Either due to the market meltdown, the debate or both, much has changed in Gallup tracking poll land since our last thrilling instalment.
We also have this entertaining survey on Australian attitudes to the presidential race from UMR Research, showing 66 per cent of respondents preferring Barack Obama against 13 per cent for John McCain. Sarah Palin and (especially) George W. Bush also appear to be none too popular in our part of the world.
1,274 Comments
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Juliem,
It’s my prediction that at 8pm PST, California, Washington, Hawaii and Oregon will all be called taking Obama over the top. So my guess is those 4 states simultaneously, but if you want to tie it down to one, I’ll say California.
Ron, it is Falwell not Faldwell ……. and anyone who associates with him has a few screws loose ……… this is the same man who said that one of the Teletubbies was a gay icon as he had a male voice but carried a handbag in the show … my youngest is 7 but if I stretch my memory banks, I think that TT was TinkyWinky ….
As I’ve said before, I don’t like negative ads from either political party, but I accept that it’s part of the modern political fabric. The Democrats forgot how to do negative ads well after Clinton – thankfully, Obama seems willing to fight it out on the level the GOP understands – good for him!
As for Obama’s association with Rezko, Wright and Ayers – I accept the GOP have the right to run negative ads about this. It’s a legitimate negative political tactic. That said, if they’re going to negative ads against Obama, they should expect Obama to return fire – and two of the main negatives for McCain are his involvement in the Keating Five and his presumed infidelity with his first wife.
And as for the smears against McCain’s time in captivity – I disapprove of them wholeheartedly, regardless of who is making them. However, I don’t have any sympathy with the GOP over this – they were the ones who undeservedly tarnished fellow Vietnam War Hero John Kerry’s record in 2004…
you’ve got it?? OMG! FBI records??? Out with it then man! C’mon, bring Obama down with your smoking gun. Show me that great evidence.
Boy the MSM in America really have dropped the ball on this one. Where’s Fox news when you need it??
Obama +5 in NM (Alberquerque Journal Poll):
http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_10649251
Regardless of who is ahead in the polls in the US it doesnt matter for nothing because they dont have compulsory voting and even those on the roles may not go and vote.
That’s why they only report the results for likely voters (as opposed to registered voters).
1103 SL – I’m with you there. Negative attacks would not be around in a perfect world; but they are, so the Dems should go in as well. (but as someone pointed out earlier they did well to wait for McCain to go that route first).
I think the Dems will hammer McCain on keating5 stuff – the Vietnam aspect will be left to arms length swift boat type bottom feeders. A pox on both of them.
This is a factual assertion, which can only be valid if it is backed up by evidence and logical reasoning. In other words, WHY is it “lame in comparison”?
Great, that is the point I was making. So McCain is no better or worse than Obama. McCain chose to associate himself with someone who did not believe in democracy, liberty or pluralism, simply so he could get the Republican nomination.
That suggests to me a person who would do anything to win, even if it means selling out his own values. This is also a great demonstration of why John McCain in 2008 is a sad reflection of John McCain circa 2000. Back then he was one of the most principled conservative politicians in the world.
It does matter Glen
That’s right Ron – by day I’m the mild mannered polling nerd, by night I transform into Possum Riefenstahl; fighting the good propaganda fight to convince the innocent that B. Hoooosein Obama is not the really the cartoon caricature of a whacko pastor worshiping, corrupt donation accepting, terrorist sympathizing Antichrist that the forces of goodness and light make him out to be – but just a misunderstood, mild mannered Senator from Illinois that is liked by Scarlett Johansson.
And next week on the moonbat express – Kevin Rudd; stripper groping drunkard that eats puppies or merely a Heiner conspirator that disrespects Veterans on Sunrise?
I report – you believe!
Come on folks, let’s get a grip here.
Actually it doesnt…you still cannot grasp the fact that even though they are likely voters that doesnt mean they will vote.
Unless you polled people who had voted in the past 2 elections and was going to vote this time its stupid to do polls, because even though they may like a candidate that doesnt mean on tuesday they’ll bother turning up.
Actually it does. It isn’t the be all and end all, but it matters Glen. Only someone down in the polls by so far would think otherwise.
Expect his time on the board of the USCWF to be trotted out also
even if mccain is projected ahead in some states like Ohio and Florida doesnt mean he’ll win them also, it all matters on turn out plain and simple.
Glen,
What you’re saying is that in a country with optional voting, it is useless to do polls (ever!).
However, polls have often been quite accurate in predicting the outcome of these elections. The RCP average was accurate to within 10 electoral votes last time, with the only incorrect call being in WI (predicted for Bush by 0.9, but ultimately went for Kerry by less than 1%). Its popular vote calculation was also very close. So polling does have a purpose in the US…
This applies equally to both sides.
Oh, except for the fact there are now 11 million more registered Democrats than Republicans. In 2004 there were 9 million more Democrats. See here:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_rhodes_cook/democrats_winning_the_registration_wars
Oh dear, I am having flashbacks to last year when you run out of puff attacking Rudd, so you just started attacking polling in general!
If polls don’t matter Glen, do you think Obama has a chance in Texas? I’ve got a lovely used car to sell too…
He isn’t, he is behind in both Ohio and Florida.
Glen – US pollsters (well the good ones anyway) use pretty clever screening mechanisms to pull out who is actually likely to vote, not only voter lists and the like, but everything from questions related to broader general public affairs issues and recent political histor through to local geographical location and socio-economic data.
It’s pretty good all things considering.
Geez, Glen. Of course polls are no guarrantee. If they were why bother with all those damn election thingys.
I’d still rather be 7 points up than behind.
ShowsOn #1109, using (sic) like that is gravely irritating at the best of times – doubly so when you don’t even get it right (”judgement”).
Well it would have to be especially in the USA, not like here though it still amazes me some of the polls we get from Morgan which is way out of kilter. The problem is that in the next few weeks we’ll be bombarded with State polls and it will be difficult to distinguish between the credible and not so. The poll that said McCain was behind in NM said 16 of democrats said they were still yet to make a firm decision on their vote.
Look I am merely pointing out the difficulties in polling in a nation where they have the freedom not to vote.
What about the one JUST before the election last year?
So you use modeling to add them together to try and reduce the margin of error. If you get a whole bunch of polls that say roughly the same thing, then you can feel more confident the result is roughly accurate. Or perhaps they are ALL inaccurate, but that seems to be unlikely if they are by different companies using different methodologies.
So that’s only slightly higher than the national polls.
OK, well that’s a bit banal, not as impressive as your initial statement that implied we can’t trust polls whatsoever.
Everyone knows about fivethirtyeight.com to help with the polls, but there’s also a more complicated snazzy site at Princeton that is worth following as well:
http://election.princeton.edu/
Thanks for the link Possum – you may be mild mannered, but we all know you’re a polling superhero! :=)
woops was meant to be
(so that’d be :=) (sic))!
If anybody can get me to trust polling its you Possum, how could i not trust Princeton!
Finally Possum has admitted what Il have suspected for almost twelve months. He is in the tank for Obama, as is his little mate Nate at 538 and Andy at electoral-vote. And as for “Scott” at electionprojection, what a Benedict Arnold he turned out to be. How can a fundamentalist Christian be reporting Obama ahead 364-174?
In the real world, the Republicans are winning and nothing anyone can say will make me believe any different.
And to think I sent a nice email to Andy and Nate about Possum when they were in cahoots all along!
heh! – there’s something about the words “Princeton” and “polling analysis” that just look damn good in the same sentence – and Sam Wang doesnt dissapoint! At the:
http://election.princeton.edu/for-fellow-geeks/
Everything is available for anyone to reproduce what he’s doing. His EV scores are walking so close to hand in hand with the median values of my Intrade sims it’s not funny. Weird how everyone’s numbers all play out sometimes.
http://www.rove.com/election
Dio -dont take it too hard, when you’re going to take over ze world, nobody is sacred!
Would the ABC or SBS run the election coverage if we dont have foxtel on election day?
Electionprojection has Obama ahead in MO!. He also has Obama up in NV, FL, NC, VA, OH and CO by a small margin. He’s given up on the other states. So all McCain needs to do is flip those seven states and he wins. Easy, hey!
It does make you wonder what the hell McCain was doing in Iowa though. McCain needs to pull out of PA. It’s gone. He’s been down in about 30 polls in a row and he’s down by 9.2% on RCP.
I can remember it being on free to air in 2004, im not sure whether it will be the case this november….
Ohio and Florida dont need much work, they’ve voted Republican in the last 2 elections and NC should be able to be brought back to the fold. Likewise with VA. NV NM and Colorado will be the hard ones.
Dio – I wonder if McCain’s been running on the pre-Obama demographic map? It’s the only way to explain why they pissed Michigan up the wall, didnt take Colorado seriously until it was too late, New Mexico is gone – now PA as well, Iowa to boot. These are big Party blueprint decisions which makes you wonder if it’s not the information itself from the Republican party that’s the problem?
I doubt it. But NBC, CNN, CBS, FOX will probably all be running live streams.
I watched the 2004 election that way, and they were pretty reliable.
Demonstrating how poorly run his campaign is. What about Michigan! He goes there essentially to announce that he and Palin won’t be going back there.
Florida has the 2nd highest rate of home foreclosures in the country (Nevada is first). So I think he is in trouble there. If he can’t win in Ohio then he can’t win at all IMO.
Can you believe that McCain has to try and defend Virgina and North Carolina at this stage? I mean New Mexico has flipped back and forth so that was always going to be a battleground, but Colorado?
Glen – SBS will cover it on free to air. ABC will probably have some sort of coverage.
Anyone know if they’ll dedicate ABC2 to the US Election?
Glen
NM is gone. McCain gave up there a while ago. Iowa and New Mexico are definite losses. McCain can’t lose any of those seven above. I agree that CO and NV are his biggest worry. Lets face it, if he loses NC or VA he’s been annihilated
There still seem to be a few issues financially.
European and Asian markets plunge as bailouts in US, Europe fail to ease financial fears
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081006/as_world_markets.html?.v=7
I read an article saying McCain is taking resources out of Michigan to direct them at Pennsylvania and Minnesota.
Ironically, today Minnesota flipped from toss up to lean Democrat on Pollster.com. Pennsylvania did the same early last week.
It gets worse, fivethirtyeight says Obama is in with a chance in Indiana!
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/on-road-tippecanoe-county-indiana.html
Let’s make angry phone calls demanding it.
The only question is, which network? NBC or CNN would be best I think.
CBS if they dust off Dan Rather to make all those bizarre similes.
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blratherisms.htm
Amigo GG & Ronnie, it looks like i have missed out on a good battle Vs the new mob of Obamabots. Still the same old one hand clapping, nothing has changed. we even have a new Czarina who is sounding more and more like the old one.
I’m sure i watched the coverage free to air in 2004, it must have been ABC or SBS but considering they’ve televised all the debates and the VP debate there is a good chance they’ve gotten the message that people are interested and do want to watch it so we may be lucky come the morning of November 5.
Unfortunately for you, we’re all veterans of Election 07, so we’re not going to leave until election day (although I will, because I will be in the US later this month…
)
Possum
Perhaps they bought all the Hillary=McCain vs Obama stuff. McCain knew he was never going to win Iowa (he opposes the alcohol fuel subsidy), but the caning he’s getting in PA and MI must be sobering.
I think part of his problem is his lack of reach. No-one wants to see him without Palin. He can’t let Palin out of his sight. So he’s essentially halving his reach. Who else can he get to stump for him? Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld etc are all electoral poison. Romney’s heart’s not in it, and Huckabee’s isn’t either. He’s got Rudy and Lieberman.
Evening all – long (long, long, long) time reader of TPB, decided to join up and occasionally add my few cents. Just a quickie – can someone link me to any data on the polling a month prior to the 2004 election? I’ve got a bet to settle with a mate
7 Palin staff to testify in Troopergate probe
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/05/palin.probe/index.html
Hi, welcome!
I hope this helps:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/110548/Gallup-Presidential-Election-TrialHeat-Trends-19362004.aspx
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