Anthony Dalke @ Race 4 2012:
For those who haven’t seen it, Politico released an article that provided plenty of causes for optimism for Republicans.
Some key excerpts:
We took a special look at middle-class voters, and middle-class families in particular, in this latest POLITICO-George Washington University Battleground Poll and found that [the belief that Romney has a weakness with middle-class support] not to be the case. In fact, on every measure it is Romney who is winning the battle for the support of middle-class families.
Overall, Obama leads Romney by just 3 points on the ballot (50 percent to 47 percent) – which before we rounded up, is actually a 2.6 point lead and only up a half-a-percentage point from the 2.1 point lead for Obama in our last Battleground poll in early August. In our latest POLITICO-George Washington University Battleground Poll with middle-class families, which comprise about 54 percent of the total American electorate and usually split in their vote behavior between Republicans and Democrats, Romney holds a 14-point advantage (55 percent to 41 percent).
…All of this data make clear that Romney has won the strong support of middle-class families and is leading the president on an overwhelming majority of key measurements beyond just the ballot. In fact, when respondents were asked who, Obama or Romney, would best handle a variety of issues, Romney led on all but one including the economy (+9 percent), foreign policy (+3 percent), spending (+15 percent), taxes (+7 percent), Medicare (+2 percent), and jobs (+10 percent). Ironically, the one measurement Obama led Romney on was “standing up for the middle class” (+8 Obama), reinforcing that often the Democrats win the message war with the middle class, but not their hearts and souls.
…Even with the past few weeks containing some of the toughest days of earned media for the Romney campaign, and perhaps as a surprise to Washington insiders, Romney continues to win Republicans (Romney by a net +87 percent) by the same margin Obama is winning with Democrats (Obama by a net +88 percent), and is still winning with independents (+2 percent). Romney has majority support with voters over the age of 45 (+7 percent), with men (+6 percent), with white women (+9 percent), and with married voters (+14 percent). In addition, Romney has solidified his base. Support among conservative voters exceeds 70 percent (73 percent), his support among very conservative voters exceeds 80 percent (83 percent), and his support among Republicans exceeds 90 percent (91 percent). Romney is also receiving a higher level of support among Hispanics (40 percent), which is driven by higher support from Hispanic men.
…Fully 66 percent of voters select a pocketbook issue as their top concern. The Romney camp should feel good going into the three presidential debates knowing he has majority support (Romney 53 percent/Obama 44 percent) from these economically focused voters.
In fact, even with all of the misleading partisan attacks on the proposals from Ryan to reform Medicare, a majority of seniors (61 percent) select a pocketbook issue and not Medicare as their top issue of concern and nearly 6 in 10 seniors (58 percent) are voting for the Romney-Ryan ticket.
…A significant number of voters report that the upcoming presidential and vice presidential debates will be extremely (11 percent) or very (12 percent) important to their vote decision…This means the debates are one of the best opportunities available for Romney to take votes from Obama. If Romney can continue to make a solid case about turning around the economy and the direction of the country in contrast to the president’s failed economic policies, these voters will be watching and many of them are currently Obama supporters.
My takeaways:
1. Kudos to Politico, a site that has a reputation for leftward bias, for posting an article so favorable to Romney.
2. If this poll largely mirrors Team Romney’s internal numbers, the campaign’s play-it-safe strategy makes more sense. In all likelihood, they have long identified the debates as Mitt’s greatest opportunity, with his skill in the format, to pull ahead and thus hope to keep the race as close as possible until the first showdown. They’ll probably follow the debates with an all-out push, utilizing the campaign’s war chest to peak at the correct time.
The question is: Will Romney squander the chance he was given in this election by campaigning like McCain? He has to sell himself to the independent voters and middle class, but Mitt is so far acting like a car salesman who is afraid to step out of his air-conditioned office. The voters are not going to just wander into the voting booths and vote for him. He has to bring them in, and to to do that he has to come out and talk to them.
Ditto I rarely agree with you –but—-“Mitt is acting like a used car salesman who is afraid to step out of his air conditioned office,” Exactly. What the hell is he thinking. Is he watching Fox and think he’s winning? He’s down in Fla.,Ohio.,Va. At best the E.C. with a Fla. win is BHO 284-254.Get real Mitt.
The Senate is also moving Dem and now looks no worse than a 50-50 split.
The Great Commonwealth of Virginia birthplace of George Washingtion, Thomas Jefferson,Madison and Monroe will decide The Presidency for Barack Hussein Obama and hold the Senate for the Dems.with Tim Kaine over George Allen.
All of these polls are using 2008 election turn out models except Rasmussen. They are showing an Obama lead of +4%. How far off they are remains to be seen. As an example, in Pennsylvania, polls using the 2008 model have Obama up by 9 points. Two other polls using a combination of 2004 and 2008 turn out models, which is probably a lot more realistic, has Obama up by 1-2 points with Romney leading in the Dem leaning western counties. Rasmussen, which also uses a combination of 2004 and 2008 election models and samples likely voters, has the race essentially tied nationwide and in the battleground states. Obama’s approval rating in Rasmussen has been bouncing between 48-50% meaning he is right at the point where he may get re-elected. There is little breathing room for him at this point.
A lot of the Obama cheerleaders have already called the election pointing to 2004 and how Obama is where Bush was at in this point during the race. What they fail to look at is that at this point in the race, Bush was up between 6-8 points over Kerry and went on to win by 2 points. That is a big shift away from the incumbent in the last month and half. If a comparable shift occurs this year, Obama is toast and by a comfortable margin at that.
Where the race goes from here is anyone’s guess. Obama spent 200 million dollars on the most negative campaign in recent history accusing Romney of being a tax cheat, a felon, sending jobs overseas, and being responsible for a woman’s death all of which were untrue and they are still tied in the polls. In the home stretch, Romney has a cash advantage that he is now taking advantage of by reminding voters of Obama’s pathetic record. There are three debates where Obama is going to have to defend that record. There is only one more quarterly GDP report before the election and two more job reports. It is highly unlikely they will show any real improvement in the nation’s economy meaning stagnation. If Obama wins, it’ll show just how broke the Republican establishment is. More scary, it’ll show that the American people have accepted the low standards set by this administration.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2012/09/24/polls_based_off_2008_dem_turnout_will_be_wrong_291062.html
With regards to skewed polling.
http://www.examiner.com/article/is-the-latest-washington-post-abc-poll-skewed-for-obama
Here is how it translates to more recent polling.
Another Vet You can blast the polls and or hang your hat on Rasmussen. Bottom line , if Romney continues to act like he’s winning, he’s got a rude awakening coming up in Nov.
@Richard Wheeler: The ones who are really acting like they are winning are the Obama supporters which includes the MSM which has reported overwhelmingly negative on Romney and overwhelmingly positive on Obama. They have already declared the race over. The only poll that matters is the one on November 6th. If the American people decide that the new standard for this country should be 8% plus unemployment and trillion dollar plus deficits along with the fruits of socialism to go along with it, then so be it. They will get what they deserve. Unfortunately so will the rest of us.