thursday night.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Sullivan Unhinged
That's how I describe Andrew Sullivan's most recent lengthy post on the President's campaign. The post was sparked by the latest Pew poll which shows Romney leading by 4 points after Pew had Obama ahead by 8 points a few weeks ago. Here's some of Sullivan's rant:
The Pew poll is upsetting to many in large part because it is a pollster with a good track record and credibility. This top line caused Andrew Sullivan to descend into italics and exclamation points.
I've been arguing that the Romney bounce from the debate appears to have been about 3 points and that it appears it may be receding from that high. That still seems about right. One thing to notice about the Pew poll is that it was in the field on Oct. 4 to Oct. 7. But, as Mark Blumenthal points out, almost all of those interviews were on Oct. 4 to Oct. 6, when the Romney bounce was at its peak:
Also, it is one poll! Rasmussen has the race even (even this morning). Gallup has the race roughly even among likely voters. But beyond the polling, let me make a larger point about Andrew Sullivan's absurd reaction. If you are someone who thinks that 90 minutes of bad debating is going to cancel out 4 years of a record worth defending and months and months of bad campaigning by Romney, then you are someone who believes there isn't sufficient wisdom and virtue among the people for self-governance.
The polling (beyond the Pew Poll) doesn't suggest the race has been "thrown away." Get a grip Andrew.
Look: I'm trying to rally some morale, but I've never seen a candidate this late in the game, so far ahead, just throw in the towel in the way Obama did last week - throw away almost every single advantage he had with voters and manage to enable his opponent to seem as if he cares about the middle class as much as Obama does. How do you erase that imprinted first image from public consciousness: a president incapable of making a single argument or even a halfway decent closing statement? And after Romney's convincing Etch-A-Sketch, convincing because Obama was incapable of exposing it, Romney is now the centrist candidate, even as he is running to head up the most radical party in the modern era.OK, let's start by discussing that Pew poll in more depth.
The Pew poll is upsetting to many in large part because it is a pollster with a good track record and credibility. This top line caused Andrew Sullivan to descend into italics and exclamation points.
Before the debate, Obama had a 51 - 43 lead; now, Romney has a 49 - 45 lead. That's a simply unprecedented reversal for a candidate in October. Before Obama had leads on every policy issue and personal characteristic; now Romney leads in almost all of them. Obama's performance gave Romney a 12 point swing! I repeat: a 12 point swing.Exclamation points!!! Italics too!!!
I've been arguing that the Romney bounce from the debate appears to have been about 3 points and that it appears it may be receding from that high. That still seems about right. One thing to notice about the Pew poll is that it was in the field on Oct. 4 to Oct. 7. But, as Mark Blumenthal points out, almost all of those interviews were on Oct. 4 to Oct. 6, when the Romney bounce was at its peak:
According to Pew Research, 1,046 of its 1,201 interviews were conducted on Thursday through Saturday. Just 155 interviews were conducted on Sunday. The full sample had a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points, with a 3.4 percentage point margin of error among likely voters.So, this Pew poll is likely overstating Romney's actual support at this moment.
Also, it is one poll! Rasmussen has the race even (even this morning). Gallup has the race roughly even among likely voters. But beyond the polling, let me make a larger point about Andrew Sullivan's absurd reaction. If you are someone who thinks that 90 minutes of bad debating is going to cancel out 4 years of a record worth defending and months and months of bad campaigning by Romney, then you are someone who believes there isn't sufficient wisdom and virtue among the people for self-governance.
The polling (beyond the Pew Poll) doesn't suggest the race has been "thrown away." Get a grip Andrew.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Pew
As in "P.U. ... that Pew poll is bad."
Yeah, it is. Pew shows Romney ahead by 4 points among likely voters. Pew has generally had overly optimistic polls for Obama this cycle and that is more reason to be worried about this poll. On the other hand, there is something wrong when a pollster swings so wildly.
So, the reality is, I'm just not sure what to make of this poll.
Yeah, it is. Pew shows Romney ahead by 4 points among likely voters. Pew has generally had overly optimistic polls for Obama this cycle and that is more reason to be worried about this poll. On the other hand, there is something wrong when a pollster swings so wildly.
So, the reality is, I'm just not sure what to make of this poll.
Friday, August 3, 2012
Movement?
A couple of days ago, Quinnipiac released polls in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania showing Obama with leads of 6, 6, and 11 points respectively among likely voters.
Yesterday, Pew Research Center released a national poll showing Obama with a whopping 10-point lead with Romney's unfavorables ticking up to 52%.
This morning, the monthly jobs report held moderately good news for Obama ... a gain of 163,000 jobs in July. We've said previously that averaging job gains of even 125,000 a month would probably be good enough for the President to get reelected.
Finally, Nate Silver's model has Obama's probability of winning ticking up a bit over 70% and that has not yet factored in the decent jobs report.
So, is there real movement in the race here or just statistical noise? Let's break down each piece of news here. The Quinnipiac polls are probably the most positive indicator in all this as they are a good pollster and the Ohio and Florida numbers are surprisingly strong for Obama (please don't get me started on Pennsylvania again). Quinnipiac has moved to a likely voter screen here though and, while that normally gives a slight bump to the Republicans, it could do almost anything depending on how they are screening likely voters. So, it is entirely possible there is no movement here at all and Obama's lead in Ohio and Florida in these polls is just a function of a bad likely voter screen. Similarly, it could be statistical noise though these polls had very large sample sizes (over 1,000 likely voters in each state).
The Pew poll shows a very large lead for Obama that is out of step with other polls. Pew has had a significant house effect towards Obama for some time now so the "lead" would need to be discounted some just for that reason alone. Nate Silver discussed this at length last night.
The jobs numbers are decent for Obama but not incredible. The new numbers basically stem the erosion of confidence in my view rather than boosting Obama. This is good news for Obama no doubt but it is not a "game-changer."
Taking all that together, I think it is fair to say it has been a good couple of days for Obama but "no movement" is a good day for him right now. He doesn't need the dynamic of the race to change. I am not sure we're seeing actual movement in any numbers here. We'll know more in a week or two but count me as one who believes the breaking news here is ... nothing, nothing is happening.
Yesterday, Pew Research Center released a national poll showing Obama with a whopping 10-point lead with Romney's unfavorables ticking up to 52%.
This morning, the monthly jobs report held moderately good news for Obama ... a gain of 163,000 jobs in July. We've said previously that averaging job gains of even 125,000 a month would probably be good enough for the President to get reelected.
Finally, Nate Silver's model has Obama's probability of winning ticking up a bit over 70% and that has not yet factored in the decent jobs report.
So, is there real movement in the race here or just statistical noise? Let's break down each piece of news here. The Quinnipiac polls are probably the most positive indicator in all this as they are a good pollster and the Ohio and Florida numbers are surprisingly strong for Obama (please don't get me started on Pennsylvania again). Quinnipiac has moved to a likely voter screen here though and, while that normally gives a slight bump to the Republicans, it could do almost anything depending on how they are screening likely voters. So, it is entirely possible there is no movement here at all and Obama's lead in Ohio and Florida in these polls is just a function of a bad likely voter screen. Similarly, it could be statistical noise though these polls had very large sample sizes (over 1,000 likely voters in each state).
The Pew poll shows a very large lead for Obama that is out of step with other polls. Pew has had a significant house effect towards Obama for some time now so the "lead" would need to be discounted some just for that reason alone. Nate Silver discussed this at length last night.
The jobs numbers are decent for Obama but not incredible. The new numbers basically stem the erosion of confidence in my view rather than boosting Obama. This is good news for Obama no doubt but it is not a "game-changer."
Taking all that together, I think it is fair to say it has been a good couple of days for Obama but "no movement" is a good day for him right now. He doesn't need the dynamic of the race to change. I am not sure we're seeing actual movement in any numbers here. We'll know more in a week or two but count me as one who believes the breaking news here is ... nothing, nothing is happening.
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