Michigan: Tie, Foster McCollum White Baydoun (FMW)

[pepper11]

Obama 47
Romney 47

They have had interesting numbers in other states. Not sure what their last Michigan poll was.

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/19905504/michigan-poll-obama-and-romney-in-dead-heat

[5280]

MI is the wildcard along with PA for the election.

[Adam Griffin]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Lief 🗽]

Decimals to two places means you know it's quality.

How quickly it's added to the RCP average!

[J. J.]

Fabulous!!!  

Actually, the firm is known for strange results:

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/aug-20-when-the-polling-gets-weird/

[Warren 4 Secretary of Everything]

Aren't these the guys that claim to be a Democratic Firm, but had Romney up like 17 in Florida back in late summer?

[You kip if you want to...]

Look, if Michigan was close, Mitt Romney would be there constantly...

[J. J.]

Aren't these the guys that claim to be a Democratic Firm, but had Romney up like 17 in Florida back in late summer?

Yay!  You clicked the link. 

Yes, this is a D firm, but it is weird. 

[sobo]

Aren't these the guys that claim to be a Democratic Firm, but had Romney up like 17 in Florida back in late summer?

Yes, they're also the pollster that had Romney up 4 in Michigan back in August.

[Mister Twister]

Good job Democrats. While you have been busy holding the line in the Obama firewall of OH, WI and NV, the Republicans have launched a sneak attack here.

[Likely Voter]

A quick glance at all the MI polls this year shows that this firm has had a pronounced Romney lean to an almost absurd level. Here are their polls vs. that radical lefty pollster Rasmussen.

Rasmussen Reports   10/11 - 10/11   Obama +7
Baydoun/Foster (D)   10/5 - 10/5   Obama +3
Rasmussen Reports   9/20 - 9/20   Obama +12
Baydoun/Foster (D)   9/12 - 9/12   Obama +2
Baydoun/Foster (D)   8/16 - 8/16   Romney +4
Rasmussen Reports   7/23 - 7/23   Obama +6
Baydoun/Foster (D)   6/12 - 6/12   Obama +1
Rasmussen Reports   6/14 - 6/14   Obama +8

If this is a 'D' pollster, they certainly arent very good at making things look good for their guy. Or (putting on tin foil hat) they are trying to trick Romney into pouring money into MI.

[Devils30]

Any smart liberal and conservative knows this firm is garbage.

[krazen1211]

Wow, Romney is surging!

[Eraserhead]

lol

[Joe Biden 2020]

Color me skeptical about Michigan.  If this is true and Romney can steal these 16 EV's, that doesn't bode well for Obama.  Again, I reiterate, color me skeptical.

[Comrade Funk]

Interesting stuff....here's my new map:

[Joe Biden 2020]

You just confused me, Funk, can you explain this map?

[Speed of Sound]

You just confused me, Funk, can you explain this map?

I'm pretty sure it's a jab at the pollster's chaotic results.

[Joe Biden 2020]

You just confused me, Funk, can you explain this map?

I'm pretty sure it's a jab at the pollster's chaotic results.

That's what I thought.  The map makes no sense much like the poll.  I thought it was an impossible map, but I thought I would wait for explanation rather than compounding question upon question.

[Eraserhead]

RCP really did add this already. My god, they're shameless this cycle.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Interesting stuff....here's my new map:

This is probably my favourite post of the last month or so.

[TheGlobalizer]

No.  It's cute and all to poll MI but not relevant.  If Romney wins MI it's beyond a blowout.

[Andrew1]

FMW have only polled one other state, Florida in August & had Romney +14 when other polling had it as a tossup

[EricF]

Hello everyone.

My name is Eric Foster, President of Foster McCollum White & Associates. I am the lead pollster for our firm and our partnership with Baydoun Consulting. I want to thank everyone for taking the time to provide their comments and feedback. It is critical and important for everyone to voice their ideas. I would like to respond to the questions about our polling work.
 
First, I would like to address the topic of our political affiliation. Foster McCollum White Baydoun is non partisan. We do not ask for a democratic or republican label. Separate of our polling work, FMW has consulted to Democratic and Republican candidates for elected office, candidates for Non Partisan and Judicial positions, Millage campaigns and ballot initiatives. Our partner Baydoun Consulting consults Democratic candidates and the owner of Baydoun Consulting is very involved in statewide Democratic politics. We do not allow our political views or personal voting patterns impact our polling methodology or reporting. We present the findings in a clear and detailed manner, with explanations on our weighting methodology, demographic respondents versus projected turnout demographics and other key modeling processes, so readers can have objective data to review. We are not aligned with either political party and these polls are independent of any bias from the Democratic or Republican parties.

Second. There has been a lot of discussion about our Florida poll in August and our use of historical election turnout statistics collected from individual city and county clerks and the Secretary of State's offices instead of exit polling. I want to explain our methodology for the readers review.

Our Predictive Voter Behavior Analysis model reviews election statistics for age, gender, voting participation pattern, gender and socio-economic factors to determine the likely voting universe for an upcoming election. Our turnout models are based on state based historical turnout statistics provided by the municipal and county clerks and secretaries of state’s office of a state for age, gender, party, ethnicity and voting method (early, absentee, poll location) instead of exit polls. We trust the reliability of the election statistics from the clerks’ offices to give us value data reads on future elections.

The reason we take the historical data for a state is to give us a baseline for each precinct within the state and then build models up from there. We work to identify solid trends of turnout over a series of primary and general election contest so that we can remove outliers within turnout, age, gender, partisan (if collected) and ethnicity and determine the true participation base for that precinct. We can then project out for the variable election conditions (type, advertising impact, voter mobilization, outlier ballot issue impact, etc.) that allow us to determine our high moderate and low performing turnout and voter models.

Our polling call list was weighted to the historical weights for age, gender, race, region and congressional district area. Our list is also comprised of voters with previous voting histories in Presidential, state and local elections. We include the moderate and low performance voters, but the call files do contain a significant portion of voters who have a likely history to participate. We do not call voters who have never participated in elections but are registered. It is difficult to contact people via cell phones is The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) (47 U.S.C. 227 , 47 CFR 64.1200) prohibits the use of an “automatic telephone dialing system” to contact “any telephone number assigned to a cellular telephone service” without “express prior consent” from the party being called. Based upon this federal law and the difficulty in procuring call files with parties (voters) who have provided their consent, our call files are comprised of landlines.

When we call through the list, we report the demographics of the respondents without weight. If our demographics match the likely voter demographics for the polling study, we will report the baseline results as unweighted. If there are underrepresented groups within our aggregate respondent universe, we use our weighting model to adjust for their representative weight and the groups reflected polling preference for the baseline questions. We still will report the un-weighted demographics of our respondents because they reflect the prevailing interest level of the voting groups at the time of our polling survey. 
 
Based on the respondent universes to our Florida poll, we made the adjustment weight for the five underrepresented groups in Florida based on our PVBA model. We analyzed the respondent’s participation rates to our data models for Florida and also considered the recent spike in Presidential election rates for the younger age groups and the representative portion that each group makes up of the registered voting base. Even though our model projects a lower turnout among primarily voters under 50, we weighted the voters ages 18 to 30 at 12% of the possible election universe and voters ages 31 to 50 at 15%, for a total of 27%. Re-elections for Democrats tend to draw fewer younger and Minority voters then their initial election, per our historical analysis models. We believe that these groups tend to feel that they accomplished the major task of placing their change agent candidate into office and those they should have built enough of a base to sustain themselves.
 
We have made weighting adjustments to the aggregate baseline responses based on the following five groups who were underrepresented in our aggregate polling respondents:
•         Male respondents – 42.38% of respondent universe versus 45.2% of (FMW)B PVBA model projections for 2012 November general election and Florida’s overall registered voter base, with a final weighted determinate 45.0% of the aggregate baseline universe.
•         African American respondents – 6.32% of actual respondent universe was weighted to reflect the 10.1% of (FMW)B PVBA model projections for 2012 November general election, 13.2% of Florida’s overall registered voter base and 13.7% of Florida’s adult population, with a final weighted determinate 11.5% of the aggregate baseline universe.
•         Latino American respondents – 4.06% of actual respondent universe was weighted to reflect the 7.0% of (FMW)B PVBA model projections for 2012 November general election, 12.5% of Florida’s overall registered voter base and 21.1% of Florida’s adult population, with a final weighted determinate 10% of the aggregate baseline universe.
•         Voters ages 18 to 30 years old – 1.33% of actual respondent universe was weighted to reflect the 1.8% of (FMW)B PVBA model projections for 2012 November general election and 16.3% of Florida’s overall registered voter base, with a final weighted determinate 12% of the aggregate baseline universe.
•         Voters ages 31 to 50 years old – 7.65% of actual respondent universe was weighted to reflect the 10.1% of (FMW)B PVBA model projections for 2012 November general election and 21.6% of Florida’s overall registered voter base, with a final weighted determinate 15% of the aggregate baseline universe.

The self identified partisan participation rates from our Florida poll was as followed:
Total Democrats 38.31%
(Independent): 25.10%
Total Republicans 36.36%

When we polled Florida, a number of additional factors within our cross tabs relate to the shift in Obama’s fortunes in the state:
•   White Women – He was losing them in our Florida poll
•   People ages 31 to 50 – He won this group handily in 2008, but with the economic challenges and housing struggles, this group is more disenchanted then before.
•   Florida Latino voters – the Cuba community make up a significant shift of voters to the Republican party.
•   People didn't understand Obama’s plan to Ryan’s plan – At the time, Paul Ryan has provided Mitt Romney with cover for lacking details about his economic and budget plans. People can at least understand and make sense of what Ryan wants to change about Government. President Obama’s plan still seems vague to most voters.

With respect to our Michigan polling, some people have attributed a bias against minority voters in our polls. That is false. Per our PVBA model (which is built on 20 general election cycles worth of historical voter turnout statistics for age, gender and ethnicity, the 2012 Michigan Presidential general election turnout should be have 25% minority voters (African American, Latino American, Asian American, Arabic American, Native American and Multi-Racial Americans) For our sixth poll in a row, our Minority voter participation rate was significantly lower (16%) of the respondent weight in spite of our poll sample call file universe being roughly 26% minority. This indicates a continuing interest gap among these voting groups.

With respect to the Nate Silver article, Nate made a number of mistakes in reviewing our methodology and demographic reporting sections. He reported our respondent demographics as if they were our projections about turnout. Considering most polling forms don't publish their respondent demographics, I could understand the confusion. Additionally, we reviewed our methodology section and added additional verbiage to provide a clearer understanding of our polling construct. We still support what Nate does and continue to provide polling data to him, which he continues to publish to this day. Nate actually helped us by making us understand that more data, not less, is the best way to operate in this industry.

I am taking the time to provide such detail because I believe that firms in this industry are working to provide the public with quality information for review and assessment. Polling is a snapshot in time and the respondents are influenced by a number of external factors prior to the call and possibly during the survey call. It is our job to provide clear and open information so that you the reviewers can understand the science behind the work and the data that supports the findings. We provide more detail about our work then most of our colleagues in the industry. As two Michigan based small businesses who are working within the American Dream, we have a model that we believe fits this business universe and provides a high level of detail and information. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to email me at efoster@fostermccollumwhite.com.

Thank for taking the time to read my response.

Sincerely,

Eric Foster

[Badger]

My name is Eric Foster, President of Foster McCollum White & Associates. I am the lead pollster for our firm and our partnership with Baydoun Consulting. I want to thank everyone for taking the time to provide their comments and feedback. It is critical and important for everyone to voice their ideas. I would like to respond to the questions about our polling work.
 
First, I would like to address the topic of our political affiliation. Foster McCollum White Baydoun is non partisan. We do not ask for a democratic or republican label. Separate of our polling work, FMW has consulted to Democratic and Republican candidates for elected office, candidates for Non Partisan and Judicial positions, Millage campaigns and ballot initiatives. Our partner Baydoun Consulting consults Democratic candidates and the owner of Baydoun Consulting is very involved in statewide Democratic politics. We do not allow our political views or personal voting patterns impact our polling methodology or reporting. We present the findings in a clear and detailed manner, with explanations on our weighting methodology, demographic respondents versus projected turnout demographics and other key modeling processes, so readers can have objective data to review. We are not aligned with either political party and these polls are independent of any bias from the Democratic or Republican parties.

Second. There has been a lot of discussion about our Florida poll in August and our use of historical election turnout statistics collected from individual city and county clerks and the Secretary of State's offices instead of exit polling. I want to explain our methodology for the readers review.

Our Predictive Voter Behavior Analysis model reviews election statistics for age, gender, voting participation pattern, gender and socio-economic factors to determine the likely voting universe for an upcoming election. Our turnout models are based on state based historical turnout statistics provided by the municipal and county clerks and secretaries of state’s office of a state for age, gender, party, ethnicity and voting method (early, absentee, poll location) instead of exit polls. We trust the reliability of the election statistics from the clerks’ offices to give us value data reads on future elections.

The reason we take the historical data for a state is to give us a baseline for each precinct within the state and then build models up from there. We work to identify solid trends of turnout over a series of primary and general election contest so that we can remove outliers within turnout, age, gender, partisan (if collected) and ethnicity and determine the true participation base for that precinct. We can then project out for the variable election conditions (type, advertising impact, voter mobilization, outlier ballot issue impact, etc.) that allow us to determine our high moderate and low performing turnout and voter models.

Our polling call list was weighted to the historical weights for age, gender, race, region and congressional district area. Our list is also comprised of voters with previous voting histories in Presidential, state and local elections. We include the moderate and low performance voters, but the call files do contain a significant portion of voters who have a likely history to participate. We do not call voters who have never participated in elections but are registered. It is difficult to contact people via cell phones is The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) (47 U.S.C. 227 , 47 CFR 64.1200) prohibits the use of an “automatic telephone dialing system” to contact “any telephone number assigned to a cellular telephone service” without “express prior consent” from the party being called. Based upon this federal law and the difficulty in procuring call files with parties (voters) who have provided their consent, our call files are comprised of landlines.

When we call through the list, we report the demographics of the respondents without weight. If our demographics match the likely voter demographics for the polling study, we will report the baseline results as unweighted. If there are underrepresented groups within our aggregate respondent universe, we use our weighting model to adjust for their representative weight and the groups reflected polling preference for the baseline questions. We still will report the un-weighted demographics of our respondents because they reflect the prevailing interest level of the voting groups at the time of our polling survey. 
 
Based on the respondent universes to our Florida poll, we made the adjustment weight for the five underrepresented groups in Florida based on our PVBA model. We analyzed the respondent’s participation rates to our data models for Florida and also considered the recent spike in Presidential election rates for the younger age groups and the representative portion that each group makes up of the registered voting base. Even though our model projects a lower turnout among primarily voters under 50, we weighted the voters ages 18 to 30 at 12% of the possible election universe and voters ages 31 to 50 at 15%, for a total of 27%. Re-elections for Democrats tend to draw fewer younger and Minority voters then their initial election, per our historical analysis models. We believe that these groups tend to feel that they accomplished the major task of placing their change agent candidate into office and those they should have built enough of a base to sustain themselves.
 
We have made weighting adjustments to the aggregate baseline responses based on the following five groups who were underrepresented in our aggregate polling respondents:
•         Male respondents – 42.38% of respondent universe versus 45.2% of (FMW)B PVBA model projections for 2012 November general election and Florida’s overall registered voter base, with a final weighted determinate 45.0% of the aggregate baseline universe.
•         African American respondents – 6.32% of actual respondent universe was weighted to reflect the 10.1% of (FMW)B PVBA model projections for 2012 November general election, 13.2% of Florida’s overall registered voter base and 13.7% of Florida’s adult population, with a final weighted determinate 11.5% of the aggregate baseline universe.
•         Latino American respondents – 4.06% of actual respondent universe was weighted to reflect the 7.0% of (FMW)B PVBA model projections for 2012 November general election, 12.5% of Florida’s overall registered voter base and 21.1% of Florida’s adult population, with a final weighted determinate 10% of the aggregate baseline universe.
•         Voters ages 18 to 30 years old – 1.33% of actual respondent universe was weighted to reflect the 1.8% of (FMW)B PVBA model projections for 2012 November general election and 16.3% of Florida’s overall registered voter base, with a final weighted determinate 12% of the aggregate baseline universe.
•         Voters ages 31 to 50 years old – 7.65% of actual respondent universe was weighted to reflect the 10.1% of (FMW)B PVBA model projections for 2012 November general election and 21.6% of Florida’s overall registered voter base, with a final weighted determinate 15% of the aggregate baseline universe.

The self identified partisan participation rates from our Florida poll was as followed:
Total Democrats 38.31%
(Independent): 25.10%
Total Republicans 36.36%

When we polled Florida, a number of additional factors within our cross tabs relate to the shift in Obama’s fortunes in the state:
•   White Women – He was losing them in our Florida poll
•   People ages 31 to 50 – He won this group handily in 2008, but with the economic challenges and housing struggles, this group is more disenchanted then before.
•   Florida Latino voters – the Cuba community make up a significant shift of voters to the Republican party.
•   People didn't understand Obama’s plan to Ryan’s plan – At the time, Paul Ryan has provided Mitt Romney with cover for lacking details about his economic and budget plans. People can at least understand and make sense of what Ryan wants to change about Government. President Obama’s plan still seems vague to most voters.

With respect to our Michigan polling, some people have attributed a bias against minority voters in our polls. That is false. Per our PVBA model (which is built on 20 general election cycles worth of historical voter turnout statistics for age, gender and ethnicity, the 2012 Michigan Presidential general election turnout should be have 25% minority voters (African American, Latino American, Asian American, Arabic American, Native American and Multi-Racial Americans) For our sixth poll in a row, our Minority voter participation rate was significantly lower (16%) of the respondent weight in spite of our poll sample call file universe being roughly 26% minority. This indicates a continuing interest gap among these voting groups.

With respect to the Nate Silver article, Nate made a number of mistakes in reviewing our methodology and demographic reporting sections. He reported our respondent demographics as if they were our projections about turnout. Considering most polling forms don't publish their respondent demographics, I could understand the confusion. Additionally, we reviewed our methodology section and added additional verbiage to provide a clearer understanding of our polling construct. We still support what Nate does and continue to provide polling data to him, which he continues to publish to this day. Nate actually helped us by making us understand that more data, not less, is the best way to operate in this industry.

I am taking the time to provide such detail because I believe that firms in this industry are working to provide the public with quality information for review and assessment. Polling is a snapshot in time and the respondents are influenced by a number of external factors prior to the call and possibly during the survey call. It is our job to provide clear and open information so that you the reviewers can understand the science behind the work and the data that supports the findings. We provide more detail about our work then most of our colleagues in the industry. As two Michigan based small businesses who are working within the American Dream, we have a model that we believe fits this business universe and provides a high level of detail and information. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to email me at efoster@fostermccollumwhite.com.

Mr. Foster:

That all seems--well, long more than anything. But perhaps you can elaborate on how your firm found the race in MI a tie when every other pollster is calling it about a double digit Obama lead? Are you willing to acknowledge said poll was merely an outlier, or do you believe it to be a reasonable result of your polling methodology?