President Obama Re-Elected - Page 1074

On October 27 2012 13:25 micronesia wrote:

There's nothing wrong with a candidate wearing something that's sold at Men's Warehouse, in my opinion.

On October 27 2012 13:28 Rotodyne wrote:


well done, made me laugh. your post should be read in a raspy stereotypical jewish mans voice

On October 27 2012 08:48 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

I found it pretty interesting that some states have gotten hammered in terms of income while some have seen big gains. If you don't think there's enough info there, just read the article.

As for what would be most useful, that depends on what you are interested in. For example, if someone lives in Michigan the idea that the economy has been on the wrong track for a long time probably resonates very strongly.

On October 27 2012 13:45 jdseemoreglass wrote:

That guy is Jewish? Damn, I have absolutely zero Jew-dar.

I had an anthropology teacher in high school who used to repeat damn near every single day "JEWISH IS NOT A RACE!" I still can't make sense of it...

On October 27 2012 14:28 Signet wrote:

Yes, the electorate should look like something in between the extremes of 2008 and 2010.

Most pollsters don't actually weight by party ID... they just ask people their party ID and report it. It isn't a good idea to reweight by that variable since it's not something fixed like your sex or race. Depending on the political mood, the same person might call themselves a Republican or Independent, or a Democrat or Independent. It's recently been said that around 40% of Tea Partiers (probably the most loyal Republican voters out there) are self-identifying as Independent when pollsters are asking that question. Probably because they see themselves as dissatisfied with both parties for not being conservative enough, so in a sense that's independent, but it's not like they're on the fence between which candidate to support. That's making R sampling seem low, and making Romney seem like he's dominating the Indy vote.

RCP had a good article about this a while ago
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/08/01/cbsnytquinnipiac_swing_state_polls__party_id.html

On October 27 2012 14:44 Signet wrote:

Yeah, this should be getting more press. A low response rate can mean small changes in enthusiasm have huge impacts on what the numbers look like. This could easily explain why Obama started seeing leads consistently exceeding the actual 2008 margin right after the DNC, and why those leads evaporated overnight or in some cases turned into sizeable Romney leads following the first debate.

Pollsters are going to need to figure out a really reliable way to do some sort of reweighting or a good adaptive design to how their calls are done, as nonresponse seems like it is only going to get worse for them in the future.

On October 27 2012 14:12 Kolya504 wrote:
I think people underestimate Romney's position in this election. Say that the recent Time poll of Ohio is valid across the demographics sampled (results: Obama +5). Then note that the sample was weighted democrat + 9 (ie 37% D, 28% R, rest independent), and recall that in 2008 the turnout was estimated by *exit polls* to be D+8, but that different poll question results were contradictory and implied more like D+6. We can be generous and say it was D+7, for sport's sake. Then note that in 2010 turnout was D+1.

Seems fair to think that the 2012 turnout will be between D+1 and D+7 (between Obama's heyday and the 2010 Republican heyday). That means you're lopping off at least 2% of Obama's total and giving it to Romney, and suddenly we're in extra innings.

As an addendum, look at the difference between most national tracking polls and Gallup. For our European friends, Gallup is the oldest and most respected U.S. polling institution. They have Romney winning by a significant margin in the national popular vote (5 points), a much larger margin than most other polls. The reason is they are weighting the partisan turnout differently from everyone else; abandoning the 2008 turnout models and reverting to something like D+3 (guesstimate on my part here). I might be biased, but my impression is that Gallup is more willing to risk being an outlier than being wrong - they know the 2008 turnout assumptions are wrong and won't sacrifice their reputation just to generate favorable polling press for Obama.

Pennsylvania is somewhat more competitive, but Mr. Obama leads there by about 5 points in the forecast (that was also his margin in a Rasmussen Reports poll of the state on Thursday). With the exception of one strongly G.O.P.-leaning firm, Susquehanna Research, no other polling firm has shown Mr. Romney ahead in the state all year. A 5-point lead in the state with a week and a half to go should translate into a victory for Mr. Obama more than 90 percent of the time, especially in a low-elasticity state like Pennsylvania.

Wisconsin and Nevada come next. While both remain winnable for Mr. Romney, they have featured among the more consistent polling; Mr. Romney has led in just one poll of Nevada since the Denver debate, and none in Wisconsin.

If Mr. Obama wins Wisconsin and Nevada along with the states like Michigan where he seems to have a clearer advantage, he will have 253 electoral votes, putting him 17 votes shy of clinching an Electoral College majority.

Ohio, which has 18 electoral votes, is the state most likely to provide those votes to Mr. Obama. He leads in the FiveThirtyEight forecast by 2.3 percentage points in Ohio, and by a similar margin according to other Web sites that aggregate polls. The forecast gives Mr. Obama about a 75 percent chance of winning Ohio. This figure is, not coincidentally, close to Mr. Obama’s 73 percent overall chance of winning the Electoral College. (Ohio has about a 50-50 chance of providing the decisive Electoral College votes.)

New Hampshire and Iowa have featured less consistent polling than Wisconsin, Nevada or Ohio, and both are high-elasticity states that provide less overall predictability. Mr. Obama has about a two-in-three chance of winning each one, according to the forecast. However, these states alone would not suffice for Mr. Romney to win the Electoral College if he also lost Ohio, Nevada and Wisconsin.

Colorado and Virginia appear as though they might be the closest states in an election held today. Mr. Obama arguably has just the slightest edge in Colorado, where three of four polls released on Thursday showed him ahead, and where a fourth showed a tied race – but those polls were a Democratic-leaning group, so it is probably best to view the state as a tossup. The outcome in Virginia, where the polling has been inconsistent all year and was so again on Thursday, is anybody’s guess.

However, the fact that Colorado and Virginia have been the closest states in the polling recently, and that both are fairly essential to Mr. Romney’s path to victory while being more superfluous for Mr. Obama, is evidence that Mr. Obama has an overall advantage in the Electoral College.

The forecast model continues to give a slight edge to Mr. Romney in Florida. There, in contrast to several other swing states, it has been the more methodologically reliable polls that have tended to show a clearer advantage for Mr. Romney. Florida is by no means a sure thing for Mr. Romney — Mr. Obama’s chances of winning it (35 percent) are larger than Mr. Romney’s chances of carrying Ohio (25 percent), according to the forecast. But the polls in Florida have historically done a good job of predicting the result, and it is unlikely to leapfrog several other states and be the Electoral College tipping point on Election Day.

All of this holds doubly for North Carolina, where Mr. Romney leads by about 3 percentage points in the forecast and has about an 80 percent chance of winning.

Beyond North Carolina, there aren’t very many states that Mr. Obama has a realistic chance to win, even if he is having a strong night overall on Nov. 6. Arizona probably provides Mr. Obama his best hope, but the forecast still puts his chances there at only about 3 percent.

On October 27 2012 07:58 Voltaire wrote:
Saw this poster today. I'm happy to vote for Gary Johnson rather than waste my vote on two terrible major party candidates.

On October 27 2012 15:06 Kolya504 wrote:
Signet, mind telling us which polling firm? I'm very curious.

Also Unholy_Prince: You'll note that they were off in Obama's favor last time. They do adjust their methodology and you can check the registered voter numbers as well - tied, and we do know that Republicans are more likely to vote to some degree and that independents are favoring Romney.

I'm not impressed with Nate Silver. I check his site daily, because I'm too lazy to make my own statistical model (not that I couldn't - I have a quanty background). Silver is liberal and betrays those biases occasionally - like everyone knows the Time poll is bullshit, but he still gave it weight in his Ohio model anyway. I don't think he's actively trying to manipulate things; I think it just doesn't occur to him to question certain aspects of his echo chamber, and that filters into his data. You're only as good as your data.

On October 27 2012 22:27 Barrin wrote:
Fuck this shit I'm voting Gary Johnson. End the 2-party system!

Never been more sure. Who's with me?

On October 27 2012 22:27 Barrin wrote:
Fuck this shit I'm voting Gary Johnson. End the 2-party system!

Never been more sure. Who's with me?