Rasmussen has a new poll out in Ohio where they show John McCain with what they headline as a "modest lead". Actually, McCain's lead is 6 points, and 10 including leaners, which I would probably describe as a little bit more than modest. This comes on the heels of a PPP poll released just yesterday that had shown Obama with a not-so-modest lead of 8 points.
So, what the hell is going on here? Is this the party identification issue again -- PPP tending to identify more Democrats in its sample than Rasmussen?
Only up to a point. Neither pollster lists their party ID figures explicitly, but from what best I can tell, Rasmussen has the numbers at about 36/43/21 (Republican/Democrat/Independent) and PPP at 32/44/24. The party ID advantage accounts for about 4 points' worth of difference. For instance, if you took PPP's internals and weighted them as Rasmussen does by Rasmussen's party ID numbers, Obama would hold a 4-point lead rather than 8. That's still pretty significantly different from McCain leading by 10 points.
What else accounts for the differences between the two polls? Rasmussen initially permits one to select a third-party candidate -- and 7 percent of voters do -- whereas PPP does not. But then they push voters who have picked a third-party candidate toward one of the major-party candidate with a standard "who are you leaning toward?" question -- and most of those leaners wind up with McCain. So it's possible that you have a number of fairly conservative voters who are dissatisfied with John McCain and are flirting with the idea of voting for Bob Barr -- but will gravitate back toward McCain in the end.
The polls were also conducted at different times; all of Rasmussen's interviews were conducted Monday whereas PPP's were conducted Thursday through Sunday. The conventional wisdom has been -- and frankly, my assumption has been -- that Obama would get a little bit of a bounce out of his Iraq trip. This would directly contradict that, although I think we'll need to see quite a bit more evidence before we can reach a firm conclusion.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Dueling Ohio Polls
-- Nate Silver at 12:11 PM
Labels: ohio, party identification, rasmussen
145 comments
rasmussen is incorrect period.There is no way McCain could be 10 points in Ohio
The "Gas Ad' addressing domestic concerns vs. Obama doing a foreign trip shows how politics is really shaping up this year.
It is about the economy and that's it. McCain's ad is one of the best I have ever seen and he is plastering Ohio, PA, N.H. and other swing states with great affect. When they look back at this time in the campaign Obama's overseas trip will be viewed as a mistake. A Big One
I don't think anything as simple as an ad can "shift" opinion that much. But it may be that with McCain sticking to economic policy messages while Obama has been stick to foreign policy messages (no matter how convincing either one is) over the past two weeks, it's "advantage McCain" -- at least until Obama returns and moves back to the central economic issues.
Further, while I would rule out "thumb on the scale" bias by the pollster(s), we still have to keep sampling error into account -- even if party ID were used to weight or adjust the results.
As someone that grew up in great state of Ohio..The Dems need to hammer home that McCain voted for NAFTA and they should be able to "turn out the lights..the party's over..."
Anon: not only did McCain vote for NAFTA but he's still touting the free trade mantra.
I am highly skeptical of any poll in which all the interviews are conducted in one day as this Rasmussen was. That's a easy was to get funky sample even if they do weight it appropriately.
Does that mean it's definitely wrong? - not necessarily. But it should be take with a grain of salt until other polls can confirm or refute that kind shift.
Something tells me an ad (the "Gas Ad") released less than 24 hours ago isn't responsible for an 18 point swing in Ohio in one day but that's just me.
What this election is showing is that the pollsters have no idea how to model this election. One's results depend entirely on methodology. McCain up 10 in Ohio, but only up 5 in AK and 11 in Georgia. I think both sides of the aisle can agree that if McCain wins OH by 10 he will certainly win GA by more than that.
I live in Ohio and you must realize:
1. People want to drill for more oil.
2. Hillary was popular here.
3. People do not trust Obama.
If you guys were smart and picked Hillary, you guys would've won this state by 10 points. But you picked Obama, and made this race a barn burner!
Here's my take from my Conservative Youngstown, OH blog, recently noted in the Toledo Free Press!!!
McCain Opens up a Lead in Ohio
Regarding one-day polls, I agree with the previous pollster: If you're doing an "overnight poll," or any other poll in which there no callbacks, you are very much at the mercy of who may be home right then and there. For one thing, there's a big chance that the poll is skewed toward older people and toward "stay at home" people.
I too think the overseas trip has been a big loser for Obama. Even my Dem coleagues talk about how cocky he is winning 80% of the vote in Germany and England. Iraq says what we all knew, things are improving and its probably time to pull back. Maliki endorsed Obama and that does not sit well with a lot of people, especially since he was somewhat saying the opposite a couple months ago. Foreigners meddling in American politics is a bad sign for a candidate. That Obama can win in France and Germany can and probably will cost him votes here at home. These socialist nations backed Kerry in much the same way, although with less fanfair and his American ratings went down.
The real answer probably lies somewhere between the PPP and Ras poll. Until another outfit like Qpac releases a poll, we won't know which one was the outlier.
Also the Gallup tracking poll +6 to Obama was an outlier, back to +3 today, where it has been pretty consistently. I just wish Obama would keep campaigning for the Iraqi vote. His leads will keep crumbling.
I hope McCain keeps up the "Gas AD" as it clearly displays McCain incompetence and flip flopping on economic issues. Americans know that drilling will accomplish nothing for years. McCain himself said this before flip flopping.
Voters did not trust McCain as his policies are driven by Big Oil who gives him big checks.
People do not trust McCain.
I think it's a little presumptuous to say Obama going abroad was a mistake. Even if it does cost him in the polls now, it's only July and come November and will surely alleviate some concerns among voters.
Higgly, I think you're reading things too broadly. I argued that in the short term (the past two weeks), McCain has basically been on an economic message while Obama has been on a foreign policy message. And that can have short term effects on the polling.
But that's far from arguing that it's a mistake for Obama to make this trip, especially in light of how this has unfolded. It's a long campaign, and Obama had no real choice but to make this trip, and to make the most of it. It's could seriously undercut the foreign policy leadership differential that had favored McCain.
But the campaign is going to turn to domestic issues: health care, tax policy, and trade. And on those issues, it's hard to argue that McCain's record will favor him with most voters. So the GOP will again try to turn the discussion to off-axis issues: "values" as they try to define them.
As a die-hard 'Pub, this is encouraging news. But, I don't believe it, just like I don't believe PPP's poll either. I like Rasmussen, and I think he is a good pollster. I usually consider his numbers 2-4 percent tilted to the the GOP, and maybe 4-6 points if Obama motivates the morons. Ohio is a humiliating place ... I lived in suburban Columbus for 20 years. I think suburban Ohio is really, really up for grabs, but is slowly meandering Democratic. I KNOW the conservative base there is pretty unhappy with McCain. I hear it every Sunday from my folks. In the end, I do think they will come home to McCain, but this does *NOT* mean the state is leaning Republican. As I have said time and again, this is a state where you make your own destiny, rather than poll your own destiny.
For other posters: @ Jack, you are correct. Anon @ 12:27, you are correct. Anon @ 12:18, you are correct.
What's with all the concern trolls on this site lately?
I would discount the PPP poll, because it is a Dem. poll. They have no incentive to release all polls, but Rasmussen does. We can't know if the PPP poll is an outlier because they won't release other polls of Ohio that look bad for Obama. Rasmussen, though, we can assess as an outlier or not, as Rasmussen will presumably poll Ohio again in the future. I trust Rasmussen much more than any party-based poll (same goes for R-polls as well, not just D-polls).
When I used to work on campaigns, we would release internal polls showing positives for our candidate if we knew an objective poll would be coming out soon with bad news. It was preemptory. This could be the case here.
On the gas ad:
It's an unbelievable ad. It blames Obama for high gas prices, without giving any evidence of things he's done to raise gas prices. It's the whole "repeat it enough times" sort. People need to get the message that off-shore drilling isn't going to do anything to the