National Tracking Poll Thread

[Lief 🗽]

Oh lord, not more Gallup "polling."

[Lief 🗽]

The height of Romney's convention bounce should be around now:

[Lief 🗽]

Uh, guys, you know this is an internet poll right? I wouldn't pay it much attention...

[Lief 🗽]

Nate Silver: Romney's Convention Bounce Appears Middling So Far

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[Lief 🗽]

When did Barack Obama or Mitt Romney say either of those things?

[Lief 🗽]

Also a lot of a convention bounce comes for increased base enthusiasm, which doesn't show up if you weigh by party ID like Rasmussen does (not even taking into account how ridiculous his current party ID weightings are...).

[Lief 🗽]

The approval is a three-day poll, the head to head is a seven day poll.

[Lief 🗽]

Reuters/Ipsos for today (link)

Obama: 46 (+2)
Romney 44 (-1)

Oh, MIA edited his post with these numbers on the last page, nevermind.

So that's +2, +2 and +3 in the trackers so far. Not bad at all.

[Lief 🗽]

As Nate Silver points out, the really bad news for Romney from that Gallup tracker is that most of it 5 out of 7 of the days that make it up are from interviews before the DNC even began, when his bounce theoretically should have been at its height.

[Lief 🗽]

A sample that's only 1 out of 7 from after the DNC completely ended and Obama's already up 4%. Nice.

[Lief 🗽]

One difference between 2004 and 2012 is that Kerry was leading Bush during the summer, before the RNC and the swift boat attacks permanently shifted the race towards Bush. This year, on the other hand, according to RCP Romney has never led Obama, even by 0.1%. The best he did was an exact tie, at the height of the RNC/Ryan bounce. I don't want to jinx things and the dynamics of the race could definitely still change, but I think it's very possible that we may look back on 2012 as never being as close as the conventional wisdom said it was.

edit: Nate Silver just tweeted this same point. That plagiarist.

[Lief 🗽]

No Ipsos poll today?

[Lief 🗽]

Obama: 47% (+1)
Romney: 43% (-1)

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lol, that ellipsis

[Lief 🗽]

Nate Silver agrees with Tender wrt Obama's lead at the moment:

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https://twitter.com/fivethirtyeight/status/244538584793743361

[Lief 🗽]

oh neat, Nate Silver did the math:

[Lief 🗽]

So this really doesn't make sense. At the same time, I don't think I can deny what the polls are saying. So regardless of whether Obama cruises to victory or loses narrowly, this election has already been freaky as hell. I am however, starting to suspect there is something seriously wrong with America. If this is a structural/demographic issue - that portends very poorly for the nation's future.

The simple fact is that the Republican Party is going to have moderate massively if they want to be competitive in national elections again. This election is basically their last chance to run on such a far-right agenda and still be able to eke out a victory by driving up their numbers with old white voters. By 2016 and 2020 especially they'll need to move considerably to the left if they want to win. There just aren't enough conservative, old, white voters anymore.

And this is a good thing, because Republican economic policies would return us the 19th century in the long-term and start another recession in the short term. 

[Lief 🗽]

So their tracking poll is over? That sucks.

[Lief 🗽]

Eh.  Remember, Ras/Gallup are the two most R-favorable polls on the books this season.  They  basically give a lower bound for Obama.  We need to wait for the media polls to fully judge the bounce.  On the left side of the spectrum, PPP apparently has better than 2008 numbers for him.  I wouldn't be surprised if Pew had something like Obama 56%/Romney 40% if they poll this week...

Ah, PPP doesn't do a tracking poll. 

They do a weekly tracking poll.

[Lief 🗽]

Obama +5 in Rasmussen must be some sort of record.

[Lief 🗽]

His approval/disapproval also got slightly better, 50 (nc) to 43 (-1).

[Lief 🗽]

The media and even Republican foreign policy folks are savaging Mitt Romney for his disgusting comments. J.J. is once again being a hack.

[Lief 🗽]

The convention bounce continues!

[Lief 🗽]

Well, yeah, for Romney not to be leading on Rasmussen's ridiculous sample would be a disaster for him. Now that Scotty R. has "proved" that he's still a legitimate polling firm by including Obama's convention bump, he can go back to shilling for Mitt and start pushing a "Obama's bounce is completely gone" narrative.

[Lief 🗽]

The Tea Partiers are already enthusiastic. Smiling about dead ambassadors isn't going to gin them up any more.

[Lief 🗽]

Who was in office the last time a candidate running for president grinned while he used the bodies of dead Americans to attack the incumbent president? Don't remember.