Rasmussen is biased because democrats tend to be more likely to have cell phones than land lines and are less likely to answer their phone. Rasmussen doesn't do call backs so that's one issue that they might be affecting their results. The other thing is we just don't know which polling service is the most accurate. It seems Obama has had a small but consistent lead for a while now especially in key swing states. But it's not large enough to make this in the bag...yet
I'm encouraged by the continuing train wreck that is Mitt Romney's campaign, but to all my moderate and liberal friends, whether Democrats, Republicans who have seen the light, or independent voters, I say don't get cocky. The GOP has an enormous amount of money it can spend, thanks to the radical Roberts Court, and it'll be spent. My hope is that they keep pouring it into the Romney campaign in what looks right now to be a losing cause. Better that then to pour it into House and Senate races, but if they do that, keep spending on Romney, you can't count him out. Never underestimate the apathy of the average American voter. As some have pointed out, the President could still make a campaign mistake big enough to give Romney an opening. The Prime Minister of Israel, that snake oil salesman, who's busy trying to take advantage of this political race and get the President to give Iran a "date certain, or else" ultimatum, starting a timeline to war with Iran, could create problems for Obama. He desperately wants the US to do what Israel might have pulled off some years back by itself, but can no longer do... destroy Iran's atomic weapons program, which will lead to yet another large war in the region, one we most definitely don't want, with our military still trying to recover from the madness of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and still involved in Afghanistan, which we are trying to get out of now that the leadership of bin Laden's gang is decimated. If Obama caves and sets a deadline, Romney could run against that, using the threat of another war to "blame on Obama's leadership," and if he doesn't, and Iran were to do something even more provocative before the election, and they have a history of attempting to influence our elections, with some success, Romney could blame Obama for that (whatever it might be), deserved or not. That's just an example, one many will see as unlikely. Just don't assume an Obama victory. In fact, act like he's behind and work for the campaign. This is a hugely important election and nothing should be taken for granted.
BWAAAAAHAHAHAHA alright -- I'm convinced you're SamFisher's troll account. SamF was adamant that the "cell phone voters" would come in and save John Kerry in 2004. Probably the biggest fail ever in the history of the board.
Nate Silver knows which pollsters are most accurate and he weighs his model, the most sophisticated in the history of polls, accordingly. Who does live polling v. robo-polls; who uses the same sample for each update (this is a real tracker if you ask me); who weights party affiliation according to agreed-upon numbers and who goes off the reservation some (Rasmussen's sample is GOP top-heavy compared to all others); what's the pollster's record of accuracy; margins of error; size of sample; how long are each of the polls in the field, etc. Rasmussen was actually one of the most if not THE most accurate in '10 or '12 (can't remember which) so they get extra punch in the Silver model even though they lose just a little for their methodology. But any serious person in politics looks every day to 538/Silver for the most accurate forecast. Those numbers have been adjusting down for Obama over the last week or two. But not enough for Romney to recover. Here's a link to the Silver site; he has if-the-election-were-held-today forecasts and election day forecasts: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/
Here is one thing to give the reliability of polls question some context: look at the behavior of Romney's camp. First, Romney's pollster came out with a "things are more hopeful than polls suggest" memo, which, interestingly enough, does not cite to any poll numbers, internal or public, debunking the trend exhibited in the majority of polls. Next, we have a Politico article with a number of quotes by members of the Romney campaign trying to pin the blame on why they are trailing on Stuart Stevens and Romney himself. Then Monday morning (folks might forget it since the 47% news broke later that day) Romney's camp (Ed Gillespie?) held a conference call with reporters announcing a new direction for the campaign where they will offer the details that Romney was criticized for keeping secret. Now, if Romney actually is leading this and all these public polls are wrong bases on some great internal Moneyball analysis by Romney's camp, do you really think Romney's campaign would have acted the way they have?
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Absolutely. He's been my "go to" forecaster since 2008. But I liked it better when fivethirtyeight was on it's own and not associated with a newspaper.
Just saying as Houston fans we should never declare a contest over in the middle of the game. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ZeMhN7JIIvg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Just to wash out the awful taste of the Buffalo game here is another example. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DrntRc9PCDw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
One theory, by The National Review's Nate Cohn, I think, is that the cell phone only voters' impact in 2008 was less than it was in 2010. Given how tech evolves, it sounds like a fair accessment. Also, I recall a number of polls in 2008 had numbers close to where Rasmussen had it. Rasmussen was not all the way out of the norm like it is this year. As I said, if Romney actually believed what texxx and basso, etc. believe about the accuracy of Rasmussen, his campaign would not have had the recent freak outs.
Just watched that again, the whole damn heartbreaking thing, and god, how I miss the Oilers. Pretty crazy, I guess, but there you are. I went to the first game they played in Houston with my Dad, and was hooked until Bud Ass Hole Adams stole the team from the city. Illustrates how the refs always crap on Houston, no matter which sport it is. The only way a Houston team wins is to make their own breaks and then keep the other team back on their heels. Point taken. Of course, I'm making the same point, but that's a great example.
In terms of whether this election is "over", I think that's silly. 45 or whatever days left is a very long time - just think about how much has happened in the last 45 days. That said, I don't think there's a lot to move the needle in the everyday campaign, barring a major mistake by a candidate during the debates. Outside of that, voters' minds are made up. The political class keeps chattering about things that define the election, but nothing has moved the needle. I think the big thing Obama has to worry about is an external event - a crisis of some sort CAN shift minds quickly depending on how it plays out. Barring that, I find it hard to see any avenue for Romney to gain traction. People simply don't like him, and they don't really care for GOP policies when it comes down to specifics, so there's not much room for him to change the race. In terms of polls, a lot of the differences between the polls are based on likely voter screens - each company uses a different one, and the risk there is if your screen is wrong, all your poll results are going to be skewed. But that's not to say one poll is wrong just because it's an outlier - if they are right about the likely voter screen and and everyone is wrong, they are going to be seen as geniuses.
Rasmussen: Romney edges ahead in swing states http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...dministration/daily_swing_state_tracking_poll
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytime...rate-quinnipiac-surveyusa-performed-strongly/ Before we spew that likely voter nonsense--- meh.
Not sure why everyone is so confident. There is a 3-4 point difference at best when you look at the popular vote. Continued economic woes, a stumble by Obama and $1,000,000,000 to spend all make this race close... Florida, Virginia, Michigan, Colorado, NH, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Ohio all could flip with a bad last 45 days by the President.
