New Pew Poll Predicts Obama Will Win 52%-46%
A new national poll is going beyond saying Obama is ahead: It's predicting that Obama will win by six points.
The final Pew poll predicts that the outcome will be Obama 52%, McCain 46%, with the remainder split among third-party candidates. The top-line result among likely voters right now is Obama 49%, McCain 42%, with a ±2.5% margin of error. Last week, Obama had a much wider lead of 53%-38%.
In an interview, Pew's director of survey research Scott Keeter explained to us how they arrived at that 52%-46% predicted outcome. Pew performed a statistical analysis looking at the remaining undecideds on the basis of their demographics and their answers to issue questions, in order to project how they'll vote -- if they'll vote at all, that is.
"This is an unusual group of people, anybody who could get to this point in the campaign and not have made a decision," Keeter said. "So you have to think some of these people are not even going to vote."
Pew predicts a very narrow break of undecideds to McCain, and it won't be enough to overcome Obama's lead.
The same methodology was right on the money in 2004, predicting Bush at 51% of the vote to Kerry's 48%, and in the very-close 2000 election was slightly off in giving Bush 49% to Gore's 47%. But in an election that doesn't seem as close as close as it was in 2000, Keeter doesn't think any remaining uncertain factors will be enough to undo Obama's lead.
Makes sense - This also puts the final results basically at the top of both candidates support for most of the past month in Ras.
I was reading a post over a Swampland that had Davis campaign flack saying that they were within 1 point in Iowa. Alot of folks were freaking and saying that he was lying. But if you think how they've been talking before, you can devine what they are saying.
Up until this point, the McCain camp has said that any state within the Moe is "tied." So, would it not make sense that if they are talking about a race that is "within 1" it means that McCain is within one point of being in the Moe?
So, and Iowa poll using the most conservative estamite voting total with a MOE of 2.5 showing Obama winning by 6 is "within 1."
November 2, 2008 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
That all sounds reasonable except that there are NO IOWA POLLS SHOWING ANY SUCH THING. The latest poll (Selzer) shows Obama up +17. SUSA had it at +15. Marist +10. Mason-Dixon +11.
Probably the most logical answer is that they are essentially dead even with those who haven't voted yet. The problem of course is that they are being blown out amongst those who have in such a fashion that they need 2-1 on election day to eke out a victory.
November 2, 2008 5:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seems reasonable at this point a six point win.
November 2, 2008 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, as someone said on tv the other day (I think it was Larry O'Donnell on MSNBC): never trust poll numbers cited by a campaign unless they release the whole poll to the public. I think that's pretty good advice.
November 2, 2008 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the polls of polls will be right - whatever the final averages are tomorrow night will be the finals.
Right now according to RCP, that is about 338 Obama and 200 McCain (they still have Obama up by .3 in N.C. but I'm going with TPMs number here - just a feeling).
November 2, 2008 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
This one is over.
Don't let the Repubs kill your buzz...or Rachel Maddow for that matter.
And yes, I will be working 14 hours on voter protection on Tuesday at a polling location here in Columbus to ensure the win.
Enjoy making history with enthusiasm, not with fears of Repubs spoiling our dream come true.
November 2, 2008 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for your time dedicated to voter protection.
November 2, 2008 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Amelie!
My wife clued me in to the source and meaning of your avatar and moniker. Very good!
November 2, 2008 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Amelie!
My wife clued me in to the source and meaning of your avatar and moniker. Very good!
November 2, 2008 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rachel is great but she was also sure Hillary was going to fight to the convention and destroy Obama for the general. She's a worry wart.
November 2, 2008 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know.
She reminds me of my oldest sister.
The glass is always half-empty, and I recall hearing her "Hillary's going to steal it" analysis and sayinjg out loud: "you're full of shit Rachel, quit being a buzz kill."
I love her intellect and analysis, but she's the type I would have voted against for President at the College Dems meeting. ;)
November 2, 2008 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't get it. How can Pew be forecasting Obama winning by 6 points when their analysis is thus:
Obama holds a wide lead over John McCain among those who say they have already voted (32% of all likely voters) or say they plan to vote before Election Day (7%). However, it is not quite as large as it was a week ago. More significant, the race is about even among voters who plan to vote on Election Day: 46% support McCain while 45% favor Obama.
39% for Obama; But McCain leads among the 61% who will vote on election day.
Can someone explain to me how that adds up to an Obama 6 point lead?
November 2, 2008 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fran, I can't cite polls from memory, but the numbers I've seen on early voting have shown Obama winning by a very large margin -- something on the order of 60-40, or a little less.
If 32% of the electorate has already voted by Nov 4, and Obama is winning this group by a very large margin, then McCain's marginal lead of about 1 point among remaining voters cannot shift the results very much.
So let's say there are 1000 voters in America. 320 will have voted by Nov 4, breaking thusly:
Obama 192
McCain 128
Kinda like the sample rates in my iTunes library, but anon. On Nov 4, McCain wins by one percent among the remaining 680 voters, with this result:
Obama 333
McCain 347
The overall vote comes out like this:
Obama 525
McCain 475
That's a 5-point win, not 6. But this is where the Pew numbers come from, I think.
November 2, 2008 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks muchly. That's made me feel a lot better!
November 2, 2008 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Don't let the Repubs kill your buzz...or Rachel Maddow for that matter."
Wow, you got that right! What's up with her anyway? I've liked her from the beginning and was thrilled that she deservedly got her own show (which I watch faithfully), but boy can she bring on the anxiety -- her 'talk me down' segments have become unbearable, and last Friday she said she wasn't convinced Obama had this in the bag (her words). I'll never forget how sure she was that Hillary would take it to the convention (and had to eat considerable crow on Keith when she didn't). She's bright, telegenic, and conducts one hell of an interview (ex., that Shrum idiot), but her worry worts are the size of baseballs. I've sworn off watching her til Wednesday -- I'm uptight enough as it is, I don't need more 'chicken little' from her.
November 2, 2008 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
"This is an unusual group of people, anybody who could get to this point in the campaign and not have made a decision."
Is that pollster-speak for "stupid"?
November 2, 2008 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
They just don't like their choices. I'm hoping that means they'll just stay home.
November 2, 2008 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tonight on NPR Andy Kohut stated it as: "If the election were held today, we expect it would be ...."
So they're not predicting Tuesday's number. And he made it clear that this year, of all years, it's hard to predict if there might be changes before Tuesday.
In that sense the "prediction" word used in the post may be a bit of a misnomer. They did "tease out" their best guess from the data. And assumed also that some undecideds might not vote. Thus arriving at their "guestimate" for if the election had been held today.
November 2, 2008 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oops -- shoulda been 'warts' instead of 'worts', senior moment.
November 2, 2008 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please!! Enough with the polls!! I hope we don't have Dewey Truman on 11/5
November 2, 2008 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
My prediction is that BigO will win by 10+ points. A landslide. And he'll take Arizona.
Usually I wouldn't care whether anybody believed me or not. After all, my prediction is based in substantial part on intuition, and there's no reason for anybody to give that much weight. All I can say is that it's been well calibrated by watching presidential elections since 1968.
Well, in addition to that, I do try to gauge the emotional component of my intuition and compensate for it. It comes naturally from being an engineer :-)
But if you'd like a couple of reasons why the polls might be off this time, here they are...
Likely voters and the enthusiasm gap. Dems are universally jazzed, and the GOP is demoralized and dispirited. Dubya is widely despised, and the percentage of Americans who think this country is on the wrong track is off the charts.
I've never seen an enthusiasm gap this huge. For that matter, neither have the polls. Their models for predicting who is and isn't a Likely Voter have never been tested in this kind of environment.
Sampling bias. Cellphone users are just one part of this. Consider all those people who are called by pollsters, then think about who would give up their time to answer all those questions. Not me. I suspect the impatience that goes with youth would skew the set of respondents away from the set of callees in a conservative direction.
FWIW. We'll see soon enough.
November 2, 2008 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good points. I especially like your "enthusiasm gap." I have a feeling that the "Likely Voter" conventional wisdom is going to be blown out of the water on Tuesday. And that's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
November 2, 2008 7:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
A big part of me feels +10 is a lowball estimate. Maybe I'm overcompensating for the emotional part of intuition :-)
November 2, 2008 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think ten is right, too, j. But between supressed votes, rigged machines, and other dampening effects we'll never hear about, they'll be able to shave about 3.5 off that. Which is why he always had to go past the margin of error.
Worth remembering that any drop-off on election day will be almost entirely on the McCain side, as disheartenment takes hold. That will really just an advanced form of shame -- aka right-wing self-reflection!
November 3, 2008 2:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
52-46 is exactly my prediction, so they must be right. ;)
November 2, 2008 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
VOTE VOTE VOTE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxlZJOWSGJc
November 2, 2008 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your favorite Republican Dragon here sayin wehave had one HELL of a turnout for Early Voting.They tell me over 2M have Voted before Nov.4th.Lookin ngood for Obama here in Florida!!!!!
November 2, 2008 8:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder if people who are still undecided until the last minute--i.e. don't really support either candidate--but who do vote anyway tend to vote for whoever is ahead in the polls so that they feel good for voting for the likely winner. I wonder if any kind of study or exit polling has been done.
November 2, 2008 9:44 PM | Reply | Permalink