I happen to disagree entirely with that analysis. I’m more inclined to believe Gallup/Rasmussen’s numbers as they seem to be more inline with observable swing state trends. A quick glance at the voter registration numbers in a couple of swing states (that I could find the data for) show an increase in the number of Independents at the expense of Democrats, while the number of people identifying as Republicans showed minimal change (and in many cases, an uptick).
First, Colorado.
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.
BTW> Every criticism of Rasmussen invariably seems to come back to Nate Silver. I find that a bit odd, as Nate’s analysis of Rasmussen is the only one I’ve seen which rates his polls poorly. Generally, whenever I look it up, his polls are rated highly. I’m pretty sure Nate simply penalizes Rasmussen because they put out more polls than other polling firms in less known races (as well as earlier), which means their polls are more susceptible to errors.