Is it too early to say Romney has lost?

[Omg_a_Black_Conservative]

I have too much time on my hands. Anywho… Here we go (for the umpteenth time).

@iiandyiiii

If it was just one poll, or a couple, then I’d think you’d have a point. But almost all the polls are showing a Democratic “turnout advantage”, based on self-reported party ID. Most of the polls don’t correct for it- they just report what the respondents say. And this is what the polls say. Sure, it might be wrong, but it might be wrong in the other direction too- Obama could be ahead nationally by 5 instead of neck and neck.

Okay. I’m not so sure how many times I’ve gone over this-- with real, hard data-- only to have the same people return with “but look at what the polls say!”. Your entire argument hinges on the idea that multiple pollsters can’t be wrong, which is a fallacy upon fallacies. There is good reason to suspect that the polls are wrong; because whereas state polls show an increasing Democratic electorate (even moreso than 2008), state level registration data shows the exact opposite trend, with Democratic affiliation down and Republican affiliation up.

Here is a chart detailing the net change in voter registration by party affiliation as of September 2012. Of the fifteen states on that graph, there are only two states in which the Democratic advantage rose (Delaware and Wyoming), and one of those states was by virtue of GOP affiliation falling faster than Democratic affiliation (Wyoming). Here is a post I wrote on this very same issue back on September 24th. Since most people will be too lazy to click on the link, I’ll quote the pertinent parts.

[quote]

@Omg_a_Black_Conservative

This is the partisan breakdown of Colorado as of 8/01/2012 (active).

709,496 Democrats
819,398 Republicans
695,921 Indepents
2,246,362 total registered voters

Broken down as percentages:

31.58% Democrat
36.48% Republican
30.98% Independent

This was the breakdown on 12/30/2008 (active).

842,484 Democrats
857,753 Republicans
725,971 Independents
2,440,011 total registered voters

Broken down as percentages:

34.53% Democrat
35.15% Republican
29.75% Independent

Do you see a great migration towards the Democrats? I don’t.

Next, Florida.

As of 2012, this is the partisan breakdown of registered voters in the state:

4,627,929 Democrats
4,173,177 Republicans
2,782,261 Independents
11,583,367 total registered voters

Broken down as percentages:

39.95% Democrat
36.03% Republican
24.02% Independent

This was the breakdown in 2008:

4,800,890 Democrats
4,106,743 Republicans
2,504,290 Independents
11,411,923 total registered voters

Broken down as percentages:

42.07% Democrat
35.99% Repulican
21.94% Independent

Do you see a great migration towards the Democrats? I don’t.

Next, North Carolina.

This was the breakdown on 08/04/2012.

2,753,838 Democrats
1,992,465 Republicans
1,609,644 Independents
6,370,984 total registered voters

Broken down as percentages:

43.22% Democrat
31.27% Republican
25.27% Independent

This was the breakdown on 12/27/2008.

2,870,500 Democrats
2,005,482 Republicans
1,402,471 Independents
6,282,575 total registered voters

Broken down as percentages:

45.69% Democrat
31.92% Republican
22.32% Independent

Do you see a great migration towards the Democrats? I don’t.

Next, Iowa.

This is the partisan breakdown of Iowa as of 8/02/2012 (active).

598,995 Democrats
620,584 Republicans
659,838 Independents
1,881,145 total registered voters

Broken down as percentages:

31.84% Democrat
32.99% Republican
35.08% Independent

This is the partisan breakdown of Iowa as of 12/01/2008 (active).

708,996 Democrats
598,580 Republicans
727,979 Independents
2,036,912 total registered voters

Broken down as percentages:

34.81% Democrat
29.39% Republican
35.74% Independent

Do you see a great migration towards the Democrats? I don’t.

And finally you can go here for Pennsylvania. There are a bunch of .xls files you can download for ease of access. You can clearly see a not-so-good trend for the Democrats in that state (though I don’t expect Romney to win it).

I’d be willing to bet that if there is any significant move towards the Democrats, it’s in states which are overwhelmingly Democratic in nature as is. Simply looking at the data above from 2008 to 2012 tells me that there isn’t this “mass exodus” away from the Republican party that you’re portraying (at least not in the above looked at states). In fact, those trends most closely mirror the trends in Rasmussen’s/Gallup’s analysis than it does the polls in HuffPo’s analysis. Now outside of the Republican base being REALLY deflated this election cycle-- you simply aren’t going to see anywhere near the same splits we saw in the 2008 election cycle. And surely nothing exceeding it in the Democrats’ favor. Hence my initial post. I’m pretty confident in saying that most pollsters are oversampling Democrats and assuming some ridiculous turnout in order to make it seem as if Obama is leading when he’s not or is leading by a greater percentage than he actually is.

Oddly enough, both Gallup and Rasmussem predict that the electorate this year will be Republican friendly (R+1 in Gallup and R+2.6 in Rasmussen).

So which should I believe? Polls which predict Democrats will increase their turnout from 2008 or state level data which shows that Democratic affiliation is down while Republican affiliation is either up or the same?

(And I’m not even mentioning early voting, which isn’t jiving with the whole increasingly Democratic electorate, or even the fact that Gallup and Pew has Romney up in early voting, or even the fact that Republicans have the enthusiasm edge going into Tuesday.)

We’ll see on Nov 6, but historically every losing side tries to find stuff wrong with the polls- and there’s always something that can be found that looks weird. And historically, the folks who bet against the polls (taken as a whole) have been wrong. I’d need evidence to believe the polls are wrong- and that evidence may come on Nov 6th. But pointing out stuff inside the polls (not just one, but most of the polls) that just looks weird to you isn’t enough.

See above.

(And why are you mentioning history since you ignored one of my earlier posts about history and how Obama would need to buck numerous trends to win?)

And one more thing, that’s been repeated over and over again by “my side” (AKA the fans of Nate Silver)- both the pollsters themselves and the analysts/aggregators like Nate say that you can’t learn much by focusing on Party ID- it’s fluid, it’s not a demographic, and it just doesn’t tell you much about the poll.

Sure, you can. If a state of a hundred people has 35 Democrats, 35 Republicans and 20 independents, yet a poll of 10 people in the state has 5 Democrats, 3 Republicans and 2 Independent, it tells you that the topline will be off because it isn’t an adequate representation of the electorate. Which is what conservatives have been complaining about, which liberals don’t seem to understand.

@DigitalC

Leaked memo from FL GOP: we are getting our ass kicked.

I’m also sick and tired of reading this. Democrats are doing better in Palm Beach county than 2008? Why, color me shocked. It isn’t like PBC is in a freaking liberal hotbed or anything. As it is, it’s not true on a statewide basis. Democrats are actually doing worse compared to 2008.

2008 early voter statistics

45.6%D/37.3%R/17.1%I

2008 early voter statistics

Democratic 42.5%, Republican 40.7%, None/Other 16.7%

In fact, Democrats are actually doing worse than 2008 across the board while Republicans are faring a lot better. If you factor in the fact that, whereas Obama won Indies in 2008 by about 8 points, Obama is going to lose Indies by at least five points this year, many of the early voting numbers are nowhere near good enough for Obama unless he gets a much higher election day turnout versus early voting turnout, which is highly unlikely.

ETA> Sure, it’s Karl Rove (evil), but he does provide some data on early voting in Ohio.

Adrian Gray, who oversaw the Bush 2004 voter-contact operation and is now a policy analyst for a New York investment firm, makes the point that as of Tuesday, 530,813 Ohio Democrats had voted early or had requested or cast an absentee ballot. That’s down 181,275 from four years ago. But 448,357 Ohio Republicans had voted early or had requested or cast an absentee ballot, up 75,858 from the last presidential election.

That 257,133-vote swing almost wipes out Mr. Obama’s 2008 Ohio victory margin of 262,224. Since most observers expect Republicans to win Election Day turnout, these early vote numbers point toward a Romney victory in Ohio. They are also evidence that Scott Jennings, my former White House colleague and now Romney Ohio campaign director, was accurate when he told me that the Buckeye GOP effort is larger than the massive Bush 2004 get-out-the-vote operation.

Democrats explain away those numbers by saying that they are turning out new young Ohio voters. But I asked Kelly Nallen, the America Crossroads data maven, about this. She points out that there are 12,612 GOP “millennials” (voters aged 18-29) who’ve voted early compared with 9,501 Democratic millennials.

Yeah, I’m sure someone will point out that Ohio doesn’t track by party ID but rather the last election (primary?) you voted in, but those are startling numbers, if true.