Thursday, September 20, 2012

Obama Wins Big

Here is how the past few election cycles voted based on exit polls in terms of political ideology:

Year

Democrat %

Republican %

Independent %

Notes

2000

39

35

27

Gore Wins by 0.1% Popular Vote

2002

38

40

22

Republicans pick up a few House seats

2004

37

37

26

Bush by 3%

2006

38

36

26

Democrats make big gains in the House

2008

39

32

29

Obama by over 7%

2010

35

35

29

Republicans make big gains in the House

Average

37.6666667

35.83333333

26.5

Democrats by 1.88%

The difficult thing to measure is what is going to be the breakdown in political ideology in the 2012 Election. Here are some poll figures and some simple manipulations to better understand the data and to break it down by voting ideology, ethnicity, and gender (those results are in bold font):

All Numbers are in %

Poll

D

R

I

O

RR

MA

Date

IPOS/Reuters

46

38

19

48

45

D 8

12-Sep

Gallup

38

33

29

48

45

D 5

Daily

Rasmussen

34

36

30

47

45

R 1.5

Daily

NBC

32

25

38

50

45

D 7

18-Sep

FOX

42

36

19

48

43

D 6

12-Sep

PEW

38

30

32

51

43

D 8

19-Sep

CNN

40

29

31

52

46

D 11

9-Sep

CBS

34

27

39

49

46

D 7

14-Sep

TIPP

36

31

30

46

44

D 5

9-Sep

Battleground

44

40

15

48

47

D 1

Survey USA

35

31

34

48

45

D 6

17-Sep

AP/GfK

31

30

30

47

46

D 8

18-Sep

LA Times

39

33

26

48

46

D 6

YouGov

45

36

20

45

45

D 9

20-Aug

ABC

32

26

37

49

48

D 6

9-Sep

Democracy Corps

41

30

28

50

45

D 11

13-Sep

Resurgent Republic

37

30

30

46

45

D 7

18-Aug

American Research

38

34

28

46

49

D 4

7-Sep

Yahoo

33

27

40

50

46

D 6

10-Sep

Poll Average

38

32

29

48

45

5.95

2.737

2012 Model

38

34

28

1

1

0.96

Poll Scale

49

49

Poll

DO

RO

IO

DR

RR

IR

MO

FO

MR

FR

WO

NOW

WR

NWR

M

F

W

NW

IPOS/Reuters

87

4

35

5

90

46

Gallup

91

6

43

6

92

43

43

51

50

42

39

78

54

15

40

60

76

24

Rasmussen

90

6

41

6

90

45

NBC

93

6

48

6

93

52

45

55

49

42

41

78

54

17

48

52

74

26

FOX

91

4

44

5

91

39

42

53

48

39

40

77

52

14

47

53

78

23

PEW

93

5

45

5

92

44

46

56

48

38

44

85

51

10

49

51

82

18

CNN

97

2

40

3

96

54

48

55

47

44

42

88

55

11

47

53

79

22

CBS

92

7

40

5

90

51

44

53

52

41

47

53

TIPP

85

6

41

9

88

41

40

51

48

40

37

80

52

12

47

53

79

21

Battleground

78

22

Survey USA

91

6

43

6

92

43

43

53

49

42

39

78

54

17

46

54

74

26

AP/GfK

94

7

49

6

94

51

43

50

51

42

37

71

56

21

49

51

70

30

LA Times

46

54

76

24

YouGov

48

52

73

27

ABC

Democracy Corps

90

6

40

7

93

50

43

55

49

41

40

80

55

15

47

53

75

25

Resurgent Republic

90

5

37

6

93

45

46

54

74

26

American Research

85

5

44

11

92

49

41

51

54

45

39

84

57

16

48

52

76

24

Yahoo

87

10

45

10

87

50

46

53

50

42

41

75

55

17

47

53

75

25

Averages

90

6

42

6

92

47

44

53

50

41.5

40

79.5

54

15

47

53

76

24

2008 Averages

39

32

29

21

28.1

23

21.995

30.9

17.9

42

3.38

46

54

76

24

2008 Averages

93

7

51

7

93

49

50

57

50

43

45

86

55

14

46

54

76

24

2010 Averages

35

35

29

47

53

78

22

2012 Model

37

34

28

38

34

28

47

53

78

23

33

2

12

2

31

13

1

1

1

0.9

2012 Model Results

47

47

1

49

45

3.115

48

45

2.2

O

RR

Poll Ave

48

45

Poll Scaled

49

49

Poll Affiliation

47

47

Poll Gender

49

45

Poll Ethnicity

48

45

Average

48

46

Key

All Numbers are in %

D - Democrat

R - Republican

I - Independent

O - Obama

RR - Romney

MA - Margin

DO = Democrats for Obama

RO - Republicans for Obama

IO - Independents for Obama

DR - Democrats for Romney

RR - Republicans for Romney

IR - Independents for Romney

MO - Males for Obama

FO - Females for Obama

MR - Males for Romney

FR - Females for Romney

WO - Whites for Obama

NWO - Non Whites for Obama

WR - Whites for Romney

NWR - Non Whites for Romney

F - Female

M - Male

W - Whites

NW - Non Whites

To determine the ideological breakdowns of some polls I needed to carefully decipher these numbers from the questions within the polls (the information is not readily available). For instance, the latest CNN poll had Obama up by 6 points. However, the poll claims that Romney win independents by 14 points, for this to happen the poll breakdown must give the Democrats an 11 point advantage. Also, the polls seem to do a good job modeling gender and ethnicity voting blocks, but they are skewed on political ideology. The numbers are crunched below.

No matter how you crunch the national numbers, the state poll numbers look very bleak for Romney. He has to win Florida, Virginia, and Ohio and those state poll averages have swelled to about 5% in favor of Obama. In a week that saw widespread anti American protests and a deadly attack against the U.S. embassy in Libya the main news story is not that administration failed to heed to the warning signs about the unrest and denied it was a terror attack, but Romney’s 47% comment. In fact, a new poll suggests U.S. Middle East relations are at an all-time low. Obama got a huge bounce after the DNC despite the federal debt passing 16 trillion dollars and another weak employment report. This means the economy is not really the main concern for many in this election. The Washington Times did a piece about the real Obama and how his childhood was anything but a hardship as he and Michelle claim. Still every misstep Romney takes is magnified while the President gets a pass. I see no way Romney can win, in fact, I think Obama’s margin of victory will be only a point or two less than what he achieved in 2008 and the electoral college will be at least a 332 to 206 margin of victory for Obama. This election is about popularity and for some reason, people like Obama and despise Romney. Romney has 6 weeks to change this perception and I don’t think he will do it (I hope I am wrong).

The average of the last polls by 13 firms (7 since the DNC) has Obama ahead by nearly 2.5 points. My best guess at an ideological breakdown in 2012 is 38-D/34-R/29-I. If that is the case when this election is modeled using these numbers we get the following:

Obama – 49% / Romney 49%

Also, using the above data in the polls when broken out by party, gender, and race (not all polls give this data) then my models show the following (I am expecting 53% / 47% margin for women and a 77.5% / 22.5% margin for white versus non-white voters in 2012).

By Party: Obama 47% / Romney 47%

By Gender: Obama 49% / Romney 45%

By Ethnicity: Obama 48% / Romney 45%

There you have it. I have modeled (scaled the highly liberal polls) the polls 5 ways and Obama comes out on top in all 5. If I average all 5 methods then Obama has opened up over a 2 point lead: Obama 48%, Romney 46%.

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