Why the Polls Understate the Romney Vote

[AUTaxMan]

Flea'd from the interweb.

Republicans are getting depressed under an avalanche of polling suggesting that an Obama victory is in the offing. They, in fact, suggest no such thing! Here’s why:

1. All of the polling out there uses some variant of the 2008 election turnout as its model for weighting respondents and this overstates the Democratic vote by a huge margin.

In English, this means that when you do a poll you ask people if they are likely to vote. But any telephone survey always has too few blacks, Latinos, and young people and too many elderly in its sample. That’s because some don’t have landlines or are rarely at home or don’t speak English well enough to be interviewed or don’t have time to talk. Elderly are overstated because they tend to be home and to have time. So you need to increase the weight given to interviews with young people, blacks and Latinos and count those with seniors a bit less.

Normally, this task is not difficult. Over the years, the black, Latino, young, and elderly proportion of the electorate has been fairly constant from election to election, except for a gradual increase in the Hispanic vote. You just need to look back at the last election to weight your polling numbers for this one.

But 2008 was no ordinary election. Blacks, for example, usually cast only 11% of the vote, but, in 2008, they made up 14% of the vote. Latinos increased their share of the vote by 1.5% and college kids almost doubled their vote share. Almost all pollsters are using the 2008 turnout models in weighting their samples. Rasmussen, more accurately, uses a mixture of 2008 and 2004 turnouts in determining his sample. That’s why his data usually is better for Romney.

But polling indicates a widespread lack of enthusiasm among Obama’s core demographic support due to high unemployment, disappointment with his policies and performance, and the lack of novelty in voting for a black candidate now that he has already served as president.

If you adjust virtually any of the published polls to reflect the 2004 vote, not the 2008 vote, they show the race either tied or Romney ahead, a view much closer to reality.

2. Almost all of the published polls show Obama getting less than 50% of the vote and less than 50% job approval. A majority of the voters either support Romney or are undecided in almost every poll.

But the fact is that the undecided vote always goes against the incumbent. In 1980 (the last time an incumbent Democrat was beaten), for example, the Gallup Poll of October 27th had Carter ahead by 45-39. Their survey on November 2nd showed Reagan catching up and leading by three points. In the actual voting, the Republican won by nine. The undecided vote broke sharply — and unanimously — for the challenger.

An undecided voter has really decided not to back the incumbent. He just won’t focus on the race until later in the game.

So, when the published poll shows Obama ahead by, say, 48-45, he’s really probably losing by 52-48!

Add these two factors together and the polls that are out there are all misleading. Any professional pollster (those consultants hired by candidates not by media outlets) would publish two findings for each poll — one using 2004 turnout modeling and the other using 2008 modeling. This would indicate just how dependent on an unusually high turnout of his base the Obama camp really is.

[INTIMADATOR2007]

A little common sense tells me it's Romney by a landslide . Of course most of the news polls will have Obama ahead , that's what they are there for to carry the water for Obama .

[habsheaven]

Polls are polls. The people taking them can manipulate them, and apparently the people interpreting the results can manipulate them also. INTIMIDATOR2007 you keep saying Romney will win by a landslide. Care to quantify that on an "electoral votes" basis? Obama will win easily!!!

[pwaldo]

One polls really don't mean anything unless they are a state by state poll which you don't get most of the time. A national poll is almost useless but it is still important to show "who is in the lead".

Two people more likely to vote for Romney are going to be using landlines and not just cell phones only. I think the overstating of the people who the pollsters think are going to vote for Obama is offset by the people who are not reached by pollsters because they have gone cell phone only. Cell phone only users are overwhelmingly for Obama so I think it basically cancels each other out.

[Wickabee]

A little common sense tells me it's Romney by a landslide . Of course most of the news polls will have Obama ahead , that's what they are there for to carry the water for Obama .

Common sense actually tells a tight Obama victory. Romney has really screwed himself over lately and it has hurt him quite a bit.

And Republican backers should be happy the polls show an easy Obama victory. If Democrat backers think it's a sure thing, they're less likely to go vote. When you hear your side is likely to lose, you feel your vote matters. When you hear he's going to win, your vote suddenly doesn't seem that important. Your claim to common sense should tell you these polls are good for you. Why you start trash talking like it's a football game is beyond me. I'd quietly sit back and let leftists think it's a sure thing and Obama doesn't need their vote. But here you are, going against common sense and telling Democrats they had better vote because Romney will win. Not a good strategy.

Strong Obama polls bode well for a Republican election, and vice versa.

[JustAlex]

A little common sense tells me it's Romney by a landslide . Of course most of the news polls will have Obama ahead , that's what they are there for to carry the water for Obama .

Seriously bro, I really want to know who is feeding you these lies.

EVERY electoral projection (you know, the ONLY thing that actually matters) has Obama winning.

Here take a look for yourself:

http://www.electionprojection.com/20...resident12.php

http://electoral-vote.com/

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

[JustAlex]

Obama 332 - Romney 206.......Needed to win (270)!

[Wickabee]

Obama 332 - Romney 206.......Needed to win (270)!

It only matters if Obama voters actually go to the polls and vote.

[mrveggieman]

I will be voting no matter what. I don't care if I miss a day of work or not. It will be worth it to keep romney out of office.

[JustAlex]

It only matters if Obama voters actually go to the polls and vote.

I think they will show up.

Remember that these polls are conducted to show the people that will "Definitely vote" to "Most likely vote".

I think I'm a perfect example of someone that Obama has let down.

I bought into the "Hope" and "Change" of 2008, and I have NOT seen it....I do think that in his first year, Obama did in fact try to change things such as Health Care. But ever since then, I have not seen what he promised.

I quickly abandoned the Democratic Party and I'm now 100% Independent.

HOWEVER....I also saw just how DISGUSTING the GOP really are. I saw how they were willing to go to EVERY MEANS possible in order to obstruct Obama on every way possible.

To say the very least, I was horrified....Elected officials wanting the U.S to suffer as much as possible in order to blame the President so they can retake the White House.

These people are TRAITORS in my mind and should be expelled from office.

As much as Obama has not lived up to the hype the alternative is NOT AN OPTION!!!