Sunday, October 21, 2012

Still Obama's Election to Lose

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

46

45

D 8

20-Oct

Gallup

38

33

29

45

51

D 5

Daily

Rasmussen

37

36

33

48

49

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

38

32

30

47

44

D 6

Daily

Quinnipiac

36

33

29

49

45

D 3

2-Oct

Battleground

36

32

30

49

48

D 4

15-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

35

26

33

49

46

D 9

15-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

UCONN

44

38

18

48

45

D 6

19-Oct

Poll Average

37

32

29

48

46

5.7

1.783

2012 Model

38

34

28

1

1

0.97

Poll Scale

49

49

-0.8

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

89

7

36

6

89

47

44

49

46

43

37

81

54

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

93

5

45

6

94

52

38

84

58

14

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

93

5

45

7

95

55

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

UCONN

88

6

37

9

90

38

41

55

53

38

36

83

56

14

48

52

74

26

Averages

91

6

42

6

92

48

44

52.2

50

41.94

39

79.4

55

17

47

53

75

25

2008 Averages

39

32

29

21

27.7

24

22.229

30

17.9

43

3.8

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

1.9

12

2

31

13

1

1

1

0.9

2012 Model Results

48

47

1

48

46

2.328

46

47

-0.6

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

No matter how you crunch the national numbers, the state poll numbers continue to look 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 are a statistical tie – and Ohio and Virginia favor Obama. In fact, other than Colorado Romney is down in all swing states including – Nevada, New Hampshire, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan. And if Romney loses Virginia and or Ohio, he is going to have to win some combination of NV, NH, MI, WI, and IA to win the election. Right now the electoral count is 290 to 248. My internal polling methods have Romney ahead in Florida by 0.8% and Obama ahead in Ohio by 1.3%.

There is still reason for hope. Republicans have become more excited about Romney as the conservative choice for President and 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 average of the last polls by 17 firms has Obama ahead by nearly 2 points (48 – 46). 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 50%

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 has a slim 1 point lead: Obama 48%, Romney 47%. 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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