The Polling Report [8.24.12]

There was a lot of polling information this week, and there is more below, although today, it doesn’t change any state from red to blue or vice versa. This morning, I decided to focus on some internals of recent polls, and some forecast models. First, Charlie Cook said yesterday that, with the unemployment rate at 8% and with two thirds of the country thinking we are going in the wrong direction, then how in the hell is President Obama winning this election?

There is quite an easy answer, and I will let fellow GW alumn John Sides explain:

First, the economic news—although suggesting a slowdown in growth—isn’t dramatic enough to change the underlying fundamentals. Moreover, ….the resulting balance of economic indicators is favorable for Obama, though not strongly so. This is, in part, why the forecasting model that Lynn Vavreck, Seth Hill, and I helped develop for Wonkblog, suggested Obama would win. Lynn and I reach the same conclusion with a elaborated forecasting exercise in “The Hand You’re Dealt.” This is, in part, why forecasts that build in economic indicators—as at 538 and Votamatic—suggest the same. And yet people still think Obama should be losing because of the economy. That is simply not the case. The state of the economy does not guarantee him victory but neither does it presage defeat.

Second, partisan loyalties are strong. A lot of votes are just locked in. This is true in every election—and therefore hardly a novel observation—but it seems to be especially true now. […] In “The Hand You’re Dealt,” Lynn and I talk about how party loyalty in presidential approval ratings may be helping to keep Obama’s numbers aloft:

Although commentators have often been quick to compare Obama to Carter, one key difference between them is how much more Democrats supported Obama than they did Carter. When Carter’s approval was at its nadir in the fall of 1979, barely one-third of Democrats approved of the job he was doing (compared to about 20% of Republicans), according to Gallup polls. Even Bill Clinton, now seemingly beloved by Democrats, was less popular among Democrats—63% of whom approved of him in June 1993—than was Obama in his first term. In fact, averaging over each Democratic president’s first three years in office, Obama was more popular with Democratic voters than every one of them except John F. Kennedy—and even Kennedy’s average approval among Democrats was only 4 points higher than Obama’s. Obama was actually as popular among Democrats during these years as was Reagan among Republicans in 1981–83.

The chapter ends with the requisite note of caution: the fundamentals do not tilt strongly enough toward Obama to make the outcome a foregone conclusion. But if we start with those fundamentals and, most importantly, get them right, we can go some distance in explaining why Obama’s lead persists and why it’s still his election to lose.

This election is not a referendum, and if it was, while the right track/wrong track numbers are bad, they are balanced out by other economic indicators that are favorable, so much so that forcasting models still favor Obama. But this is not a referendum. This is not Carter 1980 or Bush 1992. It is not Hoover 1928. It is a choice election, as confirmed by Romney himself in his choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate.

And this being a choice election, it is easy to see why Obama is winning. On a personal level, the public likes Obama. A lot. And they hate Romney. A lot. A new USA Today/Gallup shows that President Obama retains a significant edge over Mitt Romney on likability, 54% to 31%. I think the likability factor explains why voters, when answering in a way in the latest AP poll that leads to a one point Obama lead, believe Obama is going to win by a margin 58%-32%.

On a policy level, they like his policies. A lot. The new polling from Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News yestereday in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin show that Medicare has become one of the three key issues in this election, and President Obama has a strong advantage there. In all three states, nearly two thirds of the voters want to keep Medicare as is, and they reject the Romney-Ryan Voucher system entirely. Three quarters of the voters, in all three states, think Medicare is worth the cost. And 50% of the voters think President Obama will do a better job on Medicare.

Here’s the new Map, showing Missouri becoming a Strong Romney state, which is the only change from yesterday.

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT (Fox News): Romney 45, Obama 44
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT (Gallup Tracking): Obama 46, Romney 46
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT (LA Times/USC): Obama 48, Romney 45
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT (Rasmussen Tracking): Obama 45, Romney 45
CONNECTICUT–PRESIDENT (Rasmussen): Obama 51, Romney 43
MICHIGAN–PRESIDENT (Glengariff Group for local media): Obama 48, Romney 42
MISSOURI–PRESIDENT (PPP): Romney 52, Obama 42
PENNSYLVANIA–PRESIDENT (Muhlenberg College/Allentown Morning Call): Obama 49, Romney 40

FLORIDA–SENATOR (Quinnipiac/CBS News): Sen. Bill Nelson (D) 50, Connie Mack IV (R) 41
MICHIGAN–SENATOR (Glengariff Group for local media): Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) 48, Pete Hoekstra (R) 40
MISSOURI–SENATOR (Rasmussen): Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) 48, Todd Akin (R) 38
NEVADA–SENATOR (SurveyUSA): Sen. Dean Heller (R) 44, Shelley Berkley (D) 39
NEW MEXICO–SENATOR (Rasmussen): Martin Heinrich (D) 48, Heather Wilson (R) 41
OHIO–SENATOR (Quinnipiac/CBS News): Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) 48, Josh Mandel (R) 41
VIRGINIA–SENATOR (PPP): Tim Kaine (D) 46, George Allen (R) 46
WISCONSIN-SENATOR (Quinnipiac/CBS News): Tommy Thompson (R) 50, Tammy Baldwin (D) 44

MISSOURI–GOVERNOR (PPP): Gov. Jay Nixon (D) 46, Dave Spence (R) 37