I just think it’s important to acknowledge, with an appropriate sense of shame, when you’ve fucked up. If you’re still boasting, a la John Cleese in A Fish Called Wanda, about having kicked George McGovern’s butt in in 1972 despite the fact that you had to commit various felonies to do so, obviously you have no sense of shame and there’s no reason to go on treating you like a civilized person.
And for those wondering how I manifest my sense of shame, let me point out how embarrassed I am to have used an apostrophe in my post above where none was required, and this after chastising others for their ignorance in using using apostrophes.
It’ll probably go down a bit today, though. RCP has added a new Rasmussen poll of Ohio that has Romney up +2. Not quite sure what to make of that poll, but it’s probably what Nate was talking about when he said that these kinds of variations aren’t abnormal in such a narrowly divided state. There will probably be more polls of OH out later today, so we’ll see if Romney has racked up any leads there.
Again, it’s useless trying to look at state polls because they’re all over the place. In Ohio alone you have even splits all the way to D+9 or Obama winning Indies by four points to losing them by over twenty.
It’s useless to look at individual state polls. But looking at them altogether? Very useful- in fact, it’s the best way to predict how the state will turn out, historically. Why should that be different now? They’re no more volatile then they were in the past, and I see no evidence the internals are more volatile now, either.
Looking at individual polls is worthless, yes, but the important thing is to look at the trends of all of them together. Obama has been ahead or tied in every poll of Ohio since early October, and the last poll to show Romney leading (at a one point edge) was conducted by a firm whose most recent poll had Obama leading by one. So the trends point to a narrow yet stable Obama lead, so it’ll be interesting if, by the end of the week, every poll somehow begins to show Romney winning the state.
Romney’s chances of winning Ohio are going to be dropping after he was caught lying his ass off about Jeep moving jobs to China. Basically he told an Ohio crowd not to be too happy about the auto bailout because he heard somewhere that Jeep was going to move all their operations to China. Of course, the truth is that Jeep is expanding in China, building Chinese plants to serve the Chinese market. Not one to let the truth get in the way of an opportunity, Romney even made ads that use the same false information. The people of Ohio are not fucking idiots- this is going to backfire on him.
I find it a little disheartening that a Detroit Free Press writer, editor, and/or proofreader allowed this story to get published with Lee Iacocca’s name misspelled not once, but twice.
This seems like huge problem for polling. I virtually never answer my phone from an unknown number. During political season, it’s almost always from some robo-politician painting the other candidate as a boogeyman. And I have gotten a few survey calls, but I’m reluctant to respond because I don’t trust they are actually conducting a poll (e.g. “If you found out McCain had an illegitimate black baby, would that change your vote?”).
Who responds to telephone polls? It would be people who have a land line, answer calls from unknown numbers, and respond to the pollster’s questions. I don’t think that subset of the population represents a random sampling of the whole population. If I had to guess, that population would skew towards older people, which I would think would be more Republican.
Rasmussen has a definite Republican lean and isn’t the best pollster but it’s still a decent result for Romney, his first Ohio lead in two weeks. If there isn’t any other major poll today, Obama will drop a couple of points on 538. Obviously it will take a few days to see whether Ohio is really tightening or not.
Interesting that the early voters are still reporting that huge Obama edge - 62-36 (with almost a third saying they’ve already voted). If I’m doing the math right that requires something like a 57-42 split for election-day voters.
Nationally so for today Romney drops a point in Ras and picks one up in Gallup. We’re going to lose a few of the trackers for the next few days (IBD is off, and I think PPP too).
You missed something even more interesting, Virginia has moved from Toss-up to Lean Obama (60%). If Obama wins Virginia, he can still lose Ohio, Colorado, and Florida and win with Wisconsin, Iowa and Nevada.
I actually feel, for the first time in a month, that Obama has a solid path to victory that doesn’t include Ohio. With VA, IA, and NV all looking very good, I feel like this campaign has just swung in Obama’s favor at the right time-- with a smidge over a week to go. It still will come down to GOTV in those places, and with H.Sandy looming large over VA, that could be a huge variable to Obama’s success there.
Up until this past weekend, I wasn’t entirely convinced NV was his, and VA wasn’t even on my radar.
So actually, less than 20% have already voted. A lot of Obama supporters are saying they voted but haven’t yet. The only way the poll is right is if turnout is going to be a heck of a lot lower than in 2008. The poll essentially predicts turnout of only 3 million+