GALLUP says: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot

[The Vorlon]

OK..... everybody take a deep breath....

The 4 largest GOP leads on the "generic ballot"  in the 68 year history of Gallup have all happened in the last couple months....



That being said, the usual caveats:

Gallup is volatile - you trade stability for responsiveness, just the way it is with Gallup.

This poll was extracted from Gallup's daily tracking data which had what looks like a bit of a blip to the low end for Obama most of last week, so some of this just may be random noise to the high side for the GOP.  

I have absolute trust in a long term series of Gallup polls to establish a trend, but each individual poll has the usual unweighted random error joy we all know and love with Gallup, so remember, as always, one poll, is, well, one poll.

Finally, the relationship between voter enthusiasm and actual turnout is something less that a straight line, so the GOP enthusiasm gap, while certainly helpful, is not the whole story.

[minionofmidas]

While at the same time, Republicans are not even capable of winning Republican primaries anymore.

Weird sh!t.

[Zarn]

Uh-oh!!!! Spaghetti-O!!!

[redcommander]

It remains to be seen whether that lead on the Generic ballot will transfer over to supporting tea party loons in November though.

[The Vorlon]

It remains to be seen whether that lead on the Generic ballot will transfer over to supporting tea party loons in November though.

That, my friend, is the $64,000 64 House seat question.

A) - The "Tea Party" brings a lot of new voters into the process, most of which will vote GOP.

B) - The "Tea Party" motivates the democratic base and scares off some moderates.

The jury is still out as to if A) > B)

[Brittain33]

A) - The "Tea Party" brings a lot of new voters into the process, most of which will vote GOP.

Has there been polling about how many Tea Party voters are new to voting, and how many of them are Republicans or independent voters who happen to be energized and jazzed beyond normal for an off-year election?

For me, I've been looking at as a base play where the Republican base is going to turn out big, independents are not turning out much or favoring Republicans, and the Democratic base has not yet shown signs of turning out in sizable numbers. The latter is the only factor still in play, IMO, which is just another way of stating the balancing act you identified.

[Dgov]

Doubly interesting if you consider that Rasmussen has Republicans down to their lowest lead in over two months, at 45-39.


http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot

[The Vorlon]

A) - The "Tea Party" brings a lot of new voters into the process, most of which will vote GOP.

Has there been polling about how many Tea Party voters are new to voting, and how many of them are Republicans or independent voters who happen to be energized and jazzed beyond normal for an off-year election?

For me, I've been looking at as a base play where the Republican base is going to turn out big, independents are not turning out much or favoring Republicans, and the Democratic base has not yet shown signs of turning out in sizable numbers. The latter is the only factor still in play, IMO, which is just another way of stating the balancing act you identified.

The polling data provides a reasonable level of confidence there are at least "some" new voters showing up at the polls as a consequence of the "Tea Parties" -its hard to sort it out exactly, needless to say.

From a polling perspective, the mythical "likely voter" is usually derived from two factors:

Factor one is past voting history - people who have voted regularly in  the past, will tend to vote regularly in the future (in other news... sun rises in east, sets in west....)

The other factor pollsters look at is expressed intent, basically the pollsters ask screening questions to measure enthusiasm.. How "excited" is the voter, how closely are they paying attention, etc....

Depending on the pollster, these two factors are mixed in varying proportions into most "likely voter" models.

Past voting history has, over the years, proven a very reliable predictor,while the "enthusiasm" factor, while important, has been less than perfectly reliable in the past.

So far in 2010, at least for the primaries and the special elections, the pollsters factoring "voter enthusiasm" into the mix have been picking up a fair number of tea-partiers heading to the polls who have not normally been reliable voters, and at least so far, they seem to have been correct in their turnout models. - Tea partiers are indeed showing up to vote.

Now if primary day enthusiasm turns into November election day turnout out is, obviously, an open question.

On a technical note, one thing the Democratic side of the Pollsters Benevolent Society has been working on very hard in 2010 is refining their "likely voter" models -  there has been a very good effort on the (D) side to share data and make the models work better.

For literally decades most pollsters have relied on some variation (at least in spirit) of the Gallup/Perry model developed in the 1930s.  This model is clearly breaking down, but what will replace it is very much a work in progress. - Truth be told, "likely voter" models work better than NOT have a likely voter model, but they are far, far, far from perfect.  

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I just pooped my pants. It is summer polling but still.

[Хahar 🤔]

We don't need a thread for this every time.

[Dgov]

Now I really wish that Gallup released their crosstabs data like they do for presidential approval.  This begs further investigation as to the trends, as it suggests that the Democrats are under-performing Obama's approval rating which is in itself rather low.

[Beet]

Doubly interesting if you consider that Rasmussen has Republicans down to their lowest lead in over two months, at 45-39.


http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot

Yeah, I'm going to go out on the limb that this Gallup is an outlier in the GOP direction, as was the pro-Dem sample back in mid-Summer.

[bgwah]

The "omgchange" shtick didn't last long for Democrats, so hopefully it will run out for Republicans by 2012.

[Vepres]

The "omgchange" shtick didn't last long for Democrats, so hopefully it will run out for Republicans by 2012.

Republicans will still have a scapegoat in office, while Democrats lost their (Bush) upon Obama's swearing in.

[The Vorlon]

I just pooped my pants. It is summer polling but still.

The old saying "polls don't count till labor day....." is ALWAYS worth remembering.

Rassy trended up last week, Gallup trended down..... till proven otherwise, I vote random noise....

this is pollster.coms generic ballot. shows 4 ish % GOP lead

[bgwah]

The "omgchange" shtick didn't last long for Democrats, so hopefully it will run out for Republicans by 2012.

Republicans will still have a scapegoat in office, while Democrats lost their (Bush) upon Obama's swearing in.

True, but it will be more difficult, as Obama won't be able to do anything with a Republican Congress*. It actually is kind of eerie how the next couple years could be a repeat of 1994-1996, politically. Maybe.

*Note to the usual suspects: Please refrain from predicable "he can't do anything with a Democratic Congress" comment. You're not funny or clever.

[Vepres]

The "omgchange" shtick didn't last long for Democrats, so hopefully it will run out for Republicans by 2012.

Republicans will still have a scapegoat in office, while Democrats lost their (Bush) upon Obama's swearing in.

True, but it will be more difficult, as Obama won't be able to do anything with a Republican Congress*. It actually is kind of eerie how the next couple years could be a repeat of 1994-1996, politically. Maybe.

I can't see Obama signing something like Welfare reform, though, even if Republicans gained 100 seats in the House. Clinton was most interested in being reelected, while Obama seems to put pushing policy over being reelected (not to say he doesn't want to be reelected).

I guess I could maybe see him signing Republican changes to the Healthcare bill, but I'm even unsure about that.

[Dgov]

True, but it will be more difficult, as Obama won't be able to do anything with a Republican Congress*. It actually is kind of eerie how the next couple years could be a repeat of 1994-1996, politically. Maybe.

*Note to the usual suspects: Please refrain from predicable "he can't do anything with a Democratic Congress" comment. You're not funny or clever.

That depends on how politically agile Obama is.  I don't think he has the Clinton-esque cahoots to successfully jump to the center and run as the "Vote for me to prevent the crazy" Candidate that Clinton did in 1996.  Considering that less than two years ago his election was heralded as the beginning of a new age of Liberalism, i don't think he has the kind of guts necessary to throw that away for his re-election chances.

[The Vorlon]

That depends on how politically agile Obama is.  I don't think he has the Clinton-esque cahoots to successfully jump to the center and run as the "Vote for me to prevent the crazy" Candidate that Clinton did in 1996.  Considering that less than two years ago his election was heralded as the beginning of a new age of Liberalism, i don't think he has the kind of guts necessary to throw that away for his re-election chances.

Utterly unrelated, but Welcome to the Forum!

The usual mix of highly partisan folks here, but generally civil and now and then even educational.

Happy posting!

[Eraserhead]

It's Gallup. They'll be tied again next week.

Yeah, not good though.

[The Vorlon]

It's Gallup. They'll be tied again next week. Dems will be 6 points up

Yeah, not good though.

[Marokai Backbeat]

The "omgchange" shtick didn't last long for Democrats, so hopefully it will run out for Republicans by 2012.

Republicans will still have a scapegoat in office, while Democrats lost their (Bush) upon Obama's swearing in.

True, but it will be more difficult, as Obama won't be able to do anything with a Republican Congress*. It actually is kind of eerie how the next couple years could be a repeat of 1994-1996, politically. Maybe.

*Note to the usual suspects: Please refrain from predicable "he can't do anything with a Democratic Congress" comment. You're not funny or clever.

If Republicans take over the House and/or Senate, they'll try to shut down the government again with some absurd proposal Obama will refuse, and Fox News will go into overdrive to defend the action. The public will fall for it, too. Count on it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The public didn't fall for it in 1995.

[Marokai Backbeat]

The public didn't fall for it in 1995.

Much different environment these days. Fox News also didn't exist until late 1996.

[tpfkaw]

Ah, the days before 1996, when Rupert Murdoch was incapable of beaming his mind control rays out of every television in the nation. Unfortunately, after the conclusion of Dukakis' second term, and the creation of Fox News, we've only elected Republicans, beginning with Bob Dole.