The National Journal's Reid Wilson has written a superb piece that goes a long way towards explaining the one issue bringing right and left together this campaign season: What is going on with these polls? There's no question that there's one consensus of pollsters that show Mitt Romney leading (Rasmussen, Gallup) and another, larger group showing Obama with an edge -- especially in the all-important swing states.
In a nutshell, what we have are two
camps of pollsters predicting two very different types of electorates
will show up at the polls or have already voted. This, by the way,
includes the very detailed internal polling the Obama and Romney
campaigns are spending millions on. Boiled down: Will the 2012
electorate look like 2008, 2004, or somewhere in-between?
2008 was a wave election, where
demoralized Republicans stayed home and Democrats, energized by the hope
and the change, came out in record numbers. The result was an
electorate in which Democrats enjoyed a record turnout advantage of 7%
over Republicans: 39% Democrat, 32% Republican, and 29% Independent --
or D+7.
In 2004, the turnout was 37% Democrat, 37% Republican, and 26% Independent -- or D+0.
With this in mind, what we're seeing in
many of these state polls showing Obama leading are pollsters who
believe 2012 is going to look a lot more like 2008 than 2004. And it has
nothing to do with pollsters putting a thumb on the scale and weighting
Party ID in a way that benefits Obama. It also has nothing to do with
response rates, cell phones, or people lying to pollsters.
There's no magical thinking behind what
we're seeing in these polls. It all comes down to choices pollsters are
making with respect to demographics and screening for the all-important
Likely Voter.
DEMOGRAPHICS:
Republicans and Democrats alike
believe the African American vote is unlikely to change between 2008 and
2012. But they differ dramatically on the number of Hispanic voters who
will show up at the polls -- a key factor in critical battleground
states like Colorado and Nevada. Republicans believe turnout will be
down, depressed by Obama's failure to pursue immigration reform during
his first term. Democrats think the booming number of Hispanic residents
means their share of the electorate will only increase.
The same argument happens over
younger voters. In 2008, 18 percent of the electorate was made up of
voters between 18 and 29 years old. That's higher than the percentage
has been in recent presidential years, when the youth vote has made up
around 15 or 16 percent. Republicans believe the younger share of the
electorate will slide slightly, and that Obama will win fewer of those
voters anyway.
The manifestation of these
disagreements is evident in polling weights. Most Republican pollsters
are using something close to a 2008 turnout model, with the same
percentage of white, black and Hispanic voters as the electorate that
first elected Obama. Most Democratic pollsters are a little more bullish
on minority turnout, which helps explain some of the difference between
the two sides.
This explains more than why the
campaigns' internal polling looks so different; it also explains what
we're seeing in this daily flood of public polls. Marist, Quinnipiac,
etc. all apparently agree with Team Obama's vision of what the 2012
electorate will look like. Because of this, they're including larger
samples of groups inclined to vote for Obama. This is why Obama leads in
most swing state polls and explains the D+5 to D+8 samples everyone's
talking about.
Likely Voter Screens
Something else is happening, though,
that the National Journal missed. Pollsters aren't just making
demographic choices favorable to Obama, some are also loosening the
Likely Voter screening process, sometimes to absurd levels.
Pollsters generally work with three
pools of voters: All Adults and Registered Voters (RVs) -- which is
self-explanatory; and Likely Voters (LVs) -- those whom pollsters
believe will actually turn out to vote. It's just a fact that, as you
tighten your screen from All Adults to LVs to RVs, more and more
Democrats are filtered out. But the screen for LVs is a subjective one;
it's left up to the pollster to decide who qualifies as an LV based on
whatever set of questions are asked.
And in the end, published poll results and the ensuing headlines are based on LVs.
Once again, pollsters can claim they
aren't weighting Party ID to benefit Obama, but if their LV screen is
loosened, it has the exact same effect, because more Democrats make it
into the LV pool of voters. The best example of this arrived yesterday
with three Quinnipiac polls that showed Obama winning in Ohio, Virginia, and Florida.
In the wave election of 2008, Democrats
enjoyed turnout advantages of D+5 in OH; D+6 in VA; and D+3 in Florida.
Yesterday's much publicized Quinnipiac polls predicted Obama's turnout
advantage in those states would actually increase this year: VA: D+8 -- FL: D+7 -- OH: D+8.
But if Quinnipiac doesn't weight for Party ID, where did that result come from?
Those three Quinnipiac polls are really
RV polls. Normally, when looking for the more accurate LV pool of
voters, most pollsters tighten the screen to qualify as a LV with the
kinds of questions that screen out somewhere between 20 to 30% of RVs.
Quite incredibly, Quinnipiac only screened out 4%
of RVs. If you release a poll where 96% of RVs make it through the LV
screen, you are releasing a RV poll -- which of course includes more
Democrats and favors Obama.
Quinnipiac is just one example of
another reason we're seeing most state and some national polls claiming
Obama has a small but persistent lead thanks to a D+5 to D+8 turn out
advantage.
Where this matters most, naturally, is
with a CorruptMedia that reports these skewed polls as gospel, which in
turn serves the Obama campaign's Inevitability Narrative.
The real question, though, is who's
right? Will Tuesday's electorate look like the wave election of 2008 or
something closer to 2004.?
Obviously, no one can answer that
question with any certainty, but there is some data and no small amount
of common sense that says pollsters using the pro-Obama 2008 model are
the ones climbing further out on a limb than the rest.
Eight Reasons the Pro-Obama Pollsters Are Wrong
1. Republicans Can't Wait to Vote:
First off, there's no question Republicans are much more energized to
vote than they were in 2008 -- a year in which Republicans were
demoralized and stayed home. The energy that saw Republicans make
sweeping gains everywhere in the 2010 midterms hasn't diminished. If
anything, the energy to send Obama home with his ObamaCare has
increased. But that's instinct talking, not numbers. So here are some
numbers…
2. Romney's Winning Independents:
Numbers pollsters can’t tweak or weight (without committing outright
fraud) all that looks great for Republicans. Romney is winning
Independents by close to double digits (Obama won Indies by 8 points in
'08), he's winning more Democrats than Obama is Republicans; Romney's
also closed the gender gap to a place where Republicans have won
national elections before.
3. Romney Beats Obama On Favorability: According to the Real Clear Politics poll of polls, Romney beats Obama in favorability.
4. Polls Show Republicans Will Turn Out In Record Numbers: Thanks to a mammoth 9,000 person likely voter poll, we can have confidence that the 2012 electorate will look even more Republican than it did in 2004:
In 2008, 54% of likely voters
identified as Democrat or lean Democrat. 42% of likely voters identified
as GOP or lean GOP. In other words, the electorate, including
independents who lean towards a particular party, was D+12. This year,
however, the Democrat advantage has disappeared. 49% of likely voters
today identify as GOP or lean GOP. Just 46% of likely voters are or lean
towards the Democrats. This is a 15-point swing towards the GOP from
2008 to an outright +3 advantage for the GOP. By comparison, in 2004,
when Bush won reelection, the electorate was evenly split, with each
party getting support from 48% of likely voters.
The difference between a D+3 and R+3 electorate is the difference between a Romney win and a Romney landslide.
5. Romney Is Doing Well With Early Voting: Early voting also shows gains for Romney.
Contrary to CorruptMedia spin, where data is available, Romney's
over-performing with early voters in a number of crucial swings states.
Two polls (Pew and Gallup) also show Romney beating Obama in early voting by a seven-point margin.
6. Polls Show Republicans Are More Enthusiastic:
Finally, and this is what's most ironic, some of the same polls (like
yesterday's from Quinnipiac) that predict Obama will enjoy a huge D+5 or
better turnout advantage also show that Republicans beat Democrats on
the question of intensity by double digits.
Riddle me that.
7. Romney Has a Fantastic Ground Game:
As far as ground game, there's no question Obama has a sophisticated
operation, but even Chuck Todd admits Romney's ground game is better
than the one Karl Rove employed in 2004 that allowed Bush to win 2004
while losing Independents. Furthermore, polls that look objectively at ground game metrics show no advantage for Obama.
8. Motive:
Let's also look at the pollsters' motivations. All Gallup and Rasmussen
do is poll; that's how they make their living. They have to get it
right, and right now both show Romney up nationally and Rasmussen shows
him up in enough states to win the electoral college. Many of the
pollsters showing Obama in a stronger position are tied to universities
and media outlets. They have an agenda above and beyond getting it
right, and polling is merely a side business.
In my opinion, and the data backs me
up, there's simply no question that these pro-Obama pollsters are living
on another planet if they believe Obama's going to best or come close
to his 2008 turnout advantage. And yet, that's what most every poll
showing Obama up assumes.
Regardless, we'll know for certain on
Election Day when Virginia closes at 7pm. If it's close or Obama wins,
we're in for a long night.
But if Romney wins Virginia by 5 points or more, we all need to tune to MSNBC and enjoy the show.
The credit for whatever is right about this post all goes to my colleague Mike Flynn, The Weekly Standard's Jay Cost and Twitter's NumbersMuncher. All I'm doing here is bringing their genius together in one place. Any mistakes are mine and mine alone.
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