Monday, November 5, 2012

November 5, 2012 - The Penultimate Analysis

One more day.

Polls included:

Tracking Polls
Even - Rasmussen Daily Track
R+5 - Gallup
O+1.3 - IBD/Tipp
O+1 - ABC/WaPo

Others
R+1 - Battleground
O+3 - Pew
R+1 - NPR
O+1 - CBS/NYT
Even - Fox
O+5 - National Journal
Even - CNN/ORG
Even - NBC/WSJ

O+0.36% - Current RCP Average
O+0.64% - Average using the 2008 turnout model
R+2.27% - Average using the D+3 turnout model
R+4.57% - Average using the 2010 turnout model
R+4.64% - Average using the 2004 turnout model
R+6.39% - Average using the Rasmussen Party ID turnout model

Average Democrat advantage across all polls: D+5.22

The RCP shows a small drift toward Obama on the next to last day, driven my the inclusion of 4 new polls from CNN, Pew, NBC/WSJ, and Battleground, with the average Democrat advantage being driven largely by the D+11 CNN/ORG poll.  I have posted detailed analysis of each of those polls below.  These should all be final polls, and I will not be looking at them again.  Today we should see final polls from most of the other polling firms, and I will provide analysis of those as I am able.

In the tracking polls we continue to have no updates from IBD/Tipp and Gallup.  Drudge teased a Galup results showing Romney up 3 yesterday, but it was removed.  We are expecting them to provide final results today from their final days of polling.  IBD/Tipp I expect to not return, since they were severely affected by Sandy.

Rasmussen continues to show a tie, despite moving to a slightly more Republican baseline (D+2) and Independent preference moving back to a 9 point preference for Romney.  I believe that in the end, Rasmussen will probably be within a point or two, and will not sacrifice his reputation, however he is having some problems with his methodology.  A 9 point lead with Independents in a D+2 poll should be showing a 1 or 2 point Romney lead.  My suspicion is he continues to be plagued by too many Democrats making it past his likely voter screen.  This has been a systemic problem this cycle, which has cropped up especially in the last week while in the middle of the early voting season.  All of the pollsters will need to find a way to correct this problem next cycle if they wish to be accurate.

ABC/WaPo moved out to an Obama +1 lead while maintaining a D+4 sample.  Independent support for Romney increased to 2 points from the Even support they were reporting yesterday.  All in all, ABC/WaPo is looking to be fairly close in its results, once you account for the Democrat over sample.  They are indicating a Romney win of 2.5% if the turnout is Even.  I view this as a relatively conservative result, driven by the low preference for Romney by Independents.  Their over sample also appears to be caused by too many likely voters.  The results of this poll look a lot like a registered voter result.

Since several of the polls are getting very old, and in the case of Tipp may not even be updated, I'm offering an alternative set of results.  In this case I am throwing out the Gallup, Tipp, National Journal, NPR, and CBS/NYT polls because of their age.  I am also throwing out the CNN/ORG poll because it is an obvious outlier that is too good for Romney.  This leaves us with the 6 recent polls, 2 of which are tracking polls.

Polls included:

Tracking Polls
Even - Rasmussen Daily Track
O+1 - ABC/WaPo

Others
R+1 - Battleground
O+3 - Pew
Even - Fox
Even - NBC/WSJ

O+0.50% - Current RCP Average
O+1.60% - Average using the 2008 turnout model
R+1.30% - Average using the D+3 turnout model
R+3.60% - Average using the 2010 turnout model
R+3.66% - Average using the 2004 turnout model
R+4.17% - Average using the Rasmussen Party ID turnout model

This result is looking much more believable.  With an Even turnout, Romney will win by 3 to 4 points.  When Gallup releases their tracking poll I expect them to confirm this with a Romney lead of 3, as was teased yesterday.

22 comments:

  1. Hey Dave:

    Everyone is screaming for you over at the morning thread on Ace! Seriously, thanks for all the hard work and for keeping things as honest and realistic as possible. Hope we actually take the senate too, since a tie with the likes of Susan Collins, Scott Brown and Lisa Murkowski is too dangerous to contemplate.

    "J.J. Sefton"

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  2. And Rassmussen's R-49 O-48 is up on Drudge!




    "J.J. Sefton"

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  3. Dave, thanks for all the hard work and the constant updating. You will need a vacation once all this is over with. :-)

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    Replies
    1. I actually do have 4 days planned off this coming weekend. The problem is I'm running 13 miles in the middle of it. :)

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    2. Are you doing the Disney Wine & Dine? Haven't done that one, but have done other Disney races--they're good races! Good luck! And, thanks for all the hard work on these polls; they've helped me & my wife get through all this fickleness.

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    3. I am indeed! I'm really looking forward to it, it's my first and I've been training for 9 months now.

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  4. Amazing work as always. It's been greatly appreciated!


    JJ - Wow, that's a good change. Will be interested to see Dave's breakdown for the internals.

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    Replies
    1. Glad to see the Rasmussen number, it confirms what I was saying above. I try to apply logic and math to all of this, but it helps to get confirmation every so often.

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    2. Pfft, logic is so overrated. At least that's what the polls say.

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  5. Ugh, weekend numbers. And no time to wait for them to drift back... unless you mean by tomorrow night.

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    Replies
    1. The problem with weekend numbers are they are not representative of actual turnout. That is why we don't talk about "Weekday Numbers". So yeah, the polls look a little worse, but on Tuesday we do better than those numbers.

      This final weekend polling is reminding me a lot of 2004 with the "Kerry surge".

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    2. Oh, I know. The incumbent's inability to hit/break 50 even with the distortion is a bad, bad, sign for him.

      Btw, you sure CNN is an outlier? The final Gravis seems to have pretty similar numbers (+18 with indies!).

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    3. No, not sure it is an outlier. But I'm treating it as such. I would love to leap for job at being THAT wrong.

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  6. I really like what I'm seeing in Colorado.

    Colorado does mostly early voting and according to Colorado Elections

    Party Registration Received
    Dem 34.6% 567,569
    Rep 36.9% 605,586
    Oth 28.5% 466,868

    So we are up 2.3 there, and we all know more of those dems are crossover than Rs.

    So check this out:
    http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_21914514/poll-obama-romney-still-essentially-tied-colorado
    according to that poll, election day voters are Romney 47-42

    for more fun check out:

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/03/1154916/-Colorado-Early-Voting

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    Replies
    1. And to continue.... Nate Silver's blog has Colorado a 70% pickup

      Looking at actual real data I'd reverse that.

      And if you re-calibrate his model with this....... lol

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    2. Yeah, those numbers look very good. I've been confident of Colorado for a few weeks now, but you still have to execute the turnout. Looks like it is happening.

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  7. Here are the Rasmussen party affiliation numbers for October and they're shocking:

    Rasmussen October Party Identification numbers are up: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/archive/mood_of_america_archive/partisan_trends/summary_of_party_affiliation

    R: 39.1%
    D: 33.3%
    I: 27.5%

    R+5.8!!

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    Replies
    1. *blink*

      WHAT?!?!?!?

      Oh for crying out loud, now my Ras Party ID model is all messed up.

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    2. I couldn't believe my eyes! Gulp. I think we have to go back decades to see something similar? Blows D+2 out of the water.

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    3. to quote Inspector Gadget: "Wowzers!"

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