Oh Oh!

Gallup Presidential Election Trial Heat Results: Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney

ROMNEY 47%
OBAMA 45%

Still within the margin of error, and as of yet neither candidate has gone over that magical 50% number. This is going to be a very interesting election.

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RealClearPolitics - Election 2012 - General Election: Romney vs. Obama


If the election was based on a single poll it might be cause for doom and gloom but since it doesn't work that way I'm a bit more encouraged that Obama will end up with his second term in a " not so Interesting " November election.

Here are five polls run in the month of August that give reason to believe that Obama is beginning to trend upward..and a few key points to make it more so..

First.. Rasmussen only polls Likely voters, and they don't call cell phones. They use automated calling to call landlines , which leaves out the younger demographic because no cell phones are called. This tends to make Rasmussen lean 2 or 3 points to the right. Since they came out today with a poll that shows Obama up +2 that is a good indicator.

Gallop on the other hand only polls registered voters. Polls of registered voters tend to be off a few points more than Likely voters...

Then there's the FOX News polls showing Obama up by 9. This was registered voters so I would take that 9 down to five if it were me.

The best indicator to me is the intrade numbers. People are placing bets on the outcome , some of these people put in some serious money too, so I expect they do their homework. The fact that Obama is currently 57 % to Willards 41.8% is worth smiling over.

It's way too early to call at this point but, I've still got a hunch that the massive political shift to the right that happened in 2010 will some what carry over into this November with Romney winning much like Obama and the dems did in 2008 ands 2008......

If it was any other Republican I might agree, but it's Willard, he's not really a conservative and is only pandering to the right to win. The thought of him getting in the White House and then shifting back to his more Moderate self will weigh heavy on the minds of the Conservatives. Willard can't win , even with his " False Fiscal Hawk" Vp at his side. I see another Obama victory much like the 2008 race.

The critique of those polls showing the more radical swings to Obama is they were over sampled with Democrats. With the Fox poll for example (as I understand it) it's +9 Dems, which is the same he's up on Romney by.

Here's something I think I've noticed about InTrade, but I could be wrong. By the time the election runs InTrade can be overwhelmingly in favor of the winner, but that's not necessarily the case months out. That's the way I remember the Walker election in Wisconsin as far as InTrade goes.

At this point I think polls are only good for best guess opinions. I think yours is Obama wins in a landslide, isn't it? Mine is things look pretty even right now, and with that you have to factor in voter enthusiasm. On that all polls, even the over-sampled Democrat ones - appear to be more or less in agreement - Romney wins.

The Fox News Poll is conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R). The poll was conducted by telephone with live interviewers August 5-7, 2012, among a random national base sample of 930 registered voters, including additional interviews (an oversample) of 115 randomly selected Hispanics.The additional interviews of Hispanic respondents were done to allow analysis of the subgroup, and are weighted so Hispanics are not over-represented in the overall national sample.

No it wasn't over sampled Democrats. It was over sampled with Hispanics but that doesn't mean they were all democrats.. And they made adjustments so the over sampling didn't effect the national averages.

The fact that FOX news ran a poll showing Obama 9 points up speaks volumes.

And then there is the New Rasmussen poll which came out today... Again the right leaning Rasmussen has Obama +2...

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows President Obama attracting support from 45% of voters nationwide, while Mitt Romney earns the vote from 43%. Five percent (5%) prefer some other candidate, and seven percent (7%) are undecided.

This is the lowest level of support for Romney since March. So far, in the month of August, support for both Romney and Obama has stayed in a very narrow range between 43% and 47%.

Romney is supported by 86% of Republicans, while Obama gets the vote from 84% of Democrats. The president has a 10-point edge among unaffiliated voters.
RealClearPolitics - Latest Polls

InTrade isn't really good for polling purposes but it is a good indicator as to which direction the public is headed. They have also been known to be way off the mark, it is a gamble after all. The fact that Obama is so far ahead is encouraging and discouraging , but More encouraging. He picked up another point just last night.. so the trend is still upward. The Walker election doesn't really compare though because it was a state election and not a national one.

Well Polls are more than just best guesses or opinions. Polling services which do this for a living have traditionally been fairly accurate in picking the winners, although not always right on the numbers , they usually hit within their margin of error. I didn't say Obama would win in a Landslide.. Although I think it's a possibility. At worst it will be a close election but my prediction has been for a few months now that Obama will get between 303 and 313 electoral votes and win re-election.

The reason I say that with Confidence is the fact that Willard just has to high a mountain to climb. His path to victory relies too heavily on too many states and I just don't see him pulling it out. Then there's Ohio. Currently Obama is leading in Ohio, and has been for quiet a while. He's spending a great deal of money in Ohio because he realizes the simple fact that Willard cannot win without Ohio. In order for Willard to win he has to win 10 of the 12 toss ups and he HAS to have Ohio and Florida. He loses either and his math runs out. The only chance he has without Ohio would be to pick off Pennsylvania and Virginia as well... And although the Republicans are trying their best to steal Penn they will come up short.

Obama wins.. hands down.

Really?

Explain this bit for me then. It's buried at the bottom of the page in the link from RCP.

Also this critique of over-sampling is a thing I've read about in discussion of several recent polls.

As understand the reasoning for it, it says the demographic reflects the 2008 election. But this is not 2008.

I'm not sure I understand that about the electoral college. It doesn't seem to jive with the most recent electoral college map I see at RCP.

This one...

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RealClearPolitics - 2012 Election Maps - Electoral Map

It tells me 237 for Obama, and only 191 for Romney, but 110 are Tossups. Ohio and Florida are both toss-ups +1.8, and +1 Obama. That's close, right?

It's 3 months out. Indications are there's a bad jobs report coming at the end of August. The polls aren't out yet to give a good impression of if there's going to be a Ryan bump, or not. The debates are coming up.

Also, and I'm not sure about this one, but I heard on television some pundit was saying there's a campaign law of some sort saying Romney can't really loosen the purse strings until after the Republican convention. I imagine what we've seen so far has been Pac money, but he was saying so far Obama has outspent Romney 3 to 1. I don't know. I didn't completely understand that one.

And again, and perhaps most importantly, I continue to suggest if it's close it comes down to voter enthusiasm. Romney's up on that one, and there's no reason to think it's going to change. It's been that way for awhile, and it's increased with Ryan on the ticket.

Here's the polling data for that particular poll.. The questions they asked and all the numbers. They explain up front how the poll was conducted, and it doesn't include an over sampling of Democrats.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/inte...idential-race/

That's the same Map I am referring to, although I use a combination of two other maps as well. I follow the Map at 538 because it uses the averages from all polls, similar to RCP, and I keep up with the Map that Karl Rove runs each time, for a right wing perspective . All of the maps pretty much show the same thing except each one has it's own Margins of error so the Toss up states change from map to map. For this purpose we'll stick with the RCP map.

Yes I'm not saying it's not close in those states. But when you are dealing with the electoral college close doesn't really matter. It's whoever comes out on top whether it be 1 % or 10%... all states except for Nebraska and Main are Winner take all, so it's all about reaching that magic 270 .
With Obama sitting at 237 now he only needs 33 more electoral votes to seal the victory. He can pick up that 33 by picking up Florida and Colorado, or he can win Nevada, Wisconsin, and Virginia and still win without either Ohio or Florida. RCP tends to have a low threshold for the margin of error so instead of 9 battleground states it's far more likely to come down to no more than 6. New Hampshire, Nevada, And Wisconsin will most likely go Obama .. So that means Romney must win the last 6 states in order to win. It's unlikely that Romney will win Ohio, and unless he does there's simply not enough votes left for him to win.


It's the middle of the month, what indicators are claiming a bad jobs report will follow the end of the month?. The polling they have done in the week following the announcement show that Romney picked up a 1 point bump from the VP choice. Traditionally there was an initial 4 point bump.. so 1 point is not going to make much of a stir. Obama picked up a 1 point bump when he announced Joe Biden as his running mate, so that says all there is to know about how much it really matters. The VP choice has little to do with helping a candidate but they can hurt one.


The Rule is that each Candidate is given money to run first his/her Primary campaign and then once the Conventions are over they are allowed to spend their General Campaign funds. Romney had to go through a Primary in which he faced stiff opposition and pretty much depleted his funds trying to win the nomination. By the time he had sealed the nomination he was out of money so has had to rely on Super Pacs to keep up most of the Ads . Obama on the other hand did not have a Primary so during the summer while Romney was unable to tap his General campaign funds Obama has been spending his Primary Money. After the Conventions they are both going to unleash their General campaign funds and flood the market with more negative ads than have ever been seen. The Super Pacs will then unleash their billions , and that is where Romney will gain an advantage. Obama has Romney beat on Campaign money, but doesn't even come close with Super Pac money.

I think you're confusing voter enthusiasm for hatred of Obama, and that is what I'm sure the Democrats are counting on. There is no enthusiasm FOR mitt Romney, he's not very popular even among conservatives. There is however a viable hatred for Obama coming from the right , which means to me that a lot of those so called enthusiastic voters simply won't go to the polls to vote for someone they can't stomach. Then you take into account all the new Voter Id laws and voter suppression that is taking place around the country. Telling a demographic of legal citizens that they cannot participate in their election by casting a vote is the best motivator I know of to get people stirred up and willing to fight . Taking someones right to vote simply because they don't have a drivers license is going to backfire on the republican party . There is enthusiasm for Obama to win a second term, I see it where I am and I live in a Red state.