The Polling Report [8.3.12]
The big news over the last couple of days since our last polling report was the Pew poll showing a 10 point lead for Obama. Pew is a respected pollster, but this poll is probably an outlier, only because it feels like a 5-6 point race to me, with Obama in the lead. If Obama does win by 10 points, then he is heading for a massive 1984-1972-1964 landslide where he wins 40 states and the Dems retake the House by 30 seats.
Key findings from the Pew poll:
“By a 52% to 37% margin, more voters say they have an unfavorable than favorable view of Romney… Obama’s image remains, by comparison, more positive — 50% offer a favorable assessment of the president, 45% an unfavorable one.”
Not much has changed on the state level, so no map today.
THE NATIONAL POLLS
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT (Gallup Tracking): Obama 47, Romney 45
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT (Pew): Obama 51, Romney 41
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT (Rasmussen Tracking): Romney 46, Obama 44
THE STATE POLLS
CONNECTICUT–PRESIDENT (PPP): Obama 51, Romney 43
NEW JERSEY–PRESIDENT (Fairleigh Dickinson): Obama 49, Romney 36
NORTH CAROLINA–PRESIDENT (Rasmussen): Romney 49, Obama 44
GOVERNOR POLLS
MISSOURI–GOVERNOR (Mason Dixon): Gov. Jay Nixon (D) 48, Dave Spence (R) 39; Nixon 50, Bill Randles (R) 35
SENATOR POLLS
NEW JERSEY–SENATOR (NJ-SEN (Fairleigh Dickinson): Sen. Bob Menendez (D) 45, Joe Kyrillos (R) 33
FLORIDA–SENATOR (CBS/Quinnipiac): Sen. Bill Nelson (D) 47, Connie Mack IV (R) 40
FLORIDA–SENATOR (PPP): Sen. Bill Nelson (D) 45, Connie Mack IV (R) 43; Nelson 45, Mike McCallister (R) 40; Nelson 46, Dave Weldon (R) 39
MICHIGAN–SENATOR (Foster McCollum White/Baydoun): Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) 53, Pete Hoekstra (R) 43; Stabenow 51, Clark Durant (R) 43
MISSOURI–SENATOR (Rasmussen): John Brunner (R) 49, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) 43; Sarah Steelman (R) 49, McCaskill 43; Todd Akin (R) 47, McCaskill 44
MISSOURI–SENATOR–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY (Internal poll, as reported by Dave Catanese): John Brunner 29, Todd Akin 27, Sarah Steelman 25
OHIO–SENATOR (CBS/Quinnipiac): Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) 51, Josh Mandel (R) 39
PENNSYLVANIA–SENATOR (CBS/Quinnipiac): Sen. Bob Casey (D) 55, Tom Smith (R) 37
WISCONSIN–SENATOR–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY (PPP): Eric Hovde 28, Mark Neumann 25, Tommy Thompson 25, Jeff Fitzgerald 13
DD
An observations and two questions:
1. Agree on the Pew poll, and it is completely expectable that with the number of polls being conducted something has to come back as an outlier–that’s what margins of error are for.
2. Are you seeing anything on the NC governor’s race?
3. Do you have any idea when or if anybody will actually poll Delaware vis a vis governor, senator, congressman? Who usually does poll DE if anybody?
I think the tracking polls are correct. This is an even race. Pew is good for trends, but they are lousy at election margins this far out. You see Pew is not an elections polling firm. They don’t poll likely voters in fact 20% of their sample where not even registered to vote. Their sample had more independents by almost 20% than Republicans and 70% more Democrats. They also oversampled minorities though they tried to adjust for that. They had more unregistered voters than Republicans. It is lucky for Romney that he was only 10 points behind and 4 in the battleground states with that sample. Romney pulled 93% of Republicans so if more Republicans were part of the sample, you would get numbers more like Gallup and Rasmussen. I just hope the Democrats believe they are 10 points up.
Steve this is beyond even the margin of error. Ras and Gallup are the same poll result with the margin of error. This is an outlier because it doesn’t even poll voters, it polls adults 20% of whom aren’t voters.
2. Are you seeing anything on the NC governor’s race?
On the TPM Poll Tracker, the most recent Gubernatorial poll is from early July, and it had the Republican candidate McCrory leading Lt. Governor Dalton (D) 43% to 36%. In late June, Marist had it at McCrory 43%, Dalton 41%. So it looks like a close undecided race, but I would think it leans Republican.
3. Do you have any idea when or if anybody will actually poll Delaware vis a vis governor, senator, congressman? Who usually does poll DE if anybody?
Well, I do know that the Del Dems poll the state as part of the coordinated campaign, but it is unlikely that those results will be released as they are used as part of the campaign. I expect that Delaware will be polled by the campaigns themselves at least once. As for polling organizations reporting results to the media… I don’t know. It depends what leaks from the internal polls. If internal polls get leaked showing close races, then other polling firms will jump in.
If we hear nothing at all then that means the Dems are romping.
I guess we got spoiled in 2010 during O’Donnell-mania.
We aren’t 10 points up, David, but it is also not a tied race. Like I said, it is a 5-6 point race in Obama’s favor, which is, by the way, the same margin that he won by in 2008.
The tracking polls don’t show it, but I am okay that you believe it. I won’t try to convince you otherwise.
I think the national establishment has written the Delaware races off for the Dems, they aren’t even polling it. I agree with you that sometime around September the state parties and campaigns will conduct their own polls.
If they did at this point before the campaigns fully engage each other, I would be shocked if the Dems did not have 10 to 15 point lead minimum in all three major races. That can close quickly, but if the election were held today, Democrats win 4 statewide offices–one is not even settled yet– hold the senate but lose a couple, hold the house with about the same margin and the county balances stay within about one seat– the Deaver seat is a toss up and the the Sweeney seat is as well in Kent.
And if those internal polls show close races, they will be leaked by the campaigns or state parties for publicity and fundraising purposes, and that will cause polling outfits to poll.
But if we hear nothing… then it is probably a Dem blowout.
Last round, the PPP group did one or two polls in DE, but they cycle through most of the states sort of randomly, unless there is a hot contest.
Yeah, but we had a witch on the ballot. I don’t think PPP will waste money polling Delaware this time unless leaked internals show a close race on the top lines.