Poll City – Come Get More!

Ok, I am obsessed with polls.  This is partly due to my obsession with this election, but also I am a numbers guy.  By day I am financial consultant/analyst.  So, that’s where it comes from.  Here is one more chart I put together, I probably will not update daily.

This shows all the National Tracking polls that have come out daily since I started keeping track a week ago (exception, Diageo I didn’t have the first day).  There are a lot of other polls that track the race, but these are the six that have daily numbers, including weekends.  To understand how accurate or inaccurate they are, check out Nate Silver’s post yesterday over at 538.com.  He reviews the accuracy of each of these polls.  His opinion, and that of others, is that Rasmussen tends to be the most accurate.  In my poll here, Rasmussen does the best job tracking to the mean.

So what’s the take away, as my clients might ask?  First, the range of the polls has narrowed.  What was a range of 2 to 11 point (or aggregate of 9) lead for Obama is down to a 4 to 10 point (or aggregate of 6) lead.  People smarter than me claim polls will fluctuate wildly early in a race and will come into alignment towards the end.   With the exception of Zogby, we also see the polls either remain at the higher or lower end of the range from beginning to end of the analysis.  This shows consistency in polling numbers within the organization.  Finally, we can see the average of all six of these polls remains relatively stable across the range of dates.

The bottom line is polls are tending to preserve their bias and reporting characteristics, but are trending closer to each other as the electorate’s opinion is getting more entrenched.  Additionally, despite some very good day and very bad days for Obama, overall the race hasn’t changed in the week I’ve been tracking.

And one follow-up note.  I didn’t use all the other polls because I wanted to use consistent data across the period being reviewed.  By adding and taking away polls each day, you will see much wilder fluctuations – you are not comparing apples to apples.  I also believe (with no intelligence to tell me if this is true) that the folks who do these polls every single day are going to be more consistent in their performance for a variety of reasons.  I realize that this is only a week of data and things can change quickly.  But it does give some sense of the state of the race.

The Liberal Poll of “Poll of Polls” – 22 October 2008

Popular Vote

Obama – 50.4% +6.6%

McCain – 43.8%

Electoral College

Obama – 353

McCain – 185

Well, as I’ve been harping on for the last couple of days, the Electoral Vote did go down for Obama Today (I predicted Wednesday).  There are two reasons for this change.  The first is that The Princeton Election Consortium dropped Obama’s total for EV’s from 362 to 340.  I am actually slightly surprised that we didn’t get more movement downward in some of the other aggregate EV polls.   That has a little to do with my methodology of assigning all 538 votes.  If a state is only 1-2% for a candidate and is really a ‘toss-up’ I still show it for the candidate in the lead.  Florida has definitely tightened in the last couple of days and there is also some chatter with Ohio.  The good news is it doesn’t appear Pennsylvania is moving yet – though there is only poll posted in the last week.  On the popular vote front, things seem to have stabilized after a week of very fluctuating numbers.  That’s always good for the guy in the lead.  When I started this poll eleven days ago, Obama was at 50.6%, today he is at 50.4%.  McCain was at 43.6% and today he is at 43.8%.  A total of .3% change for McCain in the last eleven days.  On the Electoral Vote side, Obama was at 352 and today he is at 353.  So, in eleven days, nothing has really changed in this race.  The Electoral Polls will probably get a bit tighter in the next couple days, a residual of last week’s ‘tightening’.  If the popular vote remains steady, though, we’ll probably see the EV total go back up early next week.

As you’ve probably understood by now, because state polls aren’t taken everyday, effects in the dynamic of the race will not be picked up for a week or so. This isn’t a big deal two months out from the election, but increasingly important as the election gets closer.  For example, if something happened on the Sunday before the election, the EV polls wouldn’t show any change on Election Day.  However, the popular vote would absolutely show that impact.  That’s why the popular vote status is going to become more important as the last 12 days tick away.

I think the drop in McCain support for the last two days was a result of the Powell endorsement.  As I mentioned yesterday, it didn’t provide a boost to Obama, simply a loss of support of McCain.  This is his soft support, and I expect it will come back and close the gap back to 4-5 points (near McCain’s 46% ceiling).  That will leave 4% undecideds.  If you consider Obama’s support relatively static, as it seems to be, then that 4% would have to break totally for McCain – that’s unlikely – to win the popular vote.  It’s becoming clearer, that unless there is an external event or a huge gaffe, McCain will win only by winning the Electoral College, but not the popular vote.

According to Drudge – The Race is Even!!

Citing the latest AP/GFK Poll, Matt Drudge has put at the top of his site the race is even.  Now, I am as much of a worrier as the next Democrat, but the poll is wrong and AP and Drudge’s representation is out of date.  Here’s the facts about the AP poll.

1) It is a sample of 1001 Registered voters and 800 Likely voters.  This is on the smaller sample size of the daily trackers.  Some of the sample sizes, by the bigger pollsters are 3000.  Those 800 participants were, according to the AP surveyed over 5 days or 160 to 200 calls a day.  Most of the surveys are over 3 days – so between 300-1000 calls a day (depending on sample size)

2) The poll includes some of Obama’s worst polling days in weeks – last Thursday through Sunday.  The tightening we saw in the other tracking polls late last week and through Monday of this week are only now being reflected in the AP poll.  Additionally, they are including only one day of ‘good’ polling for Obama this week – Monday.  Finally, all the other trackers are through yesterday.  AP’s is through only Monday.

3) The average tracker, prior to adding the AP to it’s total, at Real Clear Politics gave Obamaa 7.4% lead.  Even with this outlier, his lead is still 6.8%

4) Nearly all trackers yesterday provided Obama with a significant boost.  In the same Real Clear Politics trackers, Obama gained about 1.5% from Monday to Tuesday – demonstrating he had very strong polling numbers on Monday.

5) I went back and looked at the polling done Mid/Late October in 2004 to see what type of outliers showed up during the Bush/Kerry race.  Bush won by 2.4%.  The average lead by Bush around the 20th of October – per the Real Clear Politics polls, was 2.7%.  Oddly, or not oddly, the biggest outlier was a +3 for Kerry.  Guess who’s poll?  Yep, AP/IPOS.  They were off the mean by 5.7%.  This year, AP/GFK is off the Mean by 5.8%.  So they are oddly consistent.  What’s also facinating, is the 2004 late October margin matched the ultimate win total for Bush.

The point is to understand what the polls are telling you.  You need to look at a few factors.  The first is partisan weighting.  That is the what makes up biggest difference between polls.  How a pollster views the makeup of the electorate between Democrats and Republicans will drive results.  Second, look at dates, sample size, and total calls per day.  In a very fluid election, the latest results with the biggest sample size will be the best.  Third, understand the overall bias of the polls.  Fivethirtyeight.com and Pollster.com rank the different pollsters (AP/GFK I could not find).

There are biases each way.  While the +14 for Obama yesterday may have been an outlier, the +1 for the Battleground poll yesterday (which also included last week’s data) or +1 for AP are also outliers.  Look at the median and look at the general direction of the polls to get a better sense.  Obama had a tremendous day yesterday.  Today’s results, relatively speaking, are mixed but still good for Obama.

Finally, ignore Drudge. He has an agenda and he’s willing to push it with faulty data. I think he does have a ‘nose’ for news and is a great place to go during slow politics time.  But as everyone is amped up – his portrayal can really affect Democrats and Republicans feeling on the election.  And it is usually not fully accurate.

Democrats’ Outlook: Gloomy

This a great article entitled Democrats’ Gloom Deepens.  I think it mixes some humor with reality on how Democrats think.  In fact, there not one example of Democratic fear that I do not hold or many of those that I know do not hold. It is also a refreshing perspective for us worriers about the true state of this election.

The media, and Obama, have been discussing complacency by Democrats.  What I’ve heard from every single one of my fellow Democrats is that they are scared.  They are worried that there will be an October surprise, they are worried that McCain will get his act together, they are worried this country is still not ready to elect a black candidate.  What I realize is that it isn’t the Democratic supporter that feels this way, it’s the John Murtha’s who are talking about ‘red necks’ in PA, or the Charlie Schumers who is predicting victory,  or Joe Biden talking about what will happen early in an Obama administration.

It’s not that they may stop working for victory – not as long as Obama is on the attack and on his game.  But it’s the perception it exudes.  Again, it’s not that Democrats will not go out to the polls – they will in record numbers because they are scared we might lose this election.  It, however, will act as a rallying cry to the conservative base – a wake-up call.  To the fickle independents they may not like smugness of the Democrats or, worse, they really start thinking about a Democratic majority in Congress and the Executive Branch.  As Obama said last week: “Don’t underestimate the capacity of Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Don’t underestimate our ability to screw it up.”

Stark pictures can be drawn to how we’ve been able to do that in the past (thanks to CNN for the reminder) – There was 1988 when Dukakis drove a tank or 2004 when Kerry was windsurfing and used as fodder for flip flopping.  No one can forget 2000 when, regardless of whether he really won or lost, it was a closer race than it should have been.  2000 and 2004 are real stingers in the sides of Democrats – both years our party when into the final days with an opportunity to win and couldn’t do it.  That’s why nothing should be taken for granted.  Volunteer, donate, talk – these are the things the supporters must continue to do over the next 13 days to guarantee victory.