Post #1269
Do you even READ before you post or what?
Heh, to be fair, I didn’t either. At the least, I didn’t hover over the given link there to see if it was the same as the one I wanted to mention or not. 
adaher, READ THIS LINK before you post about Romney’s great lead among independents again. Please.
To back up the point, I understand that quite a few Tea Party members consider themselves conservative, and not (necessarily) Republican, whom they often regard as Beltway insiders who’re almost as bad as liberals. Could that explain the labeling?
True, but we have unprecedented discrepancies here. gallup and Rasmussen say that Republican are going to outnumber Democrats. Other pollsters say Democrats will not only outnumber Republicans, but do so even more than they did in 2008. Someone is screwing up.
I just wanted to complement iiAndyiii on post #1269. Very lucid and easy to understand (I’ve been ‘blipping over’ most of the details in the ongoing debate about this in this thread).
Honest question: really? It takes 72 hours for federal help to arrive in New Jersey and New York?
What does that mean? You mean money from FEMA?
The National Guard has been out since before the storm hit.
What about supporting a candidate that claimed he wanted to reduce unemployment numbers? Or supporting a challenger due to losing a job due to government regulations imposed? Would this apply to individuals voting for Reagan?
It depends on how one interprets the third segment of this post:
The newspaper wasn’t just predicting, as Silver does, it was endorsing the policies of the candidate. In hindsight, we know those policies included breaking the law. In effect, adaher is saying we can’t question the judgment of a newspaper supporting a criminal (though I recognise that wasn’t his intention, possibly because he’s conflating predictive power and ethics).
That’s nice. He can be president of the independents! You have to win enough electoral college votes to be President of the United States.
This proposal might get more traction if another candidate wins the popular vote but loses the Electoral College: National Popular Vote Interstate Compact - Wikipedia
Was this the same Chris Christie who, in his keynote address to the RNC, talked about himself for fifteen minutes before mentioning Romney? I suspect his eyes are on 2016 and if buddying up to Obama means he won’t be running against an incumbent then that’s what he’ll do. Plus he’s still governor and is doing governorish things with the guy who can help his state today.
Democrats now make up enough of the voting population that a candidate can win while losing independents by a large margin?
That would be news.
A couple older white guys at lunch were pleased that the states hit worst by Sandy are blue, as if a low turnout there will improve Romney’s percentage of the popular vote and give him the election. After 2000 I thought that people would understand the workings of the Electoral College, but I guess not.
You accuse me of making the same error that underlies the “Romney is winning among independents and therefore will win the election” argument.
You have to win among everyone in enough states to win the electoral college. You seem to believe Romney will do that.
Ha. ha.
CNN.com on the very unlikely prospect of a postponement of Election Day: http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/31/politics/sandy-election-day-postponement/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
I have too much time on my hands. Anywho… Here we go (for the umpteenth time).
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]
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.)
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?)
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.
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.
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.
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.
Damn it. The second link which says “2008 early voter statistics” should say 2012.
Edit: I also can’t add. That should say 35 Democrats, 35 Republicans and 30 Independents.
(Yeah, that’s a good sign I should go to sleep.)
Interesting idea that I had not heard about. I still say good luck getting enough states to agree to it but hey, what do I know. I also imagine it would be likely to get tangled up in the courts if it actually went into effect. But I will admit, it probably has a better chance of happening than a straight up Constitutional Amendment does.
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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.
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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: 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.
Here’s a 2006 Gallup discussion on why it is not advisable to re-weight the results by party ID. Gallup Position on "Weighting" an Entire Sample to Reflect a Target Distribution of Party Identification
- My argument for Romney is simpler. Nate Silver puts the popular vote 50.5 - 48.6 in Obama’s favor. That’s not a decisive margin. Romney certainly is not the favorite, but it shouldn’t be hard to come up with a litany of excuses on either side to move the needle by 2 points.
Romney’s hope rests on the fact that in every presidential election that has been scheduled for November sixth, the republican has won over the democrat (at least since there has been a republican party fielding candidates for president).
So, um, there.