# Is it too early to say Romney has lost? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 18, 2012, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066 "2012-09-18T13:26:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 67
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1322 "2012-11-01T15:46:49Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > 1. Based on past experience, those who think that the polls are wrong are in for a long election eve. At least since the days of Truman. It’s interesting you mention “past experience”, since right now Democrats/liberals are assuming one or more of the following. (1) That Obama will win re-election while losing Independents by more than 5%. (2) That Obama will lose the popular vote yet win the election. (3) That Obama will meet or exceed his Democratic advantage from 2008. Number two is highly unlikely (Carter won losing indies in a 37D/22R/41I year and Bush won losing indies by 1% in 2004 by offsetting that with Democratic crossover votes) and number one is highly unlikely as well without number three being correct. But what evidence do you have that number three is correct? The answer is that you don’t have any. A big 2008 Democratic type wave should show up somewhere, right? How about early voting, which Democrats made a priority? Surely, if the electorate is just as Democratic this year that Democrats should be maintaining their early voter edge this year as well, yes? You would think so, if the aforementioned assumption about the electorate were true. Yet it’s not, and early voting returns show that Democrats are underperforming their 2008 totals. Could you explain to me how that squares? (And never mind the fact that both Gallup and Pew have Romney leading among early voters.) Oh, and yes, I’m saying the polls are wrong, especially when you’ve got polls coming out which show that a higher percentage of the electorate have already voted than have already voted. For example, that new Marist poll out has 45% of the Iowa electorate having already voted when that number is actually 32%. But maybe the state data is incorrect or something or another. > [@](#): > > 1. You seem to be suffering under a misapprehension. The polls don’t measure party registration: they measure party affiliation. Those are different beasts, and the latter routinely fluctuates on a weekly basis. I pointed this out several weeks ago IIRC. Here’s how [Gallup frames the question](http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/Party-Affiliation.aspx): In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, or an independent? They are NOT asking what party the respondent is registered under. I don’t know how many times I’ve explained this, on numerous threads, in multiple posts, only to have the same people respond to the same thing I haven’t said. If a state’s registration data shows an increase in Republicans and a decrease in Democrats from year X but a poll shows an increase in Republicans and a decrease in Democrats from year X, it’s more likely the former is correct than the latter, since the latter wildly fluctuates from poll to poll. Really, truly, unbelievably simple. > [@Lantern](#): > > That Karl Rove article is a masterpiece of cherrypicking. He goes to great lengths discussing the national polls which supposedly show Romney in the lead (though right now even that is debatable) while ignoring the Ohio polls which show a much clearer Obama lead. If you believe the polls are rubbish let’s at least be consistent. > > I am not sure about his sources for early voting data. This is what the [WaPo](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/10/31/democrats-set-to-win-early-vote-but-gop-outperforms-2008/)says about Ohio: > > If the state doesn’t have traditional registration where is Rove getting his numbers from? In any case it’s not showing Romney leading in the early voting. It’s showing a smaller Obama lead than 2008 but still very healthy at 54-46. Romney will have to win big on election day to make up for that. I do hope you realize that we can actually track how many people have early voted in the state and cross that with any poll, correct? If we do that, there’s one thing which becomes evident-- in each of those polls, the percentage of people who say they have early voted is actually _higher_ than the percentage of people who have _actually_ early voted, which means that either the state/county offices are wrong or the polls are wrong. I wonder… which is more likely? Anyway, I’m glad you believe it’s cherry picking. Too bad the numbers are true. Adrian Gray is the one who is tracking early voting numbers, as he’s into that kind of thing. Of course, you could always go [here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvEOdIaw0fPNdHVOZnFENDdDYVFTRi1UMlgxQ0F4OVE#gid=0) and just wait for it to update, though updating is rather slow at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1323 "2012-11-01T15:47:40Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > Hmmm…I see. > > But if you call 500 people at random and hit 498 Democrats, your random phone number generator needs some work. Well, it’s all a probability thing. It could happen (though it’s highly unlikely), so you want to check your findings and determine the percentages of Democrats, Republicans, Independents as a reality check…likely verse unlikely voters…etc. Besides, it’s all data, and helpful as well. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1324 "2012-11-01T15:56:50Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > But if you call 500 people at random and hit 498 Democrats, your random phone number generator needs some work. You can’t tell someone’s party affiliation based on his phone number. 😉 Although I am sure you can make some guesses based on other demographic data. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1325 "2012-11-01T16:02:17Z")
There is no point in arguing against “the polls are wrong” anymore when that is basically the only hope the Romney supporters have, specially not when we do the exact same thing when the polls are against us. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1326 "2012-11-01T16:04:00Z")
Silver says the football equivalent is a team being up by a field goal with three minutes to go. Obama’s up by a field goal-- by no means is he safe. But teams up by a field goal with three minutes to go end up winning 79% of the time. [Link.](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/oct-31-obamas-electoral-college-firewall-holding-in-polls/#more-36981) If Obama avoids any turnovers, and with a major hurricane blowing in Romney’s face, Obama just needs to run out the clock conservatively and calmly. And play a solid defense while Romney’s team runs some crazy-ass trickery. And hope the refs throw the flag when necessary. This ain’t over. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1327 "2012-11-01T16:05:17Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > If a state’s registration data shows an increase in Republicans and a decrease in Democrats from year X but a poll shows an increase in Republicans and a decrease in Democrats from year X, it’s more likely the former is correct than the latter, since the latter wildly fluctuates from poll to poll. That’s a fair response to the ‘affiliation is different than registration’ argument. You’re not talking total registered voters, but new registrations. I get it. I follow your argument. Still, it seems to me that you are hanging your hat on a very small hook. I don’t have the time (or know where to get the data) to see if that has been a good predictor in past elections - your election \*results \*data that you have posted by D/R/I affiliation in many posts doesn’t capture what you’re talking about - does it? You acknowledge that? I’ll go with the state polls over the voter registration fluctuation hypothesis. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1328 "2012-11-01T16:10:53Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > And Nate Silver says: [put up or shut up.](http://news.yahoo.com/nate-silver-joe-scarborough-wanna-bet-113615600.html) > > (I like the related article: “People who are bad at math are so mad at Nate Silver”) I know it’s just foolish to read comment threads, and I am aware that the average IQ is 100, but christ are people stupid! ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1329 "2012-11-01T16:20:40Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > I do hope you realize that we can actually track how many people have early voted in the state and cross that with any poll, correct? If we do that, there’s one thing which becomes evident-- in each of those polls, the percentage of people who say they have early voted is actually _higher_ than the percentage of people who have _actually_ early voted, which means that either the state/county offices are wrong or the polls are wrong. I wonder… which is more likely? This is a good question. How long does it take for an early vote to be added to the total vote count? It’s probably not instantaneous, but it probably doesn’t take weeks either- so I wonder if a delay of a few days would account for most of this difference. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1330 "2012-11-01T16:24:12Z")
I always assumed it simply got counted right along the other votes. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1331 "2012-11-01T16:32:59Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > It’s interesting you mention “past experience”, since right now Democrats/liberals are assuming one or more of the following. > > (1) That Obama will win re-election while losing Independents by more than 5%. > > (2) That Obama will lose the popular vote yet win the election. > > (3) That Obama will meet or exceed his Democratic advantage from 2008. > > Number two is highly unlikely (Carter won losing indies in a 37D/22R/41I year and Bush won losing indies by 1% in 2004 by offsetting that with Democratic crossover votes) and number one is highly unlikely as well without number three being correct. But what evidence do you have that number three is correct? The answer is that you don’t have any. I think (1) is very possible, but it could easily be less than 5%. This is self-reported Party ID we’re talking about, and I have no idea what the margin of error on an individual part of the crosstabs of a poll would be (not to mention the fluid nature of Party ID). (2) is also possible, but not terribly likely. As far as (3), I don’t think he will meet or exceed his 08 advantage, but he might come close. He might even meet it in states that his campaign has focused on. But we’ll find out in 5 days. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1332 "2012-11-01T16:35:50Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > And Nate Silver says: [put up or shut up.](http://news.yahoo.com/nate-silver-joe-scarborough-wanna-bet-113615600.html) > > (I like the related article: “People who are bad at math are so mad at Nate Silver”) Hope **prr** doesn’t see this. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1333 "2012-11-01T17:03:31Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > I do hope you realize that we can actually track how many people have early voted in the state and cross that with any poll, correct? Yes my question is how you count early votes as D and R when apparently Ohio doesn’t have traditional party registration if you believe that WaPo piece. Are these numbers released by two campaigns? In any event those numbers only show that Obama is doing worse than 2008; he is still beating Romney by 8 points in the early vote. Anyway a couple more VA polls are out with Obama up +3 and +2. Sandy could be having an effect there though I would imagine it would also disrupt polling and the ground game so it’s hard to be sure. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1334 "2012-11-01T17:22:24Z")
As usual, Nate Silver cuts through the blather: Mr. Obama is not a sure thing, by any means. It is a close race. His chances of holding onto his Electoral College lead and converting it into another term are equivalent to the chances of an N.F.L. team winning when it leads by a field goal with three minutes left to play in the fourth quarter. There are plenty of things that could go wrong, and sometimes they will. But it turns out that an N.F.L. team that leads by a field goal with three minutes left to go winds up winning the game 79 percent of the time. Those were Mr. Obama’s chances in the FiveThirtyEight forecast as of Wednesday: 79 percent. Not coincidentally, these are also about Mr. Obama’s chances of winning Ohio, according to the forecast. With rounding, Obama has 80% odds. What people have trouble understanding is that _it’s still a close race._ Maybe this will help. The National Weather Service makes forecasts and when they say there’s a 20% chance of rain, it will rain one days out of the five. Not so with local news. If they say there’s a 20% chance of rain, the true odds are closer to 10%: that way, fewer viewers get pissed off. If they say 50% chance of rain, the true odds are more like 30%: they hire weather casters based on entertainment value, rather than forecast accuracy: everybody knows it’s not accurate right? Well, actually weather professionals have made tremendous progress over the past 30 years. Meanwhile, I speculate that people’s sense of probability might be badly skewed. ## Source: Nate Silver’s latest book, _Signal and the Noise_. I’ll handle OMG’s post later. Suffice it to say that the probability that Obama wins the electoral college but loses the popular vote is low: I predict that the 2 measures will be in sync whomever wins. (90% subjective probability). ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1335 "2012-11-01T17:48:06Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Not coincidentally, these are also about Mr. Obama’s chances of winning Ohio, according to the forecast. [/INDENT] With rounding, Obama has 80% odds. What people have trouble understanding is that _it’s still a close race._ Right. People hear that Obama has an 80% chance of winning and think he’s a sure thing. But he isn’t. A sure thing is like Reagan in 1984 or Bush in 1988 or Clinton in 1996. They probably had something like a 95% or 99% chance of winning at this point in the race. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1336 "2012-11-01T17:54:31Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Hope **prr** doesn’t see this. Yeah, because you might conclude that asking people to show their sincerity in touting Romney’s chances by betting on them has any validity.:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1337 "2012-11-01T18:10:19Z")
OMG is making me scared. If a whole bunch of conservatives like him are literally so dismissive and untrusting of polls, then perhaps there really are a lot of conservatives that are self-selecting out of polling ☹ This means that perhapse Ds are being oversampled because so many Rs these days just refuse to talk to pollsters. I am legitimately scared if a huge percentage of conservatives have the same attitude that OMG and adaher have, and are refusing to take polls when called. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1338 "2012-11-01T18:17:08Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > OMG is making me scared. > > If a whole bunch of conservatives like him are literally so dismissive and untrusting of polls, then perhaps there really are a lot of conservatives that are self-selecting out of polling ☹ > > This means that perhapse Ds are being oversampled because so many Rs these days just refuse to talk to pollsters. > > I am legitimately scared if a huge percentage of conservatives have the same attitude that OMG and adaher have, and are refusing to take polls when called. On the other hand, there are a lot of people on both sides who don’t take polls. There’s some huge percentage of all people called who just don’t answer or who refuse. And I’ve seen quite a few fellow lefties on DKos or Balloon Juice talking about messing with pollsters by pretending to be rabid teabaggers. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1339 "2012-11-01T18:27:43Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > I am legitimately scared if a huge percentage of conservatives have the same attitude that OMG and adaher have, and are refusing to take polls when called. A liberal scared by a conservative? Well I never. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1340 "2012-11-01T18:45:37Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > As usual, Nate Silver cuts through the blather: [INDENT]Mr. Obama is not a sure thing, by any means. It is a close race. His chances of holding onto his Electoral College lead and converting it into another term are equivalent to the chances of an N.F.L. team winning when it leads by a field goal with three minutes left to play in the fourth quarter. There are plenty of things that could go wrong, and sometimes they will. Not to be pedantic, but there is a big difference between being up by a field goal with three minutes on the clock with your offense on the field, vs. your defense on the field. I have to imagine that the statistics are much better in the former than the latter. So, is Obama on offense or defense right now? ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2012, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066/1341 "2012-11-01T18:49:39Z")
> [@Fiveyearlurker](#): > > So, is Obama on offense or defense right now? Neither, an election isn’t a football game. If it was, we could give penalties for trying to stretch analogies to far. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066.md?page=66) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-say-romney-has-lost/635066.md?page=68)