A more or less qualitative look at daily polling; people like Nate Silver do an admirable job at the more quantitative aspects, so another voice from the statistics textbooks is really not needed. I've been sending this out to a growing email list for the last week or so, and someone had the clever idea (that I was not clever enough to think of first) of posting it here, so I'm going to give that a try and see how it works out. In a bit of a hurry, so formatting will be a little lacking today. Also, just to get off on the wrong foot, I've commented that I don't particularly agree with the Party ID and ethnicity weightings in the R2K/Kos survey, but also that I disagree with Party ID in Rasmussen as well in the other direction. I'll keep posting this for a few days if anyone cares. And if you do, let me know, happy to put you on the mailing list for it.
The trendline continues to show a steady, measured shift towards Barack Obama; again, I would urge people not to pay too much attention to the actual numbers, which have six-plus weeks to shift and could include fairly significant sampling error or just plain poor design, but to trends and momentum which play out over a more extended period. That being said, two of the polls have Obama at 50% of the vote, which would be enough for a win, given that Bob Barr and Ralph Nader (at least I think that's his name) will probably siphon off 2-3% of the total vote, though most likely in states where the outcome is in no doubt. It's probably not unfair to call this the end of the worst week in John McCain's career since his release from a North Vietnamese POW camp. (Did you know he was a POW?)
Diageo/Hotline Obama 45 McCain 44 (45-44)
Gallup Obama 50 McCain 44 (49-44)
R2K Obama 50 McCain 42 (49-42)
Rasmussen Obama 48 McCain 47 (48-48)
Today's 50% in Gallup matches his record high just after the Democratic Convention. Not only has the Republican Convention bump disappeared, within two weeks Sen. Obama has managed to regain the levels he enjoyed after his own extremely well-received acceptance speech. Gallup notes that survey participants are noting more worry both about the economy and their own finances, which dovetails neatly with Obama's gains. They infer from this that Obama may be generally viewed as being better for the economy than McCain.
In R2K, it's across the board. Obama gains a point among men, women, white voters, all age groups, and perhaps most importantly, Democrats. His lead among members of his own party in this poll is now 86-10, which if true would argue that very few disgruntled Hillary supporters (who I've always assumed to be extremely few in number--I've met two and they've since changed their minds) remain off the reservation. This compares with McCain's 88-6 lead among self-identified Republicans. It's hard to see Obama losing Democrats once he's got them in the fold. Oddly, everybody's favorables drop a point or two. I would suggest that argues for nervousness about the overall financial situation and slightly less willingness to trust any politician.
Rasmussen has some new state polling suggesting a four point Obama lead in Maine and two in Indiana. My gut feeling is that those are both wrong--I think Obama should win Maine by more than that and I'd be surprised if McCain were behind in Indiana right now-- the aggregate score from www.fivethirtyeight.com has McCain up 3 or so, which seems more reasonable. The Rasmussen Consumer Index is steady, down nine points from a week ago, with fully 73% of Americans surveyed thinking the economy is getting worse, with 10% saying it's getting better. Efforts to reach that 10% failed as my cellphone does not reach the planet Neptune.
There have been a couple studies lately on the "cellphone effect" which may add even more inaccuracy to the polling process; the fact that many polls do not include cellphone-only users, estimated at 10-12% of the overall population. As these likely skew younger and often, though by no means always, poorer, probably meaning significantly pro-Obama, not including them in the polls could take away measurably from his actual tally. ABC/Washington Post had data suggesting the difference is about a point; Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight aggregates pollsters that do call cell-only users and compares them with a control group that do not and finds a difference of 2.2 points. It all comes down to how much cellphone-only people prefer Obama. I estimate that if it's 60/40, it's about 1.3 points. At 66/34, it's closer to 2. Silver points out that his findings are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level.
Which gets me to something else that bugs me. Rasmussen, which I feel is slightly biased towards the GOP in its survey design, calls today's results "statistically insignificant." There ain't no such animal. Perhaps it's just sloppy writing, but saying things like that raise a red flag for me. You test for statistical significance; if you fail, what you've got is nothing. Not "insignificant," just "unable to show significance." Someone with a whole bunch of statisticians on staff ought to know this. Srsly, dewd.
As we had expected, Palinmania (catch it now at a theater near you!) is subsiding; what we had not expected is just how quickly and precipitously it would subside, nor how much the candidate herself would assist in bringing it to an end. There is a hard core which will never admit to believing anything wrong of her or the ticket, just as there is on the other side as well. Well, that's fine--their votes were, despite a lot of speculation regarding McCain's need to shore up his credibility with the far right, never in doubt. Seriously, show of hands; who thought that what an earlier generation would have called John Birchers (and the picture of Wasilla Council Member Palin in 1995 with a copy of the--yes, they're still going!--John Birch Society newsletter on her desk is making the rounds--even if she was never a member of the organization, this shows poor judgment) were going to vote for the liberal black guy if the GOP running mate weren't sufficiently extreme? If you do, I've got this bridge to nowhere (tm) to sell you...
The McCain campaign seems to be in one of those annoying mud patches where you keep shifting from first into reverse and back again and only seem to get you stuck a little deeper in the mud (for those of you in sunny southern California, we have rain in the Northeast. The ground gets wet. Really.). Sen. Obama noted with some amusement yesterday that his fourth-term opponent is now criticizing him for being too tied in with Washington insiders. This seems a little inconsistent. Either you're too inexperienced or too entrenched. Saying someone's both is kind of like calling him a Muslim under the influence of a radical Christian pastor.
It's also instructive to look at the two candidates' responses to the week's economic upheaval. By Friday, Obama was holding a press conference, supporting the administration's efforts to prevent the next great depression, and asking for Americans to come together; McCain was excoriating Obama for lecturing us. One of these responses sounds more like what an actual real-life President would do. I don't think the subtlish effort to paint Obama as some sort of ivory tower egghead is going to work--actually, we already know that he graduated top of his class at Columbia and Harvard and was a lecturer in Constitutional Law. Doesn't seem to bother most people. Obama paints McCain as out of touch; the meme sinks in so well that McCain starts using it about Obama. This "I'm rubber, you're glue" approach of Sen. McCain could work, but it seems unlikely. You sort of need to tell the stories about the other guy before he tells them about you.
Should the McCain theme song, now that Heart has enjoined them from using "Barracuda" be "Oops, I Did It Again?" One supposes Britney herself was too young to be on the ticket.
Off to enjoy the start of my last weekend in LA before heading back to the only Congressional District in New England with a Republican representative. And thanks for all the kind words! Keep telling your friends, more than happy to add anyone to the list who cares to. To quote the great John Blutarski, "Grab yourself a beer. Don't cost nothin'."
Herbert Hoover Quote Of The Day
When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.