ELECTIONATE OCTOBER 13, 2012
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After a week of swing state polls going Obama’s way, Romney finally added a wave of strong showings in the battleground states while preserving his lead in the national polls.
This is probably Romney’s best polling day of this election. Not only did he hold leads in the battleground state polls but Romney made relatively large gains compared to pre-DNC surveys. And the North Carolina poll where Obama led was partially conducted prior to the debate and Romney led by 6 points in the post-debate sample. Romney even led a poll in Nevada, the first he’s led since the onset of the general election campaign. The national tracking polls didn’t point toward any additional gains for Romney, but that’s hardly good news for the president, who largely trails in the national polls.
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Not all of today’s polls were of the highest caliber, as many Democrats were inclined to remind me on twitter. Certainly, Obama would rather be down in Rasmussen and ARG than CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac, but this argument implies that Obama is faring pretty well in the “good polls” and there isn’t an especially clear “good” versus “bad” poll dynamic, at least not yet. Romney made big gains in Pew Research and Fox News, two solid live interview surveys that call cell phone voters and previously pointed toward a modest or even large Obama lead before the debate. At the state level, the argument is somewhat better with Seltzer, CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac, CNN, and NBC/Marist polls showing Obama with a slight edge in the battlegrounds, but these data aren’t so overwhelmingly positive for the president as to outweigh Pew, Gallup, and Fox, let alone when coupled with SurveyUSA. Perhaps future polls will divide along perceived qualitative lines, but right now the evidence is not especially clear.
The silver lining for Obama supporters? So far, it's just one day of polls showing Romney ahead in the battlegrounds and recent polls from NBC/WSJ/Marist or CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac are hardly outdated. And maybe the best news for the president was by omission: pollsters didn't decide to survey Ohio, Iowa, or Wisconsin; three states sufficient to reelect the president where Obama has led in most post-debate polls. If polls will soon show Romney ahead in those states, they weren't published today.
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4 comments
I ain't sweating. I always thought it'd be Obama by a nose, and while I was pleasantly surprised by the strong polling for Obama after the DNC, the current numbers are more like what I'd expected to see this year. I suspect what's happened is that there was a cadre of Republican-leaners totaling about 3% of the electorate who wanted a reason to vote for someone other than Obama but who, up until the first debate, were still iffy on Romney. Romney's roped those folks in, but I reckon that's his ceiling. And to tell you the truth, I doubt Obama's poor debate performance had much to do with it. It's Romney's strong performance that sold voters on him. Where Obama's debate performances both past and future can make a difference is on Democratic turnout. Turnout is the name of the game, and that's why Biden's performance was exactly showy and disdainful as it needed to be and why Obama better take a crash course on Biden debating style before debates two and three: the debates first and foremost are to get Obama voters fired up and ready to go out and vote for the man. If he can bring the fight--as I believe he will--he'll get reelected by a whisker.
- AaronW
October 13, 2012 at 7:34am
It's a lot closer than I imagined, and too close for comfort. Romney is the empty suit's empty suit, there is no "there" there. The fact that he's making this election competitive is worrisome, at best. Obama may have cost himself the election by letting Romney give the undecided voters such a good performance at the debate. I definitely agree with AaronW that the value in the remaining debates is to have a chance to fire up the base and get the turnout he needs to pull it off in November.
- GSpinks
October 13, 2012 at 10:50am
Aaron, I wish I could have your optimism. Frankly I am dismayed that a cretin like Romney, especially after his 47% remarks, could possibly be in the lead in any poll anywhere. Americans are truly dumb mothereffers. And on a more depressing note in Pa. where I live I see a lot more Romney signs than I see Obama ones (in fact, I have seen none anywhere).
- blackton
October 14, 2012 at 1:06pm
I dunno, blackton. This weekend I was reading Michael Kelly's Vanity Fair profile of Obama, and it occured to me that Obama is a really, really bad politician. He's a good writer, and that's what has saved him heretofore, but when it comes to off-the-cuff verbal communication, the shuck-and-jive salesmanship that is the essence of politics, Obama is a serious dud. I still think he's going to win, but I don't blame the closeness of the vote on Americans' stupidity. As lousy a pol as BHO is, he should feel lucky that he's even in with a chance.
- AaronW
October 15, 2012 at 1:06am