Final Gallup Poll - November 5, 2012

Likely Voter, 2551 sample size, Romney leads 49-48, 3% undecided.

I posted a small update earlier regarding Gallup, but they released their own analysis of the final poll that deserves comment.  If you look at RCP, they post a top line of 50-49 with Romney leading, but they do this by splitting the final 3% undecideds and giving half to each candidate.

As I mentioned before, it is hard to determine the partisan ID with Gallup, since they don't publish it.  However, I believe the sample has a D/R/I of 35/34/31.  Now this is a bit of a guess based on a couple factors.  First, there was a previous release where Gallup provided their sample which was about D+0.2.  Since then I have reasons to think they have moved to a slightly higher Democrat sample.  The following table gives a clue:

In this table we see that Romney is attracting 2% more crossover vote than Obama does.  We also see a slight 1% preference by Independents for Obama.  I'm estimating that we need a D+1 sample to result in a Romney +1 result.  If the sample were even, then Romney would be up by 2.

Putting these results through the models, we get the following:

R+1- Current result
O+2.4 - 2008 turnout
R+0.6 - D+3 turnout
R+2.8 - 2010 turnout
R+2.8 - 2004 turnout
R+5.9 - Rasmussen Party ID

As I look through the report, there are a few problems that I want to point out.  First is that slight Obama lead among Independents.  I think we can find the reason for both the significant loss of Romney's lead over the last few days and the loss of Independent support.  The following table shows support for each candidate among all voters by region:

Obama is leading by 20 points in the East, while losing by 4 in the Midwest, 10 in the South, and 6 in the West.  This race is being fought in the Midwest and South, not in the East.  That gaudy 20 point lead will be of no help to Obama, but it does serve to tighten this poll.

Additionally the Gallup poll suffers from the same over sampling of early voters as the other polls.

Thirty-two percent of likely voters interviewed Nov. 1-4 say they have already voted, while another 6% still intend to vote before Election Day.

38% of the 2008 electorate would be 49,000,000 votes.  The problem is that the actual early vote total nationwide currently stands at 30,000,000 or 23%.  This serves to again push too many respondents past the likely voter screen.

2,551/2,854 = 89.4%.  As I mentioned yesterday the participation rate in 2008 was 58.2%.  890 of these respondents say they will show up at the polls/voted, but won't/didn't.

Finally, I want to point out voter opinions on Obama's performance on key issues.

Unless the voters really want to elect a President of Hurricane Response, those disapproval numbers do not support a tie in the polls.  Being at -14 on the top issue of the campaign alone is enough to result in a a resounding defeat.

While I believe there are significant issues with this poll that are leading to an over statement of Obama's support, we will still look at what it is predicting.

The Gallup poll is predicting a final result of Romney winning 50-49.

However, using the models, it is predicting the following results:

Using a D+3 model Obama wins 50-49.5
Using an Even turnout Romney wins 51-48
Using an R+5.8 turnout Romney wins 53-47