Gallup: Romney Leads Early Voting

October 29, 2012 Hunter Wallace BRA Politics 83

BRA

H/T Kosher Republic

Here’s the latest nail in O’s electoral coffin: an early voting deficit.

Note: Combine that with a more elderly electorate, a 20 point gap with White voters, a 13 to 20 point gap with Independents, barely winning Miami-Dade County in FL, realignment in VA since 2008, a closing gender gap, R’s 51 point lead in the Gallup poll, the RCP average, the enthusiasm gap, R’s momentum, R’s advantage on the economy, and a loss of interest in O among Hispanic and younger voters.

In 2004, W. was at 49 percent in the last Gallup poll, but he was ahead of Kerry on election day. R. is hovering steady at 50 to 51 percent. What’s more, in 6 of the last 9 presidential elections, the incumbent has underperformed his standing in the Gallup poll.

O smells like a loser now that he is defending Minnesota and Pennsylvania.

“Romney currently leads Obama 52% to 45% among voters who say they have already cast their ballots. However, that is comparable to Romney’s 51% to 46% lead among all likely voters in Gallup’s Oct. 22-28 tracking polling. At the same time, the race is tied at 49% among those who have not yet voted but still intend to vote early, suggesting these voters could cause the race to tighten. However, Romney leads 51% to 45% among the much larger group of voters who plan to vote on Election Day, Nov. 6.

About Hunter Wallace 12380 Articles
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50 Comments

  3. Learn how to read statistics, please. These are aggregate numbers. They don’t reflect Swing State votes alone. All of the data from swing states — with the exception of Colorado — shows Obama with the lead among persons who have already voted. Romney’s larger aggregate number likely reflects the fact that red southern states have very long early voting periods. In purple states, however, GOP legislatures limited the early voting period because they know that blacks and Latinos tend to go through early voting. The trick hasn’t worked, however.

  4. Elections, schnelections. I’m more interested in seeing the statue of liberty crumble under hurricane Sandy.

    I once knew a girl named Sandy. She was indeed ‘like a hurricane’. Y’all wouldn’t appreciate Neil Young.

    Come on, get off the campaign circuit or keep blowing the Republicans who’ve shafted you for over a century!

    The Big Secret:

    Once you refuse to vote for Madison Ave. stooges like Eisenhower, Reagan and Romney your opposition will collapse – because they won’t have any of the fake opposition deliberately made for their triumph!

    So go back to the history. It’s much more educational.

  5. Uuumm…Romney IS the Last Chance for the White Race, in Amurrica. Insane and sick as that is – it’s true.

    Voting matters. The Hebes would not have bought up all the voting machines, and moved ’em to Spain, if voting did not matter.

  6. The last thing this country needs right now is a strong neoconservative President.

    What it needs is a weak black President.

    This is going to be a disaster of epic proportions.

    Grab your bootstraps, it’s going to be one hell of a ride. And one thing is for sure, white interests are going right back into the meat grinder. Romney has the depth of street whore.

  7. I’m not voting for either of these guys. My head is telling me that Romney will win pretty easily. My gut is telling me that Obama will squeak out a narrow electoral victory in the Midwest.

  13. @Landshark

    “What it needs is a weak black president.”

    – Why? And just who would that benefit? Seriously, what do all you “collapse groupies” realistically believe is going to happen if Obama were to be re-elected? Project for me a realistic timeline of events, beginning with Obama’s re-election, and culminating with… whatever it is you think will be so much better than what we have now.

    And what if he got re-elected and decided to start confuscating weapons? What would you internet warriors do? I’ll bet that, despite all your talk to the contrary, you’d just hand them over and then cry about it on the internet.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqizZebcaU

    Get off this “we need a collapse” fantasy bullshit and start thinking like an adult.

  15. “I’m not voting for either of these guys. My head is telling me that Romney will win pretty easily. My gut is telling me that Obama will squeak out a narrow electoral victory in the Midwest.”

    “Either way, I fully expect that we will detest whoever wins by this time next year. I hated Bush and Obama equally.”

    Nice observations, Hunter. Pretty well sums up my feelings on the matter, too.

    In the Army, we had an acronym for this sort of situation.
    BOHICA
    Bend over, here it comes again.

    Deo Vindice

  17. I won’t be surprised if Romney breaks 300 electoral votes.

    Same here. Once you accept at least the possibility of GIGO for the polls, it starts looking like Romney could easily clear 300 EVs. In fact I was saying that almost two weeks ago.

    And the battlegroundwatch.com guys make a very persuasive case for the GIGO model.

  18. Learn how to read statistics, please. These are aggregate numbers. They don’t reflect Swing State votes alone. All of the data from swing states — with the exception of Colorado — shows Obama with the lead among persons who have already voted. Romney’s larger aggregate number likely reflects the fact that red southern states have very long early voting periods. In purple states, however, GOP legislatures limited the early voting period because they know that blacks and Latinos tend to go through early voting. The trick hasn’t worked, however.

    By “data…shows 0 with lead persons who have already voted,” you mean polls.

    In Nevada (which looks to me like easily one of the strongest swing states for the 0) the zero’s early voting is well behind what we saw for him in 2008, and R’s well ahead of what we saw for McAmnesty in 2008. That’s what people mean when they say “0bama looks strong.”

    That sounds like a real cause for Dem celebration, dunnit? Lower Dem turnout, losing independents by double-digit margins, and an energized Republican base. Yay 0bama!

    Folks, please go read the threads and comments for the last two weeks at battlegroundwatch.com. You’ll at least come away better-informed, regardless of which side you’re boosting or predicting to win.

  19. And by swing states there, I mean “official” swing states, according to current polls, not “wow if GIGO is right, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota are really swing states!” swing states.

  20. In purple states, however, GOP legislatures limited the early voting period because they know that blacks and Latinos tend to go through early voting. The trick hasn’t worked, however.

    I know, right? And those evil Republicans, purging the voter rolls of all the undead voters! Racists! Who are they to only want live citizens voting?

    Go 0bama!

  21. 313,

    I’m not thinking about collapse, but more maintaining my options while this unfolds, and waking people up in the interim.

    Electing Dov Zakheim and the boys to lead a culturally gutted nation is absolute suicide.

    Obama has been a vacation since Bush. A vacation.

  22. I remain in shock from the entirely thoughtless manner in which Donald Trump was dismissed by the establishment lastweek. His gambit is brilliant but has fallen on deaf nigger loving ears.

    313, has the Michigan media turned on that bum Fielder yet? You know he has a white wife and two mulattos, right.

  24. @Tamer

    I think Verlander deserves more blame for blowing the first game, and he was starting that night on his own insistence, but who knows? And no, the media has moved on to the hurricane and the election.

    Personally, I think the Giants were just the better team and demonstrated it authoritatively. All my respect to them.

  26. Some of you are chugging way too much kool aid. Romney is either behind or at best within the margin of error in every state matters. He has no path to victory in the EC without Ohio where he is behind other than in the GOPs propaganda polling firm (the always add +5 the Democrat Rasmussen poll). Obama will be looking presidential all week handing out disaster money, while Romney will be forced to lay low in the home stretch. Obama still has every traditional that comes with incumbency. Incumbent presidents rarely lose. Most undecided voters see the alternative as a vulture capitalist and neocon during a time the country has no appetite for war. I want to see a mass libtard meltdown as much as anyone, but, emotions aside, it ain’t gonna happen. It probably won’t be the blowout I’ve been predicting all year, but Romney is going down for sure.

  27. At this point, Romney is doing better than any successful challenger since the 1960s. Bush was at 49 percent in 2004 when he defeated Kerry. He was ahead of Kerry too. Ford was at 49 percent when he lost to Carter in 1976. Romney is at 50 to 51 percent in the Gallup poll.

    Gallup has Romney at 51 percent to 45 percent on election day. He is even leading in early voting. It would be shocking if Obama won with those kind of numbers. As for the state polls, they are using samples which assume that Democrat turnout on election day will be D+3 or greater.

    If memory serves, even Rasmussen assumes a D+3 advantage on election day, and Rasmussen has Obama losing the electoral college.

  29. Princeton statistician projects a 90% or 97% chance that Obama wins (depending on approach used). It’s a bold prediction. He has a better record than Silver and an academic rep at stake. His reputation will suffer severe damage if he’s wrong.

    http://election.princeton.edu/

  31. I think it is a ludicrous number that is clearly based on equally ludicrous assumptions about Democratic turnout on election day. The composition of the electorate on election day is the most important statistic.

    Sure, Obama does look like he is ahead in some of the state polls, if you assume that he has anywhere from a D+6 to D+12 advantage on election day (to make up for his deficit with Independent voters), in which he is tied in some key states even with extremely favorable Democratic turnout.

    The fact is, there is no reason to believe that Republicans will be nearly as demoralized as they were in 2008 (Republican registration this year has been tellingly higher month after month), or that Independents will be nearly as supportive of Obama (he is losing them by wide margins, in fact, ever since 2009), or that Democratic turnout will be anywhere near Obama’s 2008 performance when he was at the height of his popularity.

    The polls have consistently showed that Hispanics and younger voters are far less interested in the election than they were in 2008. The polls show that Obama has lost a lot of ground among White working class voters. They also show that elderly voters will be a greater share of the electorate.

    The so-called “gender gap” has narrowed significantly in the last month … even with a record 20 point “gender gap,” Al Gore lost in 2000 to Bush, and he won the popular vote by a wide margin.

    A week from the election, Obama is an incumbent who has stagnated at 45 to 47 percent for over a month, whereas the challenger has hovered around 50 to 51 percent. Undecided voters usually break toward the challenger. Obama’s own campaign team has said that his reelection depends on early voting and he is losing to Romney even in early voting.

    The latest polls show Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania becoming more competitive. Some polls show that Romney has locked up Florida and North Carolina. Obama is barely winning Miami-Dade County in Florida because he is losing Cuban voters by 70 percent.

    If that were not enough, you have to take into consideration the changes within the swing states since the 2008 election … many of the state polls are assuming a 2008 electorate, but all of these states went to the polls in either 2009, 2010, or 2011.

    In Virginia, Bob McDonnell was elected governor (2009), Republicans won control of the Virginia Senate and expanded their lead in the Virginia House (2011), and Democrats lost three congressional races and almost lost Connolly’s seat in the 2010 midterm elections.

    Also in Virginia, the New York Times projects Republicans holding all three congressional seats they won in 2010, and those were in competitive swing districts just two years ago.

    In Florida, the Republicans control the governorship, both chambers of the Florida state legislature, and won Marco Rubio’s Senate seat in 2010. I believe they also won some congressional seats like Alan Grayson’s old seat.

    In North Carolina, Republicans won control of the North Carolina state legislature in the 2010 midterm elections. They are projected to knock off North Carolina’s Democratic governor and pick up at least three Democrat House seats including Heath Shuler’s seat in Asheville.

    In the 2010 midterm elections, the Republicans won big in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, Scott Walker won the recall election by a wider margin among all voters. In Pennsylvania, Republicans won the Pennsylvania state legislature, governorship, and several House seats.

    That leaves Ohio … which also has a Republican governor and a Republican state legislature. The Ohio Newspapers poll over the weekend showed the race in Ohio was tied. The Rasmussen poll this morning has Romney in the lead with a 2 point advantage.

    The bottom line here is that Obama is an incumbent president a week from the election who is hovering between 45 percent to 47 percent in the Gallup poll. The idea that he has a 97 percent chance of victory when he is losing to the challenger by seven points is absurd.

    It’s a bold prediction. Nate Silver predicted 49 out of 50 states in the 2008 election … but that was a Democratic wave election just like the 2010 Tea Party wave election could be seen a mile away.

    Basically, Silver’s assumption of a 74 percent chance of an Obama victory depends on an Obama advantage within the margin of error in several key swing states (Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa) that is based on polls most of which assume that Democrats will have an unlikely D+8 to D+12 turnout advantage on election day.

  32. “His reputation will suffer severe damage if he’s wrong. ”

    Oh please!

    These “Ivy League” academics have been dead ass wrong about EVERYTHING they have ever predicted and all their followers are still fellating them all through the decades. As far as their opposition is concerned, that would be everyone who is not a fanatical liberal, the Ivy Leaguer’s reputations cannot be damaged any more or sink any lower.

  34. You should post that on the Princeton site, and see if Dr. Wang responds. FWIW, Wang says it’s not true undecideds break for the challenger. He says they split evenly.

  36. Brutus, this particular academic seems to have a solid record. His model is definitely more understandable and intuitive than Silver’s.

  37. Has Obama been an advantage or a disadvantage to all the Democrats in the swing states who have lost their reelection bids since 2008?

    If Obama weighed down all those Democrats in Virginia in 2009, 2010, and 2011, what do you suppose will be the effect of his coattails when Obama himself is on the ballot next week?

    Here’s what I think is the key indicator: many of the state polls which say Obama is tied or within the margin of error are assuming an 2008-style electorate or greater for the Democrats, but where was that 2008 electorate in 2009, 2010, and 2011 when all Obama’s fellow Democrats were running for reelection?

    Did those Democrats who were running for reelection seriously think they were running for reelection in a 2008-style Obama wave election year? If that was the case, why didn’t the Virginia Democrats who were on the ballot LAST NOVEMBER want to be seen with Obama?

    They didn’t want to be seen with him because Obama was a massive albatross by that point. Oh, but now, the polls are assuming we are in a 2008-style wave election year for the Democrats with a D+8 electorate.

    Absurd, yes?

  38. I don’t have time to look it up, but, with that caveat, I believe part of the answer is that historically fewer people vote in the midterms and in off-year elections, and in raw numbers there are more Democats than Republicans in certain key swing states, hence the oversampling. In 2o10, something like 80,ooo,ooo people voted. This year, it will be more like 110,000,000. I believe this is the main reason for assuming an electorate much like 2008. Scott Walker in blue-leaning Wisconsin was essentially elected twice over massive Demicrat opposition. Despite this, no one, I don’t think, is projecting Wisconsin for Romney. It’s unclear how much the off-year trends matter.

  39. Hunter Wallace says:
    ‘In the last Democracy Corps poll (the James Carville/Stanley Greenberg poll), Obama had regained the lead, 49 percent to 46 percent.’

    Carville and Greenberg poll? No bias there.

  40. How can his model possibly be good when he claims as high as 97 percent chance for an Obama victory? Not possible for the facts involved in this election.

  41. The 2008 electorate was a historical high watermark for the Democrats:

    http://www.bizzyblog.com/wp-images/GallupPartyID04and08and12.png

    In 2008, the electorate was 39 percent Democrat, 31 percent Independent, 29 percent Republican, or 54 Democrat/Lean Democrat vs. 42 percent Republican/Lean Republican. It was a D+12 electorate.

    In 2004, the electorate was 37 percent Democrat, 24 percent Independent, 39 percent Republican, or 48 percent Democrat/Lean Democrat vs. 48 percent Republican/Lean Republican. It was a tied electorate

    In 2012, Gallup projects the electorate will be 35 percent Democrat, 29 percent Independent, 36 percent Republican, or 46 percent Democrat/Lean Democrat vs. 49 percent Republican/Lean Republican. Gallup has a R+3 electorate.

    So, we have swung from a D+12 electorate (2008) to a R+3 electorate (2012) of likely voters, and there are polls like James Carville’s Democracy Corps polls that show Obama losing using a D+9 sample … as if the last four years never happened.

  42. If the 2012 electorate is 35 percent Democrat and 36 percent Republican and Independents break by 16 to 20 points for Romney, there is no way Obama has a 97 percent chance of winning the election.

  43. The intrade price of an obama contract was cited around the interwebz in previous weeks. I checked today and obamas chances dropped to around 60% on. Increasing volume…….if you buy into that sot of thing.

  45. It’s because Obama is doing well in a number of polls which are assumming a D+3 to D+12 overrepresentation in the 2012 electorate and the average of those unrealistic polls shows Romney behind.

    The polls are oversampling Democrats to make up for Romney winning Independents by a much wider margin.

  46. I’ve just visited that site and examined Wang’s work. There is NO model there. All it is is a convoluted discussion about IF Obama happens to win, then Wang’s predictions were in shouting distance after all.

    The only thing I see concerning data is a few references to polls, some unnamed political scientists and pundits, and a couple of liberal media outlets. There is nothing, nothing at all, about method there, the only thing that counts regarding judging a man’s statistical work and predictions.

    I’m sorry, but my last post stands: there is no way Wang has the authority to make those assertions, not based upon what is displayed and discussed there.

  47. It’s absurd to think we are in a 2008-style Democrat wave election year where Democrats had a 12 point advantage over Republicans. There is utterly no sign of such an electorate turning out to reelect Obama.

    The Republicans are certain to hold the House of Representatives. If we were really in a Democratic wave election year, then Republicans wouldn’t be consolidating their gains in Congress across the South.

  48. “Scott Walker in blue-leaning Wisconsin was essentially elected twice over massive Demicrat opposition. Despite this, no one, I don’t think, is projecting Wisconsin for Romney. ”

    I’m glad you brought this up. Why is it that no one is projecting a Wisconsin win for Romney? It beggars my imagination how it could be anything but a Republican win. The Democrats just recently threw everything they had into trying to defeat Walker in a recall election. Democrats mobilized to the nth degree their base, and also out of state bases and workers, in order to overturn that election and Walker STILL handily prevailed. But now, barely months later, things are going to be SUBSTANTIALLY different? How? And that issue struck at the very heart of the people who live in that state’s concerns. Surely the Democrat voters turned out at a zenith for that. In all probability (no pun intended), there will be less enthusiasm and mobility amongst Democrat voters for this presidential election there. But they are going to win this time and Wisconsin’s electoral votes will go to Obama? Again, someone explain how such a scenario will come to pass, please.

  49. It’s possible Obama will win, would not even be surprising. But it would be equally less surprising for a Romney win. And that is just the point. Nothing available and nothing that we know about this election allows anything but a razor thin margin for presidential victory. Nothing supports bold assertions about a 90 or as high as 97 percent chance of Obama winning.

    What evidence available strongly supports an assumption that the 2012 Democrat base is far inferior to its 2008 counterpart. Other than that, no one should bet over 50 cents on the outcome of this election as far as I can see.

  50. Pew has the race tied, 47 to 47:

    http://www.people-press.org/2012/10/29/presidential-race-dead-even-romney-maintains-turnout-edge/

    Pew also says that 76 percent of Republicans/Lean Republicans are likely to vote compared to 62 percent of Democrats/Lean Democrats

    http://www.people-press.org/files/2012/10/10-29-2012-2.png

    68 percent of Obama voters strongly support Obama. 67 percent of Romney voters now strongly support Romney … up from 34 percent in July.

    http://www.people-press.org/files/2012/10/10-29-2012-8.png

    88 percent of Romney voters “definitely plan to vote” versus 83 percent of Obama voters. Pew assumes R+5 turnout advantage of the base on election day:

    http://www.people-press.org/files/2012/10/10-29-2012-9.png

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