BluePhantom
Educator (of liberals)
If they are accurate Obama is fucked, yes. However, and remember I am a Romney supporter here, there are reasons to be cautious. Gallup uses a 7 day rolling average for their daily numbers. That means the R+7 they released on the 18th was the average for their daily polls from the 10th-17th. That caught the tail end of the Romney surge after the first debate, factored in the VP debate, but the effects of the debate on Tuesday are basically unknown because there has only been one day of polling worked into the average.
Rasmussen uses a three day rolling average so significant events, like the debates, are easier to recognize in their trends. For example, before Tuesday's debate Rasmussen has Obama +1. Now it's Romney +2. That means that their poll on Sunday was pretty favorable toward Obama and it has now dropped off their average, and the poll on Wednesday (after the debate and replacing the Sunday poll) was avorbale toward Romney. We can theorize that undecided voters broke for Romney after Tuesday's debate (despite the media suggestion that Obama won the debate) but we really won't know for sure until Saturday's Rasmussen poll when we can compare it to the Obama +1 on Tuesday before the debate.
Gallup takes longer because they use a 7 day average and that makes it a little tough because things are happening faster now and significant events are less than a week apart so with Gallup we don't really get a full appraisal of the bumps that result from each event like we do with Rasmussen.
What is at issue here are the undecided voters. Now listen up Chris because I am about to tell you something Silver won't and is desperately hoping you will ignore. Guys like myself, Chris, CG, TM....we are all irrelevant right now. We have made up our minds and our votes are secured for one or the other candidate. Who we think won this debate or that debate doesn't mean shit. What is important is what undecided voters think and right now they are looking at the debates.
It was said in the media that debates don't matter. I said in my polling analysis thread "bullshit" they matter a ton and this year they matter most of all. The data suggests I was proven correct because of the numbers of people who have watched the debates and the poll swings after them (did Silver project that Chris? I did).
The reason why it's important is that historically the majority of undecided voters will break for the challenger. It's roughly about 60%. The reason why that happens is because undecided voters are those who havent been paying a whole lot of attention up until now. They are just getting into it and figuring out their vote. But they KNOW the incumbent...up until now they haen't known the challenger because they haven't been paying attention. Voters right now are unhappy with what has been going on. That is obvious with polling data on job approval and critical issues. But those critical undecided don't know who Romney is and what he is about. Through the debates they are figuring that out.
So up until now those undecided voters have leaned toward Obama because they didn't know Romney. As they get to know Romney through the debates they feel more comfortable with him as an alternative to Obama and as a result the majority of undecided voters are breaking for Romney. I said this would happen months ago (and yet again Chris....I was right on the nose).
So let's look at a state like Ohio which will pretty much decide this election at this point. The RCP average is Obama +2.4. Oh...well let's get rid of some crap first. PPP is run by the Democratic party and for months theyhave been showing a house bias of roughly 4-5 points in Obama's favor against the national average. Not surprising because it's the Democrats doing the polling. Let's get rid of them. Marist. They are not run by the DNC like PPP is but they show the same bias. Scroll down the Ohio page on RCP and you will see that every Marist poll favors Obama WAY more then any poll taken at the same time. Toss them out. CNN poll....media poll...media polls suck. They are not professional pollsters. Media polls are embarrisingly innaccurate and that's true whether it's a CNN, MSNBC, or Fox poll. If it's media, it's shit. Ignore it. That leaves Rasmussen, SUSA, Gravis, and ARG. Well if you average all those out what you get is Obama 46.5%, Romney 46%. Obama +0.5% and the trend favors Romney. But let's just take it where it is for now. a) 0.5% is a statistical tie. Silver can throw all the BS statistics at you that he wants, but in the end it's a fucking tie and could go either way. What's important is to recognize that according to that 7.5% are undecided or prefer another candidate.
Ok third party candidates will take about 1.5% of that. That lowers it to 6% undecided. About 60% will break on election day for the challenger. That's 4% to Romney and 2% to Obama with a final tally of Romney 50%, Obama 48.5% (or roughly thereabouts). In the end, Romney takes Ohio.
Now that is stuff Silver won't tell you and he won't because he wants jackoffs like Chris to get a bandwagon effect going and get everyone on "the winning team" and in doing so sway the election. But it won't work because only jackoffs like Chris pay attention to Silver anyhow and the ones who decide the election don't even know who the fuck he is.
Now could all that change? Sure. If Obama crushes Romney next Monday it could change. If the results from Tuesdays debate start showing a big Obama swing it could change (thus far they have shown the opposite). But despite Chris' grand argument that "Romney won't take Ohio" based apparently on his opinion and absolutely nothing else but Silver the propagandist, all signs point to Romney taking Ohio....and I called it months ago.
Give it a rest.
