My conservative uncle just posted his election prediction on Facebook. He gave every swing state to Romney, including Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania, for an electoral total of 353 - 185 in Romney’s favor. He said he is using the “most polls are weighting the Democrats at delusional levels” scenario. I’m pretty sure he’s not trying to be funny or ironic.
I just don’t really understand this kind of thing. Back in 2004, I was hopeful that the polls were wrong, and thought that there was maybe a chance that Kerry would pull out a last-minute victory, but I wasn’t confidently going around saying that I definitely knew all the polls were totally wrong and skewed and therefore Kerry was going to win in an electoral landslide. I mean, WTF?
Mark my words: if Obama loses independents by more than 5 points, he’ll lose the race. I’m becoming pretty convinced that media pollsters are oversampling Democrats, because the biggest non-media pollsters are not.
I think some of it is Romney’s surge after the first debate. For a while he was tied or even ahead of Obama after being far behind for almost all of September. At that point a lot of Conservatives internalized the idea that Romney had it in the bag, and so have either ignored or found reasons to discount the more recent polling.
2004 was sort of similar for Kerry, but his surge was both later in the cycle then Romney’s and it never really brought him to the point where he was ahead. As a results, the best the optimistic liberal could hope for in '04 was a thin win in Ohio putting Kerry over the top, rather then a more dramatic reversal.
It’s just like Omg a Black Conservative. That particular narrative you mention (that “most polls are weighting the Democrats at delusional levels” canard) is pretty wide-spread among conservatives. Who is really surprised at this point?
It seems to me that much conservative “thought” is broadly based on denial:
[ul]
[li]Denial of the reality of climate change.[/li][li]Denial that lowering taxes for the very wealthy doesn’t actually help the overall economy.[/li][li]Denial that the sweeping demographic changes occurring in the U.S. are anything to pay attention to.[/li][li]Denial that Obama was born in Hawaii.[/li][li]Denial that Obama is a capitalist.[/li][li]Denial that Obama is a Christian.[/li][li]Denial of the scientific validity of Evolution.[/li][/ul]
I could go on. The conservative way of thinking is, if reality doesn’t match my own subjective ideological agenda, I’ll simply deny it and substitute my own. The polls consistently say Obama is probably going to win, and so conservatives tie themselves into knots denying the validity of the polls.
I’ve been thinking much the same thing. At this point in '04 I had realized Kerry was toast and the polls were likely accurate.
The denial of the polls and the over the top EV predictions for a Romney win seem to be coming from folks who cannot grasp how anyone, much less a majority of their fellow citizens, could vote to reelect the President. Their hatred of him and his party is so ingrained they assume everyone must agree. And in many cases most people they come in contact with probably reinforce their views. They generally aren’t the type of folks who have social interactions with people who are too different from themselves. These are people who are scared of things that are foreign or non-traditional. The media they watch or listen to reinforces those fears. Therefore, it’s all just one big lie by evil liberals and the MSM and surely on Election Day all the Real Americans will rise up take their country back from the queer-loving socialist Muslim.
I don’t engage in political discussion with my conservative family members on Facebook (or elsewhere). Not worth it. The ones who posted open bigotry have long since been defriended and the rest I just don’t respond to on politics or religion.
An example of this: yesterday an acquaintance of mine whose husband is currently deployed in Afghanistan told me that Obama is evil because her husband and all other deployed military are prohibited from voting.
Oversampling minority turnout. They are assuming that minority turnout will be equal to or greater than 2008, which is unlikely. Gallup and Rasmussen have more realistic projections. Although I could be wrong.
Now 2004, I don’t get what you guys keep saying about accepting the reality of the polls. The polls did not show Bush clearly winning and in fact the exit polls were indicating that Kerry might win. If the polls were showing a sure thing for Bush in 2004, the polls were wrong then too.
I’m going to ignore most of what Knorf said because it doesn’t apply to me. Let’s throw out early voting numbers for a moment. If we were seeing a structural change in the electorate, it should appear not only in the presidential vote, but the House and Senate races. Yet in the Senate, Republicans are expected to pick up a couple of seats and to retain control of the House, possibly even gaining a few seats. The latter is especially important. In 2010 Republicans swept into the House on the backs of Republican enthusiasm and Independent support. If they keep the House it will be for the same reason. If the Democrats are going to get record turnout a la 2008 as the polls are showing, then you should see them perform close to 2008. But you won’t. That alone tells me Romney is in good shape heading into tomorrow. If he wins Indies by more than 5, he’s president.
Btw, Rasmussen came out with his latest party I’d numbers today and it’s R+6. If that’s anywhere close to true, Romney will win going away. I’m sure he’s even a little shocked at those numbers.
The exit polls were flawed (at least the leaked ones) and news reporters were told not to report based on them. Also exit polls are VERY different from pre-election polls (you can probably dig up some good discussion from that from the polling analysis sites).
As to pre-election polls, RCP had Bush +1.5 as of one day out. The final polling spread is here: 2004 General Election: Bush vs. Kerry | RealClearPolling. As you can see there were two national polls showing Kerry ahead, two tied, and the rest showed small leads for Bush. Very few polls had Bush over 50%, and that’s what Kerry supporters were clinging to.
