Gallup Tracking Poll Thread [Obama vs McCain]

[Nym90]

Bush was elected by getting just about all of the Republican vote, and then a few independents and democrats. McCain can do the same, and win.

McCain pulling the same share of Democrats, Republicans and independents would mean he'd lose by a couple of points.

But I thought this is a "center right" country.

[Nym90]

Question for those who know the history better than me: Has any candidate ever won an election in which they were tied or behind immediately after their own convention? I'm quite sure it's never happened, except possibly for Truman in 1948 (when polling was obviously not at the level of accuracy it is today).

I'd think this is basically McCain's goal at this point as to what kind of a bounce he needs.

[Nym90]

Question for those who know the history better than me: Has any candidate ever won an election in which they were tied or behind immediately after their own convention? I'm quite sure it's never happened, except possibly for Truman in 1948 (when polling was obviously not at the level of accuracy it is today).

I'd think this is basically McCain's goal at this point as to what kind of a bounce he needs.

I think Reagan was behind in a number of polls after his convention. That said, the polls that year were very similar to this one with both candidates in the mid to low forties. I believe going into the debates Carter was up something like 47-43.

I was referring to being behind immediately after the convention, not behind at any point after the convention.

Reagan had a pretty big convention bounce in the Gallup poll and had a pretty substantial lead at that point as I recall.

[Nym90]

Question for those who know the history better than me: Has any candidate ever won an election in which they were tied or behind immediately after their own convention? I'm quite sure it's never happened, except possibly for Truman in 1948 (when polling was obviously not at the level of accuracy it is today).

I'd think this is basically McCain's goal at this point as to what kind of a bounce he needs.

I think it will be had to measure this.  Obama was tied, or down by 1-2 going into this.  He was up by between 0-8 points after the DNC, when Palin was announced and RNC started.

I think Reagan was behind in a number of polls after his convention. That said, the polls that year were very similar to this one with both candidates in the mid to low forties. I believe going into the debates Carter was up something like 47-43.

Reagan was at 45, Carter at 29, after the 1980 RNC; Carter had 39, Reagan 38, after the DNC.  It was, if anything, less clear than 2008.

Ah, thanks. Last post was made before I read this one.

[Nym90]

Obviously very good news for McCain.

Worth noting that Carter got a big bounce out of the Dem convention in 1980 and had the lead immediately thereafter, as well.

[Nym90]

Obviously very good news for McCain.

Worth noting that Carter got a big bounce out of the Dem convention in 1980 and had the lead immediately thereafter, as well.

Carter's "big bounce" was 1 point on Gallup, 39 to 38.  I checked the numbers a few days ago

Gallup's own website says a 10 point bounce.

[Nym90]

Obviously very good news for McCain.

Worth noting that Carter got a big bounce out of the Dem convention in 1980 and had the lead immediately thereafter, as well.

Carter's "big bounce" was 1 point on Gallup, 39 to 38.  I checked the numbers a few days ago

Gallup's own website says a 10 point bounce.

I checked the Gallup poll of mid August. quoted in Presidential Elections and American Politics third edition, 1984, p. 161.

You are looking at the GOP bounce disappearing, because after the RNC Reagan was up by 16 points (R 45, C 29).  After the DNC, Carter led, 39 to 38, or +1.

Well, I'm assuming that's the 10 point Carter bounce Gallup is referring to. Going from 29 to 39.

You're right that it's far from the same situation as this year, just pointing out that incumbent party candidates can still get big convention bounces and lead in the polls even when their party is insanely unpopular.

[Nym90]

Well, I'm assuming that's the 10 point Carter bounce Gallup is referring to. Going from 29 to 39.

You're right that it's far from the same situation as this year, just pointing out that incumbent party candidates can still get big convention bounces and lead in the polls even when their party is insanely unpopular.

The thing is, neither Carter nor the Democrats were insanely unpopular at that point.  It was just a post GOP convention bounce versus the DNC bounce.

Not as unpopular as Bush, that's true. But low enough that it should've been obvious that Reagan was likely to win.

Gallup poll Carter approval ratings

[Nym90]

WHY CAN'T MCCAIN GET ABOVE 50%?

WHY CAN'T MCCAIN COMPLETE THE SALE?

give her time, son, give her time

Heh....her

I'm guessing you're talking about Palin.  I want to know what you have to say about the fact that she once tried to have certain books banned in her town as mayor...  Seriously.  All you Palin freaks, answer to that. 

That was debunked the other day. False. She simply had a conversation about different beliefs with the librarian.

Yeah she had a "conversation" about banning books. No one was forcing anyone to do anything....yeah right.

The mafia had a conversation with me today about cement shoes and sleeping with the fishes. I shouldn't be worried, right?

[Nym90]

It's within the MoE. Bush was up by 2 in the final Gallup poll preelection in 2000.

The debates will decide this thing; obsessing over every 1 or 2 point bounce for one guy or the other isn't going to do anyone's blood pressure any good, folks.

[Nym90]

Not good news for Obama.  It should have closed.

He's only down by 2 points.

It really doesn't matter.

It makes no sense to microanalyze day by day tracking poll trends and then deem such gains or losses as "bad news" for a candidate. Especially when the race is this close.

There should have been a weekend bounce for Obama.

J. J.'s First Rule of Elections:  "If a candidate that say something like 'I don't look at the polls,' or 'The only polls that matter are the ones on Election Day,' that candidate will lose."

You are flirting dangerously close to violating that one.
 

Just pointing out that it's close enough that even if the election were held today Obama could well still win. I agree that McCain is slightly favored at this point.

[Nym90]

The scales have tipped in our favor. If I were to use a baseball analogy, we just scored a touchdown in the 7th inning.

Try in the 5th, with the other side getting the same inning at bat.

Obama has a problem policy wise; he favors a capital gains tax increase that hurts investment.

Yes, I'm sure this hurts him with the white working class swing voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania, not to mention the working moms making 8 dollars per hour.

[Nym90]

Wow. Is this election over?

We haven't seen the "Whitey" tape yet...

Kind of like how Allen had this evidence that was supposed to sink Webb, right?

Maybe AuH20 will pop back up with the whitey tape.

[Nym90]

Bad news for Obama. Given his weekend bounce and the crisis, he should be ahead by more.

In all seriousness, I would think McCain should benefit from any crisis due to his greater experience thus allowing him to be better able to handle and respond to such situations. It would seem that's what people are primarily referring to when they favor McCain on the basis of experience.

[Nym90]

No, the media is in the bag for Obama. I'd bet my next paycheck that this is the following outcome of the debates as "analyzed" by the media :

Palin/Biden : Biden Win
McCain/Obama 2 debates : Obama win or slight win.

I wouldn't expect the filthy liars in the media to give any other result.

Not to mention those filthy liars in the general public who keep saying in polls that Obama won, too.

Taken of people who had just finished watching the debates and not had a chance to digest any media analysis.

Of course, the media spun the 2000 debates that Gore won, right?

[Nym90]

So the last two nights McCain has cut into the lead? Nice. Maybe by Tuesday we'll be down 4?

If I had a dime for every time someone on this forum committed the trend line fallacy...

All the strippers in Minneapolis would've moved on to respectable jobs by now?

[Nym90]

It might be noise or the beginnings of a trend.  We'll see.

Nothing whatsoever happened to justify any trend to McCain. 159,000 jobs were reported lost Friday

Dave

Ah, but you're forgetting about Palin's clear and unequivocal victory performance in the VP debate, and also the fact that in times of crisis, voters will side with experience.

Certainly that's gotta be it.....

[Nym90]

Since Obama's been 11 up in Gallup two days in a row, it's obviously not just one day of a bad sample. It would have to be at least two days worth.

[Nym90]

Your rule says that people aren't allowed to guess that turnout levels will be the same as 2004 and no substantial hidden groups will emerge?  I thought it said the opposite.

J. J.'s Second Rule of Elections:  "When a politician or activist talks about a large group of voters that, a. aren't being polled, or b. really going to turn out and swing the election, there is no such group."

Except this is a special case because they are being polled, but the pollsters can't bring themselves to believe that they'll actually vote even though they say they will. So they hedge their bets and include two poll results, one if they do vote, and one if they don't.

[Nym90]

The young showed up in the primaries. Why would they suddenly stop?

One obvious reason is living in a different city.  Perhaps 20% graduated and moved on.

Do you lose your right to vote when you graduate?

You do tend to lose your residence.  In the US, you have to re-register at the new address.

A lot of them would've had the same problem in the primaries, though.

Heck, look at how high the youth turnout was in the Iowa caucus, which was held during winter break for the universities. The timing of the caucus during college vacation was something that I remember the media mentioning might doom Obama there.

[Nym90]

The young showed up in the primaries. Why would they suddenly stop?

One obvious reason is living in a different city.  Perhaps 20% graduated and moved on.

Do you lose your right to vote when you graduate?

You do tend to lose your residence.  In the US, you have to re-register at the new address.

Yeah, good thing the Obama campaign didn't spend the summer and fall registering millions of voters.

Some of those younger people registered at home, and forgot to file for an absentee ballot; some get the application and forget to file it on time because they have a term paper due.  Some graduate, move on, and don't re-register.  Some move to different apartment in another precinct and forget to re-register.  Those little things may have an effect, just maybe a few 1000 here and there, but it makes a difference.

True. And these are all good arguments as to why registration deadlines should be much closer to election day (ideally same day registration, which works beautifully in the states in which it is used).

[Nym90]

The young showed up in the primaries. Why would they suddenly stop?

One obvious reason is living in a different city.  Perhaps 20% graduated and moved on.

Do you lose your right to vote when you graduate?

You do tend to lose your residence.  In the US, you have to re-register at the new address.

A lot of them would've had the same problem in the primaries, though.

Heck, look at how high the youth turnout was in the Iowa caucus, which was held during winter break for the universities. The timing of the caucus during college vacation was something that I remember the media mentioning might doom Obama there.

Nym, in general, what time of the year to people graduate from college?

May of course. Which is why I said a lot, as opposed to most.

Though I'd wager that the gap between May and December graduations is less than it once was as the percentage of students who take say 4 and a half years to graduate as opposed to 4 has probably gone up a bit through the years.

Would be interesting to see if youth turnout dropped significantly as a percentage of the electorate in the May and June primaries vs. the earlier ones as a way of testing your hypothesis.

[Nym90]

Interesting article posted on the Gallup website about how their likely voter models work:



Turnout in typical presidential elections is related to a voter's current interest in the election, self-reported intention to vote, and previous history of voting.

Based on these relationships, Gallup has in past elections successfully created a pool of likely voters (the "traditional likely voter" model) using data on an individual voter's values on these dimensions. The vote intentions of this pool of likely voters, measured in the final survey before an election, typically provide a more accurate representation of the final popular vote outcome than is accorded by the polled vote patterns of all registered voters. For example, in 2004, Gallup's final poll of registered voters before the election had John Kerry leading by 48% to 46%. Among likely voters, defined using Gallup's "traditional" likely voter model, George Bush was ahead by 49% to 47%, a margin quite close to the final popular vote outcome.

The voter turnout pattern in the 2008 presidential election may end up following exactly the same tendencies that have occurred in previous presidential elections. If so, the "traditional" likely voter model will provide the best estimate of the final popular vote.

By many accounts, however, turnout this year has the potential to follow somewhat different patterns. New voter registration is reported to be up significantly in a number of states, and news accounts discuss the evidence that the new registration is disproportionately Democratic. Gallup also has monitored significantly higher enthusiasm about this year's election among Democrats compared to Republicans. Given that Barack Obama is the first major-party black candidate in U.S. history, it would not be unexpected to see unusually high turnout among black voters, and there continues to be discussion of unusually high registration and turnout among young voters.

These considerations have led Gallup to develop a second likely voter model ("expanded model") that takes into account current vote intentions but does not incorporate past voting behavior. This model assumes there will be significant numbers of first time or infrequent voters in the final electorate pool, and that past voting history is less important as a predictor of voting.

Thus, at this point, Gallup is providing users of our data with several ways of modeling the electorate, taking into account different assumptions about turnout. The base registered voter model reports the current vote intentions of all registered voters -- the data Gallup has been tracking all year. The "traditional" model assumes that both past voting history and current voting intentions are important determinants of likelihood of voting. The "expanded" likely voter model assumes that current voting intentions are the important determinant of likelihood of voting, and that past voting history will not be the factor that it has in previous elections.

Gallup is monitoring a number of the elements that comprise the likely voter models in order to detect any historically unusual patterns that would suggest traditional assumptions about turnout may not apply this year. One key will be the effort to see if certain subgroups of the population, including young people and minorities, are disproportionately likely to report being registered to vote and disproportionately likely to report high levels of interest in the campaign, and self-reported intention to vote compared with previous years. This monitoring will provide the best empirical estimate of the turnout patterns that will occur on Election Day. The analyses of these indicators will be reported periodically at gallup.com.

[Nym90]

It is certianly odd that the "expanded" model has fewer voters than the "traditional" model. It obviously makes the term "expanded" a misnomer, but the only explanation I can gather is that if someone has voted very regularly in the past but says they are not enthusiastic about voting this year, they may be included in the traditional model but not in the expanded model. Gallup has ascertained there are more voters that fit this description than there are that have not voted in the past but say they are enthusiastic about voting this year--these folks would be included in the expanded model but perhaps not counted in the traditional model.

[Nym90]

Which Model is the right one to go by for this election?  It appears like gallup is trying to have it 3 ways , so either way they was right about the election.

Expanded mode takes into account new voters and higher turnout right?

Expanded takes into consideration only currently stated intentions about voting.

Traditional takes into consideration currently stated intentions and also past voting behavior.