Friday, October 12, 2012

Obama Still Has a Big Lead in the Electoral Count

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

46

D 8

12-Sep

Gallup

38

33

29

47

48

D 5

Daily

Rasmussen

37

36

33

48

47

D 1

Daily

NBC

32

26

40

49

46

D 6

2-Oct

FOX

38

32

30

45

46

D 6

10-Oct

PEW

30

34

35

45

49

R 4

8-Oct

National Journal

36

29

30

47

47

D 7

3-Oct

NPR

38

30

32

51

44

D 8

3-Oct

CNN

40

32

28

50

47

D 8

1-Oct

CBS

34

27

39

49

46

D 7

14-Sep

TIPP

39

32

29

46

47

D 7

Daily

Quinnipiac

36

33

29

49

45

D 3

2-Oct

Battleground

43

41

15

49

48

D 2

8-Oct

Survey USA

35

32

22

46

47

D 3

11-Oct

AP/GfK

31

30

30

47

46

D 8

18-Sep

LA Times

39

33

26

48

46

D 6

YouGov

45

36

20

49

44

D 9

3-Oct

ABC

33

30

33

49

47

D 3

1-Oct

Democracy Corps

41

30

28

50

45

D 11

13-Sep

Resurgent Republic

37

30

30

46

45

D 7

18-Aug

American Research

40

34

26

49

47

D 4

21-Sep

Reason

36

28

29

52

45

D 8

21-Sep

Yahoo

33

27

40

50

46

D 6

10-Sep

Poll Average

37

32

29

48

46

5.39

1.957

2012 Model

38

34

28

1

1

0.96

Poll Scale

49

49

-0.2

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

94

5

44

5

93

50

43

54

52

40

39

77

55

18

48

52

74

26

FOX

89

6

32

5

90

44

41

49

51

41

35

79

56

14

47

53

78

22

PEW

94

7

42

5

91

46

43

47

51

47

38

81

57

19

49

51

81

19

National Journal

91

5

41

6

92

49

42

51

52

44

38

81

55

19

47

53

74

26

NPR

91

4

45

4

91

46

45

55

47

40

40

81

53

17

47

53

74

26

CNN

93

4

41

6

96

49

47

53

50

44

41

73

56

22

47

53

74

26

CBS

92

7

40

5

90

51

44

53

52

41

47

53

TIPP

86

3

34

7

95

54

36

50

57

42

34

82

58

13

47

53

78

22

Quinnipiac

94

7

45

5

91

47

42

56

52

38

42

80

53

16

47

53

78

22

Battleground

92

6

46

6

92

48

40

81

57

19

77

23

Survey USA

89

5

41

8

93

44

44

48

49

46

36

78

58

17

49

51

72

28

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

95

5

47

5

95

50

47

53

50

43

41

77

54

22

47

53

76

24

Democracy Corps

90

6

40

7

93

50

43

55

49

41

40

80

55

15

47

53

75

25

Resurgent Republic

90

7

37

6

93

45

46

54

74

26

American Research

90

6

43

5

92

50

45

52

51

43

41

84

55

16

48

52

77

23

Reason

95

5

50

5

95

50

47

56

50

40

41

82

57

15

46

54

72

28

Yahoo

87

10

45

10

87

50

46

53

50

42

41

75

55

17

47

53

75

25

Averages

91

6

42

6

92

48

44

52.1

51

42.12

39

78.8

56

17

47

53

75

25

2008 Averages

39

32

29

20

27.6

24

22.322

30.2

17.7

43

3.9

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

38

34

28

38

34

28

47

53

78

23

35

2

12

2

31

13

1

1

1

0.9

2012 Model Results

48

47

1

48

46

1.85

46

47

-0.7

O

RR

Poll Ave

48

46

Poll Scaled

49

49

Poll Affiliation

48

47

Poll Gender

48

46

Poll Ethnicity

46

47

Average

48

47

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, one poll had Obama up by 5 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. Despite moving to the lead in the national poll averages (My poll averages go back over a month), Obama still has a big lead in the electoral college. Romney has to win Florida, Virginia, and Ohio and those state polls area statistical tie – but slightly favor Obama. In fact, other than Colorado Romney is down in all swing states including – Nevada, New Hampshire, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Right now the electoral count is 294 to 244 if I give Florida’s 29 electoral votes to Romney which is a dead even at this time. My internal polling methods have Obama ahead in Florida by 1.3% and in Ohio by 1.6%. Hence, the true electoral count favors Obama 323 to 215.

There is still reason for hope. Although Republicans are not overly excited by Romney, polls indicate they are more energized than Democrats because they do not want another 4 years of Obama (look at Gallup Poll demographics and which groups of people are definitely going to vote http://www.gallup.com/poll/154559/US-Presidential-Election-Center.aspx - this says a lot about who is excited about the election). The generic congressional ballot between Democrats and Republicans is even and that is good news for Republicans because they historically trail in this poll. Are the poll models above correct? The Gallup poll is a bit concerning for Romney, but it is not as bad as it could be. The average of the last polls by 17 firms has Obama ahead by nearly 2 points (48 – 46). Obama may be much more popular than Romney, but the economy is in the dumps and not getting better so it is hard to believe that Obama will win independents as he did in 2008. However, many of these polls still seem to be oversampling Democrats by large margins when compared to historical trends outlined above. What’s worse, many of these same polling outlets are making the same mistake in state election polls. My best guess at an ideological breakdown in 2012 is 38-D/34-R/29-I. If that is the case when this election 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 48% / Romney 47%

By Gender: Obama 48% / Romney 46%

By Ethnicity: Obama 46% / Romney 47%

There you have it. I have modeled the polls 5 ways and Obama comes out on top in 3. If I average all 5 methods then Obama still has a 2 point lead: Obama 48%, Romney 46%. If Democrats only have a 3% advantage on election day, well Romney can win the popular vote – but the electoral college is another story.

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