ELECTIONATE OCTOBER 6, 2012
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After hesitating yesterday, the Gallup and Rasmussen trackers both lurched in Romney’s direction, with Romney taking a 2 point lead in Rasmussen and closing to within 3 points in Gallup.
The movement in Gallup, Rasmussen, the We Ask America polls, and Reuters/Ipsos are all consistent with a four-point movement in Romney’s direction. If confirmed, the race could be a dead heat. Additionally, a Clarus Research Group survey showed Obama leading by 4 in a one-day sample prior to the DNC but found Romney leading by 1 on Thursday.
If confirmed by other pollsters, a 3.7 point shift would be enough to inaugurate a whole new ballgame, but additional time and confirmation from other pollsters is necessary before confidentially judging the size of Romney’s bounce. The national trackers still include pre-debate interviews in their samples and if Romney maintains his gains, then his advantage might grow over coming days, especially in the Gallup tracking poll.
But judging movement is difficult with such a small number of relatively unrepresentative pollsters. Since the DNC, Gallup and Rasmussen have both produced samples showing Romney tied or leading. In those instances, the other pollsters did not confirm their movement and Gallup and Rasmussen eventually moved back into alignment with the broader consensus of polls.
It is important to consider Gallup and Rasmussen's longer-term averages. While Obama led by 2 points in Rasmussen and 4 points in Gallup immediately prior to the debates, both tallies were above Obama’s longer term lead of .6 in Rasmussen and 3.2 in Gallup in post-DNC samples. Similarly, Rasmussen found movement in Florida and Virginia, which were Rasmussen’s two best state polls for Obama last month, but not Ohio, where Obama’s September result was more typical.
And short samples immediately following the debates might exaggerate Romney’s peak, much in the same way that Obama appeared to lead by 7 or more points in the initial post-DNC samples. This could be especially true for automated pollsters with low response rates conducting one-day samples without callbacks, and you might notice that many of the polls showing decisive movement in Romney's direction fit into this category. Whatever the merits of WAA, Gallup, Rasmussen, and Reuters/Ipsos, they are not representative of the broader slate of polling firms that regularly survey the presidential race. There is no guarantee that the other pollsters show Romney making similar gains.
So what’s the big picture? It is quite clear that Romney is making gains and if a more diverse set of pollsters confirm movement of this magnitude in Romney's direction, then the race would be a dead-heat. But although today’s polls are consistent with a 3 or 4-point movement, they are quite insufficient to prove a 4-point shift in Romney’s direction. As was the case yesterday, we’ll have to wait until at least Monday or Tuesday, when the broader universe of live-interview pollsters conducting multi-day samples start to weigh-in.
9 comments
NUTS how can people be taken in by blustering and lies.
- Sophia
October 6, 2012 at 8:04pm
That's how it's always been, Sophia. To a large extent, presidential politics is optics and perceived performance. Romney delivered a good performance and looked presidential doing it. He wore a flaming red tie, which, coupled with the clear and direct speech pattern that he employed that night, made him dominant. Obama seemed to struggle searching for words in his professorial stop-and-go, long-winded talking style, looking down and fatigued. Next to Romney, he looked like a shrinking wall flower, a friend remarked to me. Yeah, substance do matter, but Obama had little of that, too. You say Romney was all bluster and lies. Well, Obama was standing right there, so, why didn't he call Romney on it? Noticed how Romney kept jabbing him relentlessly on the $700 billion medicare "cuts"? The president stood there and said nothing, even though the so-called cuts were savings that shored up the program. If he doesn't explain the savings in front of 60 million viewers (a viewership number he may never get again), who would? I was practically bouncing off the walls, yelling at my television. My neighborhood is a Romney stronghold, his flyers, signs and stickers everywhere. These people were worried and depressed for about a month now. The morning after the debates, you could see them all fired up, and more volunteers canvassing for Romney. But we'll see how the next round goes. I admit that I'm the one on the verge of depression now.
- scrubby
October 6, 2012 at 10:08pm
Did it hurt that Obama's debate prep opponent was John Kerry? Honestly, I cannot imagine Kerry having the imagination to foresee that Romney would break and then make the rules of this debate, and then lie about his past record and promises. I may be reaching here, but when I go into courtrooms to try cases I am giddy when I find out my opponent is an Ivy League law school grad: 9 out of ten of them walk in expecting Marquess of Queensbury rules and are surprised when their opponent pulls out a knife and the judge says nothing. (I know Romney is one too, but he also has an MBA and spent his professional career looking for ways to stretch laws and break ethical rules in order to make a buck. Talking out of both sides of one's mouth is a necessary skill for those guys.) I hope this time Obama preps with some junkyard dog who graduated from a "third tier" law school, got banged around in local electoral politics, and maybe tried a few serious criminal or personal injury cases on one side or the other so Obama can get used to kicking back the next time Romney's wing tips kick him in the. . . .
- SFergessen
October 7, 2012 at 8:42am
Reagan and Romney are very different, but Romney accomplished what Reagan accomplished in debates: he passed the presidential test. I'm not surprised by Romney's performance; and I'm not surprised by Obama's performance. As I've commented many times, a dead Democrat could have won in 2008, the Republicans having made such a mess of things. Sure, Obama outperformed McCain in the 2008 debates. But jeepers, his opponent was McCain: a dead Republican against a dead Democrat would have been a fair fight but McCain would have lost anyway. In 2009, TNR's contributors wondered whether the Republican Party would survive, they were so unpopular. Well, survive they did, routing the Democrats in 2010. How did that happen, a political party barely alive and then, a year later, in control of the House (and Democrats on the run in the Senate). Again, I have commented many times that Obama did not run as a crisis candidate and has not governed as a crisis president. FDR he is not. His timid response to Wall Street accomplished what? His passive role in the health care debate accomplished what? In the case of Wall Street, he lost the respect of Wall Street while simultaneously losing the upper hand in the politics of Main Street vs. Wall Street. In the case of HCR, he grudgingly accepted the mandate (which he opposed throughout the 2008 campaign) but then was blamed for the mandate. Obama is indeed the Invisible Man: he is whatever his supporters or opponents want him to be. Me, I'd have preferred a crisis candidate who would have jettisoned his entire economic team in 2008 after the financial collapse and replaced them with a much more progressive team, and a crisis president who would have broken up the big banks. What we got was Obama. And banks that continued to process checks and honor withdrawals. And an economy that avoided a deflationary death spiral. For that, I'm thankful, and Obama deserves to be re-elected. But don't expect a crisis candidate, or a crisis president.
- rayward
October 7, 2012 at 1:06pm
It's puzzling and even more so when one reads that Obama was not initially aware that he had come across so badly but realized it with a shock when he looked at the re-run a little while later. In any case, I hope it was a salutary experience for the president. This thing is too important to imagine it's just coasting from now until Nov 6.
- ironyroad
October 7, 2012 at 3:42pm
I'm with Fergessen all the way. Barry blew it. And the polls don't surprise me. He looked incompetent--and as a debater, he was. BHO is a great orator, but a lousy communicator. An orator stirs the soul, a communicator explains policy. He has always been a failure at the later, from ACA, to Wall Street reform, to the stimulus. And no, it's not too hard. But apparently it is for him.
- Vogelfam
October 7, 2012 at 9:10pm
CALM DOWN everyone. Ray: you've talked about the "crisis" president thingy several times here, and now Romney passing the test of looking presidential ... Two points. First, I don't really like Clinton - either of them - but in one thing I have to agree with Bill: no one could have tamed this one, and so talk about a different sort of president or candidate is just plain silly. No one has or had dealt with this scale of financial melt-down - history books are no help when you have AIG with some $62 trillion in outstanding credit swaps. And the real numbers were not known until at least a year later. No president in the twentieth century, on top of everything, has had to deal with the level of hostility and outright destructive behaviour on the part of Congress. What you needed in 2009 was a level head, a steady hand and a calm demeanour. And that's what you got. Is it possible that someone other than Volcker and Summers and Rohmer and Geitner would have tackled this better? I am not at all certain. You got someone else? Second, as for Romney - well, what he looked like was someone who spoke very well, who simply denied everything he had said and every position he had taken. He did so forcefully. I think the debating strategy was to let Romney be Romney and to make him look like a bully blow-hard. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it is entirely possible that Obama overdid the passive thing. Romney is now essentially getting the bounce that he should have got from the Convention, but did not. There are two more debates - if debates really count at the end of the day - one of which is on foreign policy. And, frankly, I doubt if Obama will be caught unaware again.
- icarus-r
October 7, 2012 at 9:35pm
And it's already begun - this, from his side of the aisle:
Sorry for the multiple posts - just finished reading Sullivan and seeing the numbers ... he's having a meltdown - Sullivan, I mean, not Obama - because Obama appears to be having a meltdown in Florida and Ohio ... And the Axelrod comes out and says "Obama wanted to have a discussion about policy" and was unprepared for Romney lying. Or some nonsense like that. Well. Look, I concede that it is possible that 1) Obama had a bad day; 2) he is just a bad debater; 3) he does not want to be President any more; 4) he is an awful communicator; and 5) Romney is a superlative debater and just walloped Obama. Possible. But, frankly, unlikely. I read about how awful he was and I see the numbers, and I have to remind myself that these can`t be wrong - and that it is entirely possible that I am suffering from cognitive dissonance in dismissing all this information. And yet. And yet. All of this is not consistent with the character of the man. I remind myself of this timeless clip: "Facts, Hercules, facts. Nothing matters but the facts." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KsVu11CSrQ The facts, lined up, all tend to one "inescapable conclusion" - but Clouseau in all his clumsiness ends up being right. And here, the character of the man Obama tends to a different conclusion than what appears to be the consensus "inescapable conclusion". In the Osama episode, he waited. He wanted evidence. When they had reasonable certainty, he was given two options - to simplify - and he chose the riskier option that was also the more certain one. Even as the plan was unfolding, he attended a roast and, for heaven's sake, put down Trump and ended the whole birther nonsense. His entire presidency hangs in the balance and the man betrays no fatigue, no distraction, nothing. Look at Bain. The punditocracy said that the Bain attacks would backfire. He went ahead and persisted. And so on. This is not a man who goes into a debate expecting to have a policy discussion. He is not a man who gets distracted by Syria and Turkey. And, as he knows - as we all know - bounces and debate victories early October could fade. I am also reminded of this clip, from Lion in Winter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxZdTLa4CWA Start with minute 1; the punchline comes at minute 3: "I found out the way your mind works and the kind of man you are." Not just that, but in front of 50 million people he got Romney to contradict everything he had said from taxes to the ACA - to his Etch-A-Sketch on national TV in the course of 90 minutes. Not a mean feat that. After Ryan's speech, and given that Romney has been lying his heart out the entire campaign, I cannot believe that either Obama or Axelrod were shocked at how easily the man lied during the debate. Now he will be going into the next debate with a bounce in his gate. He will be responding to the questions of ordinary citizens. And at that point, expect the contradictions to come back and to haunt him. And expect Obama to finish him off - without any time left to recover.
- icarus-r
October 7, 2012 at 11:13pm