Polls Put Obama Ahead Nationally, Race Is Close In Key States
A new raft of polls today have Barack Obama doing well nationally and in key states, though it's not a perfect picture by any means:
• The new CNN national poll gives Obama a 51%-47% lead, with a ±3% margin of error. Two weeks ago, the candidates were tied 48%-48%
• Two polls in Virginia are putting Barack Obama ahead. From SurveyUSA: Obama 51%, McCain 45%, with a ±3.7% margin of error. From ABC News/Washington Post: Obama 49%, McCain 46%, with a ±4% margin of error. On the other hand, the new Rasmussen poll puts McCain ahead 50%-48%, with a ±4.5% margin of error.
• In Florida, Rasmussen has McCain ahead 51%-46%, with ±4.5% margin of error.
• In Michigan, Rasmussen has Obama ahead 51%-44%, with a ±4.5% margin of error.
• In New Hampshire, the new University of New Hampshire poll gives McCain a 47%-45% lead, within the ±4.3% margin of error.
• In Ohio, the new Rasmussen poll has McCain ahead 50%-46%, with a ±4.5% margin of error.
• In Pennsylvania, the new Rasmussen poll has Obama up 48%-45%, within the ±4.5% margin of error.
• Obama has a big lead in New Mexico, which voted narrowly for George W. Bush in 2004. The new numbers from Public Policy Polling (D): Obama 53%, McCain 42%.
• Obama is well ahead in Minnesota, which hasn't gone GOP since 1972 but has tended to be close in recent elections. The new numbers from Rasmussen: Obama 52%, McCain 44%, with a ±4.5% margin of error.
• John McCain has only a narrow lead in North Carolina, according to the new Rasmussen poll: McCain 50%, Obama 47%, within the ±4.5% margin of error. A month ago, McCain was up 50%-44%.
• A Suffolk poll has McCain ahead by one point in Nevada, 46%-45%, with a ±4% margin of error.
How many times do you think Scott Rasmussen has jerked off to Sarah Palin in his NJ apartment by now?
I believe their Virginia poll like I believe their New Mexico one that had McCain up 2 (SUSA and PPP have it Obama +10).
Drudge seems to have turned too. However, ya'll know he ain't pleasuring himself to any Palin named Sarah though. Todd or Track maybe.
September 22, 2008 10:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
"How many times do you think Scott Rasmussen has jerked off to Sarah Palin in his NJ apartment by now?"
That is the funniest thing I have read in days.
September 22, 2008 10:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Christian men accross America are jerking off to her image as we speak.
September 22, 2008 11:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shouting: "Oh, Jesus!"
September 22, 2008 11:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Come to Jesus?
September 23, 2008 8:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
FTW!
September 23, 2008 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Eric I decided to cough some hard earned cash and look at Ras crosstabs for VA, Ohio and Florida and found:
In Ohio, Florida and VA polls I looked at two things stuck out big time. They had no breakdown of % of AA voters or party ID, however, they had two things that stood out:
Ok economy and jobs here is the numbers
FLA M 48 Obama 47
Ohio Obama 49 M 47
Va M 49 Obama 48
On Bush approval ratings totaled using excellent, good and fair
Fla 50% approve (Excellent, good & fair) 50% dont (poor)
VA 51% approve (Excellent, good & fair) 48% dont
(poor)
Ohio 52% approve (Excellent, good & fair) 47% dont (poor)
Ok this doesnt suggest a heavy republican lean on party ID in ths poll it confirms it. I mean come on even in states where Mccain is winning Obama is ahead on the economy. But those bush approval ratings are you ffing kidding me? Ok one more number that to me confirms my suspicion of ID favoring republcans
Most important issue to voters
Fla 51%
VA 45%
Ohio 48%
Ok in national polls this number is at 60%...this may be a bit of my own partisan stretch as these numbers are not dramatically skewed, however, given the other numbers I posted I am waiving the BS flag on Ras.
September 22, 2008 10:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm all for transparency, but the perception that it's closer or that Obama's behind makes Dems work all that much harder to get out the vote, donate and volunteer.
Hell, the introduction of Palin to the campaign did that for me. I never volunteered for anything political in my life, except friendly debate. The time for friendly is over.
A win on Nov. 4th will have me doing cartwheels. A resounding landslide would have me guzzling champagne.
All that being said, I do appreciate your analysis though.
September 22, 2008 10:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think TPM needs to goto rehab over their obsession over polls right now.
Is Palin Too Dumb 4 Normal Debates? McCain Camp Thinks So
September 22, 2008 11:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good heads up Jess. I'm not sure Bush has a 50% approval rating at this point in a state like Utah. Those numbers are highly suggestive.
Thanks for ponying up the bucks for this info so someone else didn't have to.
September 23, 2008 5:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
There have been some articles about a recent meta-analysisthat showed that those pollsters that call cellphones as well as landline phones give Obama an average 2.8% more points than those that call only landline phones. (Rassmussen is one of the landline only pollsters.) The pollsters that have been regularly including cell phones are Selzer,CBS/NYT,Pew,Field Poll,Time/SRBI,USA Today/Gallup,Gallup. I'm not much of a mathematician, so I can't speak to the analysis, but I think TPM should cover it.
September 23, 2008 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
What does the margin of error actually mean? I've always been confused on that.
September 22, 2008 10:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error
The easiest way to say it in my opinion:
it's a statistical concept that means if I called a 50 million more people than the 1000 or so in the poll, you can expect the result to be off by +- 3% in either direction.
What it does not account for is other factors such as bias of a non random sample like the cellphone effect among others.
September 22, 2008 10:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
How much either way the poll can be wrong
September 22, 2008 10:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sort of. How far off the poll can be, if the sample polled is truly a representative sample. So the margin of error does not cover things like people who hang up, refuse to answer, or lie. It doesn't cover false assumptions about party affiliation, ethnicity, age, etc.... MoE assumes the pollster's methodology is accurate, and only reflects the statistical likelihood of the smaller sample varying from the total population.
September 22, 2008 10:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Plus the factor of how questions are asked. Tone of voice. Follow up or not.
September 22, 2008 11:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's a five percent chance it could be wrong by more.
September 23, 2008 8:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rassmussen rejiggered his voter ID numbers around the time of the Republican convention. He will shift back to something closer to reality around the time of the election. He doesn't want to be caught in his fraud. He is telling Republicans want they want to hear. He does it every election. He really can't be trusted. In fact neither can Gallup, but Gallup's polls tend to support the script written by the news organization paying for them. Don't pay attention to the national polls. They tend to be propaganda for one side or the other.
September 22, 2008 10:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely nailed it.
September 22, 2008 11:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Also that NH poll has a +7 party ID for Republicans over Dems...sorry not buying that crap either.
September 22, 2008 10:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
UNBELIEVABLE. That poll is COMPLETE bullcrap if they have repubs +7 over Democrats in ID. COMPLETE bullcrap.
September 23, 2008 12:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nate Silver posits that the "cellphone effect" skews Rasmussen's numbers slightly towards the Republicans: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/estimating-cellphone-effect-22-points.html.
September 22, 2008 10:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oops. I should have seen your link before I posted the same thing upthread.
September 23, 2008 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeh that and bs party id dynamics. Those Bush approval ratings I got from the crosstabs are a complete sham. His approval rate is at 25% nationally
September 22, 2008 10:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
"How many times do you think Scott Rasmussen has jerked off to Sarah Palin in his NJ apartment by now?"
That is the funniest thing I have read in days!
September 22, 2008 10:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Also the most "ewwwww" comment.
September 22, 2008 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Word. That was just disturbing.
A little bit funny but still troubling.
September 22, 2008 10:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I'm just glad I didn't read it until this morning, otherwise I would have had nightmares all night long.
September 23, 2008 8:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, jessran, those crosstabs are laughable. You shouldn't give Rasmussen any more of your money.
Of course, I don't think he's skewing his numbers towards the Republicans on purpose, to curry favor with the GOP. Out of economic self-interest, pollsters never want to be far off. Imagine how Zogby felt after 2004, when--alone among pollsters, if I remember right--he had Kerry winning right up to the end. I'm sure being wrong cost him some business.
September 22, 2008 10:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
As usual Eric, you show no knowledge...I guess it is much to ask
to analyze a poll...
Thank you Jessran for your input. This gives some interesting perspective.
September 22, 2008 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rasmussen/Faux Noise Poll???...hmmmm
September 22, 2008 11:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just a second for real numbers:
September 22, 2008 11:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ackk!
September 23, 2008 12:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Al Giordano says the poll out today that has Obama up seven in Virginia is also under representing blacks, which means the state is looking like a solid pick-up opportunity. Even better when considering Kaine is governor and that the Obama team has a much better ground game.
Pufferfish
September 22, 2008 11:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Be aware of Republican Voter Caging!
The MCain campaign has been sending absentee ballot applications to registered democrats or people that have donated to Obama’s campaign. These ballots are deliberately misleading and have postage paid return addresses that are for an election clerk that is outside of your city or town. What this will end up doing is either having your vote not counted, or if you return one of these, they will cite you for election fraud, saying that you already voted absentee. These ballots are only being sent out in swing states and this is a big deal! This is called voter caging.
The McCain campaign is stealing this election as we speak. Please get this information out to as many people as you can, and tell anyone you know who has received one of these ballots that they need to contact their city election clerk or the supervisor of elections immediately. Also call the local media and let them know what is going on.
We will not have a repeat of the 2000 election!
September 22, 2008 11:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
How much time have the respective campaigns spent in NH. Seems to me, not much, relatively speaking. Which leads me to believe that their internals are showing 2004-like number - close but a clear Dem win.
McCain has been spending a lot of time in PA. So have Obama and Biden. That tells me that internals show that state to be very tight. Worries me more than NH and I can definitely see more racist voting in PA than in NH.
VA numbers looking very, very good for Obama. IA and NM seem to be clearly blue. And the Great Lakes region appears to be lining up behind Obama. Kerry +IA, +NM, +VA or CO or NV or NC (or one or more of any of these) means a win regardless of how FL and OH pan out. Keeping PA is key, but I just don't see it going red. Or NH. I just don't see it happening. Not this year.
September 23, 2008 12:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Any pre-election poll with an error of ±4% or greater isn't worth the paper it's written on. It simply means they had way too few data points.
September 23, 2008 12:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ok what we dems must realize is that the AA vote is NOT BEING POLLED INCORRECTLY IN VA. I have seen EVERY VA poll since June and either they are all wrong or it's just the demo's. The seem to always show McCain ahead of the curve with about 12-15 AA votes and it's percentages being lower than it was in the 2004 race. EVERY VA poll I see shows that. They may very well be wrong, time will tell.
September 23, 2008 12:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama will get 95%+ of the black vote in every state.
September 23, 2008 12:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Beyond false. at the highest he will hit 90.
September 23, 2008 1:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
According to Rass, he's winning 98% of blacks in North Carolina and 94% according to Quinnipiac in Pennsylvania with 4% undecided.
September 23, 2008 2:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama's gonna pick up NM and IA and McCain's gonna hold on to OH and FL.
So the most likely scenario where Obama wins the election is he also picks up VA or CO and holds on to MI, PA, MN, and WI. If McCain picks up one of those blue states he very likely wins so he'll be spending a lot of time there.
September 23, 2008 2:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Another way to look at margin of error: Say you had 1000 voters, 500 who supported Obama and 500 who supported McCain. If you polled 100 of them, you might get the results 50-50, but you wouldn't really be surprised to get 51-49, and if someone else who polled a different 100 of them got 48-52.
And that means if you got a result of 51-49 in a poll of 100 voters, you wouldn't really be surprised if the actual vote came out 500-500 when they all voted.
September 23, 2008 2:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am 'shocked' that Rasmussen still has McCain on top after this past week. (snark)
What a joke.
September 23, 2008 4:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
I talked to my brother last night. He is rich, white, older and should (and usually does)vote republican. This year he is all about Obama and he tells me I am going to be surprised at how much Obama will win by. I told him that I can't see how the old conservative republicans (not the evangelicals) can vote McCain/Palin and he said I was right. He runs with those types so I think he has an inkling of what he is talking about. George Will's remarks about McCain's personality did not surprise him. He also said that Palin is going to end up doing more harm than good. He thinks they will stay home or vote Obama and never admit it.
September 23, 2008 4:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Obama campaign and end this tight race right now if they drop the Keaton Five bomb on McCain
Wikipedia: Keaton Five
September 23, 2008 6:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gotta save something for the debates.
September 23, 2008 8:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
I must admit ignorance of polling methodology before asking the begging question: Why is Rasmussen on the right side of the spectrum in VA, FL, MI and almost everywhere else, when all(almost all) the others show Obama with a slim lead, usually within the margin of error?
What questions and or demographics are they using, the others are not? Smarter, or dumber?
September 23, 2008 7:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good morning everyone!
Quinnipiac University/washingtonpost.com/Wall Street Journal polls:
COLORADO: Obama 49 – McCain 45
MICHIGAN: Obama 48 - McCain 44
MINNESOTA: Obama 47 - McCain 45
WISCONSIN: Obama 49 - McCain 42
September 23, 2008 7:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Throw in PA and NH or VA and we have the WH.
September 23, 2008 8:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
538 is making me giddy this morning. These numbers are great! Come on Virginia!
September 23, 2008 8:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
New Obama ad:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/destination_ad/
New numbers from Florida (NBC News):
Obama 47, McCain 45
September 23, 2008 8:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Right on. Probably what McCain's internals were showing. This is very good news. I think the McCain camp was hoping not to have spend much focus on Florida so they could concentrate more on the rust belt.
September 23, 2008 8:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Florida is officially up for grabs.
In my view, Florida is starting to look more accessible for Obama than Ohio.
Still, let's wait to see if Hillary's push will work.
September 23, 2008 8:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
The polling certainly seems to indicate that, yet I find it hard to believe. With its crumbling economy and recent nightmarish experience under GOP rule, I would have thought Ohio would be much more fertile ground. And I would have thought Florida's demographics, where its more liberal voters skew older than the rest of the population (and hence less likely than normal to back Obama) would make it difficult, if not impossible, to win. I'm curious about what would make Florida a better bet for Obama.
The good news is that, unlike Gore and Kerry, Obama doesn't have to win Florida or Ohio to win the election.
September 23, 2008 8:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
When you look at the traditional Democrats in OH and FL, I think those OH tend to be more racist.
September 23, 2008 9:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
That may be the most plausible explanation... Though it's hard for me to believe that racism isn't also a problem in FL.
September 23, 2008 9:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just looking at the poll numbers Florida is leaning more to Obama than Ohio. Obama's people basically admited such a few ago. But Hillary plus the economic crisis could turn things around for Obama in Ohio. If she campaigns hard, she can definitely tighten up the race there. Again, it comes back to forcing McCain to spread his resources and time. If Obama takes either OH or FL, it's basically over for McCain.
September 23, 2008 8:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Living in Florida (Tampa/St. Pete) I can tell you that they are severely underpolling here. The samples are small and not diverse. The amount of new registrations..especially in the I-4 corridor and in the big college towns are unprecedented, and they are not being accurately accounted for in the polls.
Rasmussen has a bad habit of polling in North Florida, which is conservative, and then in some of the wealthier parts of the states that are mostly republican.
The unemployment rates are the highest in 13 years, property taxes are unaffordable, and home owners insurance is basically unobtainable.
The media feeds that false notion that McCain and Palin are drawing record crowds here too. The other day they were saying 60,000 attended a Palin rally when it was less than 20,000. It's infuriating.
September 23, 2008 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here is waht I've just sent to John at RCP
Sir john@realclearpolitics.com
For sake of impartiality and avoid to further solidify the notion that you're republican, you need you include D2K tracking poll in your average polls or exclude the dubious battleground tracking, which I understand doesn't poll on weekends!
Cheers, M.P.
September 23, 2008 8:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
FWIW, Markos has an explanation from RCP - via Nate Silver - re: why they don't include the RS2K daily tracking numbers...
Nate:
"They decided that they had to draw a line in the sand, and will not be including any more "new" tracking polls that do not have a history of polling the national horse race. This would include the Research 2000 poll, but also things like Insider Advantage, which put out some national numbers a couple of weeks ago, or the Big Ten poll released last week, which also included a national trial heat."
Markos:
"For the record, there are no complaints about the quality of the poll, or the pollster."
September 23, 2008 8:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
This might get a little buzz going in Washington circles: George Will elaborates on his attack of McCain's personality, comparing him to the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, and basically saying his less fit than Obama to be President.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/22/AR2008092202583.html
September 23, 2008 8:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Another shitty and misleading ad from McCain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s18LfIDpaIs&
September 23, 2008 8:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
A whole lot of 50+ percents for Obbama. Gotta love that.
September 23, 2008 8:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Taking bets on McCain getting nasty at debate. He's known for his bad temper and foul mouth. Now that he's falling behind in the polls it would be an opportune time to lash out. The possibility came up on ABCs This Week and everyone pooh poohed it.
He's been getting a bit stressed lately; all those long days campaigning are starting to wear on him. Looking a little unstable, squinting a bit more, or wincing can't tell which, with that pained grin on his face. High stress plus a history of a bad temper is a volatile combination.
Take a look at the video of the 2000 South Carolina debate with Bush. McCain looked like he was being electrocuted. McCain told Bush "take your hands off me", after he tried to shake hands with him. I truly believe Ambien is not the only prescription medication that McCain is on.
September 23, 2008 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink