Wednesday, October 31, 2012

October 31, 2012 Ohio Update

Two new polls come into the RCP average from Survey USA and Quinnipiac.  The Survey USA poll showing Obama leading by 3 is unchanged from last week.  The D/R/I remains 38/32/26 with Independents favoring Romney by 11 now (up from 9 last week).  Quinnipiac shows Obama leading by 5 using a D/R/I of 37/29/30 and Independents favoring Romney by 6.  This poll in particular suffers from the Lying Democrat problem of the other Ohio polls.  It has too many people claiming they have already voted, and that they favor Obama by 2:1.  I discussed how absurd this is yesterday.

Survey USA:
O+3 - Current result
R+7.49% - 2004 turnout model
O+2.12% - 2008 turnout model
R+4.23% - 2010 turnout model
R+3.48% - 2012 registration model
R+1.31% - D+3 turnout model

Quinnipiac:
O+5 - Current result
R+6.76% - 2004 turnout model
O+2.50% - 2008 turnout model
R+3.25% - 2010 turnout model
R+2.50% - 2012 registration model
R+0.07% - D+3 turnout model

The Time, Suffolk, and Cincinnati Enquirer polls were dropped from the average.  Note that two of those polls showed Romney tied with Obama.  I still can't figure out RCP, since the C.E. poll in particular was more recent than the CNN poll that remained in the average.  Looking at the new averages across 8 polls:

Polls included:
O+3 - Survey USA
R+2 - Rasmussen
O+4 - PPP
O+5 -Quinnipiac
O+2 - Purple Strategies
O+4 - CNN/ORG
O+2 - ARG
O+1 - Gravis

O+2.38% - Current RCP Average
R+7.45% - Average using the 2004 turnout model
O+2.16% - Average using the 2008 turnout model
R+4.19% - Average using the 2010 turnout model
R+3.46% - Average using the 2012 registration model
R+1.25% - Average using the D+3 turnout model

Again, slight movement toward Obama across all the models, which is unsurprising given the change of 5 polls in the RCP average.  If Democrats are able to get a D+3 turnout in Ohio, they will lose, but it will be close.  Anything under D+3 and Romney will declared the winner in Ohio early.

I've said this before, but let me reiterate.  Either the Ohio polls or the National polls are wrong.  If Obama wins Ohio then he will also win Nationally and we will be all talking about how Gallup and Rasmussen blew their polling this year.  However, if the National polls are correct, then the Ohio polls are wrong and we will be discussing why.

I am confident that the later will be the case.  The reason why will be identified as the over sampling of Democrats claiming to have early voted for Obama, who were lying about it.  The way to correct this is the pollsters can not include an unweighted sample of early voters, they must weight their sample to the actual number of early votes received.  Otherwise, campaigns will continue to game the system, like the Obama campaign is doing this year.

9 comments:

  1. Dave:

    Thanks for all you do. Can we get a Senate update? I'm stressing about that, despite your earlier optimistic projections for us retaking the Senate.


    "J.J. Sefton"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was planning to do an update, after watching the Fox Panel last night get their Senate discussion completely wrong. The problem is that other than Ohio, we have very little new polling being done in the Senate races. I'm not sure I have enough information to move any numbers right now.

      The only real new number is in MA, where Warren wants to reschedule the debate, but Brown decided to take a pass. That is pretty good indication that both campaigns view Brown as ahead, despite the polls.

      I'll look around and see if there is anything that will give new percentages.

      Delete
    2. Dave,

      Also would love a Senate update when new numbers come in. I'm honestly more pessimistic than you are, but haven't given up. I agree with your conclusion though regarding Brown, it's always the losing candidate that's desperate for more debates. Still, I've seen some unsettling polls there, I honestly thought Brown had already put her away.

      Ace is saying the race is "tightening" any truth to that? It looks like to me it's just once again increasing Democrat numbers. The pollsters are simply never going to allow Romney to look like he's put this thing away, they know support for Obama is already so soft that if it looks like a done deal, no one will show up and vote for him.

      Delete
  2. Maybe you have discussed this before, but what is you hypothesis for why ALL the pollsters would be missing this? Is it just that they haven't figured out how to take early voters into account? If so, why don't they try rebalancing? You don't think it is intentional at this point, do you? Right now, pretty much everyone is set to be dead wrong if you are right. There is safety in staying with the pack, but I can't quite see why only conservative analysts would see this, and not any of the pollsters.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think it is intentional in some cases. They have a built in set of assumption about the electorate that they believe is true. Either through wishcasting or outright collusion with the Obama campaign. And if you don't think the Obama campaign would stoop to such tactics, I refer you to their decision regarding credit card verification.

      In other cases, I think they are stuck. You can't change your model halfway through a polling season, and they didn't anticipate this tactic. But it is demonstrable that their EV numbers are wrong. We can go to the County records and get the actual counts. For that matter, the Quinnipiac poll EV numbers for Florida can be shown to be completely backward by pulling the actual early votes by party. Quinnipiac says Obama is leading by some silly amount, but you can go look and see that more Republicans have voted than Democrats.

      Delete
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