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A flighty poll vs. a nuts-and-bolts assessment of the basics

Aug 1, 2012

By Dave Andrusko

Pro-abortion President Barack Obama and Pro-Life Mitt Romney

When and if a poll based on a sample that is fairly representative of the real world comes out showing President Obama well ahead of Mitt Romney, NRL News Today will report it as such and encourage pro-lifers to work even harder.

Well, I’m still going to ask you to work overtime but not because the new CBS/New York Times poll showing Obama supposedly ahead is an accurate representation of where the race is in three “swing states”—Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Their conclusions follow from the sample, but the sample is simply not accurate of the real world.

For starters, any result that shows Obama way ahead of Romney primarily because of a lead among Independents is suspect on its face. More so when the advantage is massive. That isn’t what virtually all other polls are showing. Beyond that that generalization, let’s get more specific.

As I always do, I start with Ed Morrissey. Remember the fundamental: you get what you poll. If the sample is unlikely to reflect who shows up in November, the results are flat-out wrong. (“D/R/I” refers to Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.) Morrissey writes

“Now let’s take a look at the partisan breakdown (D/R/I) in the sample data for each state, and compare them to 2008 and 2010 exit polling:

·         Florida: CBS/NYT 36/27/32, 2008 37/34/29, 2010 36/36/29

·         Ohio: CBS/NYT 35/27/32, 2008 39/31/30, 2010 36/37/28

·         Pennsylvania: CBS/NYT 38/32/26, 2008 44/37/18, 2010 40/37/23

“The CBS/NYT model has Democrats a +9 in Florida when in 2008 they were only a +3 and an even split in the 2010 midterms.  Ohio’s sample has exactly the split in 2008 (D+8), which is nine points better than Democrats did in the midterms.  Pennsylvania’s numbers (D+6) come closest to a rational predictive model, somewhere between 2008′s D+7 and 2010′s D+3, but still looking mighty optimistic for Democratic turnout.

“In other words, these polls are entirely predictive if one believes that Democrats will outperform their turnout models from the 2008 election in Florida and Ohio. That would require a huge boost in Democratic enthusiasm and a sharp dropoff in Republican  enthusiasm — which is exactly the opposite that Gallup found last week.”

John  Podhoretz chimed in with a further breakdown.

“The poll itself reports that Democrats outnumber Republicans in Florida by nine points. In 2008, when Obama won the state by 2.5 points, the Democratic advantage was 4 points. Do we really think there are more Democrats in Florida in 2012 than there were in 2008? Even more telling, those polled say they voted for Obama by a margin of 13 points in Florida. Same for Ohio’s sample. Obama won Ohio by 4; those polled today say they went for him by a margin of 15 points.”

Getting back to Morrissey’s comment about Gallup’s finding on voter enthusiasm. We wrote about this last week. Under the headline, “Democratic Voting Enthusiasm Down Sharply From 2004, 2008,” we learned from Gallup

“Democrats are significantly less likely now (39%) than they were in the summers of 2004 and 2008 to say they are ‘more enthusiastic about voting than usual’ in the coming presidential election. Republicans are more enthusiastic now than in 2008, and the same as in 2004.”

Specifically, that means a 51% to 39% Republican advantage in voter enthusiasm. For us mathematically challenged types, that’s a whopping 12 point advantage.

One other item. Jeff Greenfield has been writing about politics forever and no one would ever accuse him of being a Republican-partisan.  While he vastly underestimates Mitt Romney, he does observe in a very interesting piece written for Yahoo News

“So it’s with that skepticism in mind that I offer, not a prediction, but a flat pre-election assessment: If President Barack Obama is to win, he is going to have to overcome a set of numbers that no incumbent President, or incumbent party, has ever managed to surmount.”

This is an allusion to the “basics”— the jobless rate; the real growth in the economy; the poor response to the question “Are you generally satisfied with the country’s direction, or has the U.S. gone off on the wrong track”; consumer confidence, etc.

None of this is definitive. It simply means that any time you hear that President Obama is putting distance between himself and Gov. Romney, you know that’s all hype.

Your feedback is very important to improving National Right to Life News Today. Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha

Categories: Polling