ABCNews/WaPo: Romney leads by 2

[krazen1211]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/12/poll-tight-race-for-obama-vs-romney-santorum/

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/election-expectations-move-obamas-way-yet-rising-gas-prices-fuel-gop-pushback/

Yet the hurdles for Obama remain serious. His support against Romney has pulled back: After a 51-45 percent reading last month, Obama and Romney now stand at 47-49 percent among registered voters. And it’s 49-46 percent matching Obama against Rick Santorum. Those mark a scant 4-point gain in support for Romney vs. Obama, and a 5-point gain for Santorum.

[cavalcade]

This is basically the same as Scotty's recent national tracking poll.  But what states are these people living in?  Obama continues to win every possible swing state.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

This is basically the same as Scotty's recent national tracking poll.  But what states are these people living in?  Obama continues to win every possible swing state.

It's a junk poll.

[krazen1211]

This is basically the same as Scotty's recent national tracking poll.  But what states are these people living in?  Obama continues to win every possible swing state.

It's a junk poll.

Lol!

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

This is basically the same as Scotty's recent national tracking poll.  But what states are these people living in?  Obama continues to win every possible swing state.

It's a junk poll.

Lol!

Are you going to answer cavalcade's question?

[5280]

This is basically the same as Scotty's recent national tracking poll.  But what states are these people living in?  Obama continues to win every possible swing state.

It's a junk poll.

Lol!

Are you going to answer cavalcade's question?

Everytime there's a poll that has Obama behind, the Democrats on these forums says its junk.  Yet when there's other polls that poll more Democrats than Republicans, they don't say anything.

[krazen1211]

This is basically the same as Scotty's recent national tracking poll.  But what states are these people living in?  Obama continues to win every possible swing state.

It's a junk poll.

Lol!

Are you going to answer cavalcade's question?

Err, I didn't write the poll. The same ABCNews poll was considered to be a solid poll (or at least not a 'junk poll!') just a month ago!


But I would presume that these people live in the 50 US states in rough proportion to the population of each state and that Obama is not actually 'winning every possible swing state'.

Indeed, the last month or so of polling has shown Romney performing at least adequately in some polls Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. Those polls are dismissed as 'junk polls!' in rapid frequency of course.

[Joe Biden is your president. Deal with it.]

Junk poll because state polls matter only.

[ajb]

I don't think there are junk polls. There are junk pollsters -- notably those who've been caught simply making numbers up without phoning anyone. There are also pollsters who have a history of being off (fivethirtyeight has good data on this). But beyond that, you just have a bunch of different methodologies, each of which is likely to be more accurate some of the time.
Rasmussen, for example, weights by party ID, which guarantees more stable numbers than some pollsters, at the expense of being slow to pick up on changes in party ID and enthusiasm. Others have their own quirks. Averaging polls makes a lot more sense than taking every new poll that comes along, and either identifying it as a major new trend, or dismissing it as junk.

[King]

He probably is leading at the moment. The campaign has been relatively quiet in recent weeks and gas prices are dragging down the President.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Losing Hispanics by 70% and all of the swing states and you still manage a two-point lead?  Haha, okay.  Thanks, Washington Post.  Santorum's numbers alone pretty much debunk the whole thing.

Junk.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

This is basically the same as Scotty's recent national tracking poll.  But what states are these people living in?  Obama continues to win every possible swing state.

It's a junk poll.

Lol!

Are you going to answer cavalcade's question?

Err, I didn't write the poll. The same ABCNews poll was considered to be a solid poll (or at least not a 'junk poll!') just a month ago!


But I would presume that these people live in the 50 US states in rough proportion to the population of each state and that Obama is not actually 'winning every possible swing state'.

Indeed, the last month or so of polling has shown Romney performing at least adequately in some polls Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. Those polls are dismissed as 'junk polls!' in rapid frequency of course.

Romney is either statistically tying the President or polling in the teens among Hispanics. He's not doing both. 'At least adequately' in those states does not translate to winning in any of the polls that I've been seeing, good ones or not, except for in Florida and North Carolina well over a month ago. Those states are necessary for Romney but not actually necessary for the President.

It's entirely possible that Romney is statistically tying the President among all groups averaged and thrown together nationwide, but it does not appear to be translating into the numbers he needs in critical states or demographics.

[ajb]

This is basically the same as Scotty's recent national tracking poll.  But what states are these people living in?  Obama continues to win every possible swing state.

It's a junk poll.

Lol!

Are you going to answer cavalcade's question?

Err, I didn't write the poll. The same ABCNews poll was considered to be a solid poll (or at least not a 'junk poll!') just a month ago!


But I would presume that these people live in the 50 US states in rough proportion to the population of each state and that Obama is not actually 'winning every possible swing state'.

Indeed, the last month or so of polling has shown Romney performing at least adequately in some polls Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. Those polls are dismissed as 'junk polls!' in rapid frequency of course.

Romney is either statistically tying the President or polling in the teens among Hispanics. He's not doing both.

And we'll never know which was true.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

This is basically the same as Scotty's recent national tracking poll.  But what states are these people living in?  Obama continues to win every possible swing state.

It's a junk poll.

Lol!

Are you going to answer cavalcade's question?

Err, I didn't write the poll. The same ABCNews poll was considered to be a solid poll (or at least not a 'junk poll!') just a month ago!


But I would presume that these people live in the 50 US states in rough proportion to the population of each state and that Obama is not actually 'winning every possible swing state'.

Indeed, the last month or so of polling has shown Romney performing at least adequately in some polls Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. Those polls are dismissed as 'junk polls!' in rapid frequency of course.

Romney is either statistically tying the President or polling in the teens among Hispanics. He's not doing both.

And we'll never know which was true.

Unless Obama actually does clobber Romney among Hispanics, but even then it's got to tighten at least a little bit from 70-14 over the next eight months.

[krazen1211]

This is basically the same as Scotty's recent national tracking poll.  But what states are these people living in?  Obama continues to win every possible swing state.

It's a junk poll.

Lol!

Are you going to answer cavalcade's question?

Err, I didn't write the poll. The same ABCNews poll was considered to be a solid poll (or at least not a 'junk poll!') just a month ago!


But I would presume that these people live in the 50 US states in rough proportion to the population of each state and that Obama is not actually 'winning every possible swing state'.

Indeed, the last month or so of polling has shown Romney performing at least adequately in some polls Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. Those polls are dismissed as 'junk polls!' in rapid frequency of course.

Romney is either statistically tying the President or polling in the teens among Hispanics. He's not doing both. 'At least adequately' in those states does not translate to winning in any of the polls that I've been seeing, good ones or not, except for in Florida and North Carolina well over a month ago. Those states are necessary for Romney but not actually necessary for the President.

Romney was leading in Iowa, Virginia and Pennsylvania in these polls within the past month or so. Neither state has a large population of Hispanics, and Florida has a very different batch of Hispanics that know and like Romney well.

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=149831.0
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=149214.0
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=148662.0

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Ha-ha. Oh, man, I forgot about that Iowa poll. Good times, man, good times.

Nice job finding distinctly minority-report polls in states where all the other recent polling has shown the President ahead. I'm not denying that Romney could in fact be statistically tied with the President. I'm saying that if so that mates oddly with much of the other stuff we've been seeing.

[ajb]

This is basically the same as Scotty's recent national tracking poll.  But what states are these people living in?  Obama continues to win every possible swing state.

It's a junk poll.

Lol!

Are you going to answer cavalcade's question?

Err, I didn't write the poll. The same ABCNews poll was considered to be a solid poll (or at least not a 'junk poll!') just a month ago!


But I would presume that these people live in the 50 US states in rough proportion to the population of each state and that Obama is not actually 'winning every possible swing state'.

Indeed, the last month or so of polling has shown Romney performing at least adequately in some polls Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. Those polls are dismissed as 'junk polls!' in rapid frequency of course.

Romney is either statistically tying the President or polling in the teens among Hispanics. He's not doing both.

And we'll never know which was true.

Unless Obama actually does clobber Romney among Hispanics, but even then it's got to tighten at least a little bit from 70-14 over the next eight months.

Even if the exit poll results are exactly the same as this poll (and they won't be, because that extra 16% has to go somewhere), we'll never know if this poll was absolutely dead-on, and voter opinions never changed, or if it was completely out to lunch, and voter opinions just happened to shift so as to match that result eight months from now.

Polls are a snapshot taken at a  particular moment, using a particular set of assumptions. We can't know how opinion will evolve in the meantime, and we won't know till after the fact whose assumptions were right. That's why it's best not to get too excited, one way or the other, over any poll.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Well, yeah, obviously. And I can certainly see why Romney would further deteriorate among Hispanics between now and November.

[krazen1211]

Ha-ha. Oh, man, I forgot about that Iowa poll. Good times, man, good times.

Nice job finding distinctly minority-report polls in states where all the other recent polling has shown the President ahead. I'm not denying that Romney could in fact be statistically tied with the President. I'm saying that if so that mates oddly with much of the other stuff we've been seeing.

Oh, the 'outlier!' cry would certainly be more acceptable here. 'Junk poll!' is merely amusing given that this pollster was not junk 30 days ago when obama was leading by 5 or 6.

This is of course why.


In February's WaPo/ABC poll, self-identified Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 11 percentage points, 34%-23%, with 37% identifying themselves as independents.
But in the latest poll, Democrats outnumber Republicans, 31%-27% -- so a seven-point swing.

[ajb]

Ha-ha. Oh, man, I forgot about that Iowa poll. Good times, man, good times.

Nice job finding distinctly minority-report polls in states where all the other recent polling has shown the President ahead. I'm not denying that Romney could in fact be statistically tied with the President. I'm saying that if so that mates oddly with much of the other stuff we've been seeing.

Oh, the 'outlier!' cry would certainly be more acceptable here. 'Junk poll!' is merely amusing given that this pollster was not junk 30 days ago when obama was leading by 5 or 6.

This is of course why.


In February's WaPo/ABC poll, self-identified Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 11 percentage points, 34%-23%, with 37% identifying themselves as independents.
But in the latest poll, Democrats outnumber Republicans, 31%-27% -- so a seven-point swing.

For reference, in the 2008 exit polls, voters were at 39D-32R-29I. In the 2010 midterms, the numbers were 35D-35R-29I.
A pollster who doesn't weight for partisan ID will have partisan ID numbers that swing around like that, which some may view as a problem. Weighting for partisan ID reduces the swing, but at the risk of missing out on actual shifts in how voters feel.
There's also room for debate about what the likely composition of the electorate will be in November -- obviously, the more it looks like 2008, the better for the Democrats. But we don't know much yet about who will actually turn out to vote, since a lot of the events motivating turnout haven't happened yet.

[Ben Romney]

LOL it`s a D+4 poll

in the best case R and D are tied so amke the math!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Eraserhead]

Very hard to believe.

[CaDan]

This is basically the same as Scotty's recent national tracking poll.  But what states are these people living in?  Obama continues to win every possible swing state.

It's a junk poll.

Lol!

Are you going to answer cavalcade's question?

Everytime there's a poll that has Obama behind, the Democrats on these forums says its junk.  Yet when there's other polls that poll more Democrats than Republicans, they don't say anything.

WIN!

[ajb]

This is basically the same as Scotty's recent national tracking poll.  But what states are these people living in?  Obama continues to win every possible swing state.

It's a junk poll.

Lol!

Are you going to answer cavalcade's question?

Everytime there's a poll that has Obama behind, the Democrats on these forums says its junk.  Yet when there's other polls that poll more Democrats than Republicans, they don't say anything.

WIN!

Pollsters should poll more Democrats than Republicans, since there are more Democrats than there are Republicans.

[5280]

This is basically the same as Scotty's recent national tracking poll.  But what states are these people living in?  Obama continues to win every possible swing state.

It's a junk poll.

Lol!

Are you going to answer cavalcade's question?

Everytime there's a poll that has Obama behind, the Democrats on these forums says its junk.  Yet when there's other polls that poll more Democrats than Republicans, they don't say anything.

WIN!

Pollsters should poll more Democrats than Republicans, since there are more Democrats than there are Republicans.

That doesn't make the process fair, and it's skewed incorrectly.