Romney’s Poll Surge is Real
The Pew poll is no longer an outlier but the start of a trend.
When the Pew poll came out showing a 4 point Romney lead, including a tie with women, I was more than a little skeptical. Now, however, other reputable polls are showing a post-debate surge.
Romney is up 49 to 47 among likely voters in the Public Policy Polling survey, conducted by Daily Kos and the SEIU–hardly a right wing combo. That’s exactly the same margin as in Gallups’ first likely voter sample–although Obama still leads 49-46 among registered voters.
538’s Nate Silver still has Romney as the overwhelming underdog, giving him only a 25.2 percent chance of winning. Still, that’s a 11 point swing from before the debate.
Kos explains why he’s worried about these numbers–and why we should be skeptical of Gallup and others who show less of a Romney bounce:
Both the Gallup and Rasmussen trackers saw their Romney bounce evaporate on Sunday. In this poll, 75 percent of the sample was gathered on Thursday and Friday, at the height of Romney’s bounce. This is because PPP does call-backs: It identifies a random range of numbers and begins calling them on Thursday. If they get no answer, they keep trying the same numbers on subsequent days until they get the required number of responses (we ask for at least 1,000). This avoids the old tropes about young liberals being out partying on Friday nights, while conservatives are at church on Sunday mornings, etc.
So this week, 47 percent of responses were on Thursday, 28 percent on Friday, 17 percent on Saturday, and just 8 percent on Sunday. Romney won Thursday 49-48 and Friday 49-44 before losing steam over the weekend. While Romney won Thursday and Friday by a combined 2.5 points, he won Saturday and Sunday by just 0.5 percent.
So where did Romney gain? Among women, Obama went from a 15-point lead to a slimmer 51-45 edge. Meanwhile, Romney went from winning independents 44-41 to winning them 48-42. And just like the Ipsos poll showed last week, Romney further consolidated his base. They went from supporting him 85-13 last week, to 87-11 this week while Obama lost some Democrats, going from 88-9 last week, to 87-11 this week.
Several other polls, Pew chief among them, saw a big increase in the number of respondents self-identifying as Republicans—a sign of increased intensity on that side of the aisle. Our poll confirms that intensity boost. Last week, 65 percent of conservatives were “very excited” about voting this year. This week, it’s 74 percent. That’s a significant shift. Liberals also gained, but only marginally so, from 68 to 70 percent.
These polls are showing that, not only did Romney gain overall from the debate victory but that women are indeed rallying to his side and that there’s a surge of enthusiasm for the Republican brand beyond Romney.
Now, this is in the wake of the best two hours in the campaign for Team Romney and the single worst performance in the history of Barack Obama. It’s almost inconceivable that we’ll see a repeat performance come the rematch, so we should expect the president to rebound somewhat.
More important than the national polls, as we constantly emphasize, is the state-by-state numbers. Here, too, though, we’re seeing a Romney surge. Looking at the RealClearPolitics averages, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, and Florida are all toss-ups; Obama was leading in most of those states before the debate. And Obama hasn’t yet put away Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon, or Wisconsin. (Then again, neither has Romney put away Arizona, South Carolina, or Indiana.)
The math still looks very good for Obama’s re-election. If he holds all the states that lean his direction, he only needs 19 Electoral votes–either Ohio and any other toss-up or two medium prizes (Virginia and Colorado, say) to put him over the magic 270 threshold. Romney, meanwhile, needs to hold all of his lean-or-better states and pick up 89 Electoral votes out of the 109 available. That’s a tall order, indeed.
Still, considering that Romney was looking to get blown out before the debate, this is a huge and unexpected improvement in position.
Given that PPP leans Democratic, I’d agree we’re definitely seeing a trend toward Romney. Makes me wonder what the guy at unskewed.com is going to do with the latest poll results.
Chicago seems to understand that its real, and is scrambling to deal with it. I expect that nothing short of alien invasion is going to stop Obama’s preparation for Debate II and they are going to be ready for whatever version of Romney that shows up.
I am shaking my head at the absurdity of it all. Politics apparently is a sporting event in this country. It doesn’t matter what you say, just how you say it.
On the positive side for Obama, the numbers do show Romney’s debate bounce plateauing after it crested on Thursday and Friday.
On the neutral side for Obama: state polls have been a mixed bag, with very few credible state polls. Rasmussen and PPP are decent polling firms with house effects that lead to their #’s being discounted somewhat. ARG, Gravis, WeaskAmerica are junk poll firms that should carry no weight.
On the bad side for Obama: he doesn’t have a clue how to turn this around. The unemployment rate dropped to a 4-year low on Friday, consumer confidence is apporaching similar highs, and he’s out talking about Big Bird and “liar liar.”
If this guy has an argument about what his candidacy and a second term would be about, I haven’t heard it.
far from unexpected. I said it here last week that the polling was going to reallign itself with reality in short order. It’s done so repeatedly in the last several cycles.
@Fiona:
Oh, polls are infallible now to our friends on the right. That which they want to hear is true.
At some point, the US is going to have to stop treating politics as a football match and realize that the choices we make have permanent effects on the US and by extension on the world.
I’ve about given up on the intelligence of the average American however. If the US wants to elect a sleazy vulture capitalist who will get the US into more wars and increase the deficit considerably (all the while pretending he isn’t doing so), then let it do so. If it wants to endulge the brain-dead part of its population that doesn’t believe in evolution or global warming, be my guest: the Chinese will eat your lunch. Me? I’ll find another populace that appreciates the abilities I bring to the table.
I dunno. I think most of what Romney has done was to reclaim the supporters that he has always had who were demoralized by a ridiculous overseas trip, a vacuous convention, and the 47% speech. I don’t see too much evidence that he has actually cut into the coalition supporting the President.
There is a reason women had flocked to the president, and it was political malpractice that he didn’t remind them of that in Denver. But when cooler heads prevail, they will be reminded that Romney wants to take out Planned Parenthood. They will be reminded that Paul Ryan cosponsored the “forcible rape” law, and so forth.
Intrade has had it at roughly 2/1 in favor of the president for a while, and I think that still remains the state of play.
I am heartened by the ability of a politician like Romney to lie his way into the Presidency.
I’ve been saying for months that a country that elected Bush 43 twice would elect Romney as well.
Nothing is more predictable than the stupidity of Americans.
@C. Clavin:
The only thing more predictable is that Romney would play on the stupidity of voters while Obama would pretend that voters are actually smart and informed.
no, the only thing more predictable was that the left would try to question the smarts of the American voter when they find themselves on the outsiders
This is a very disturbing story to me. It means the Etch-A-Sketch works. It means that you can run as one thing (actually several things) during the primaries and then … shake … be something new in the debates.
I fault “low information” voters.
And I thoroughly disdain a candidate that lies like a sociopath about his plan and preexisting conditions.
Gallup switched to LV, now Romney ahead in that.
Which makes Romney ahead in every national poll of note, except for Rasmussen.
So far, the debate aftermath is confirming the “air deflating out of a balloon” hypothesis–that Obama’s support was based on very weak, squishy voter sentiments they were able to enforce via messaging and advertising, and that Romney when unfiltered in front of the voters managed to do away with all of that–voters saw the two men with their own eyes and tend to trust that impression rather than TV ads.
His “go for the capillaries” approach shockingly is not working.
@john personna: Well stated. The media must also be faulted for not focusing on issues and not calling attention to the lies and cynical etch-a-sketch strategy; instead, they report polls (i.e. the current score in the game), give all sides equal credibility, allow people to BS in interviews (watching a sickening one right now with Andrea Mitchell and Romney’s campaign advisor), etc. Obviously, if the media is biased (you know which ones), then this is by design and even more sad.
Apparently, the unskewed guy is claiming that his site and right wing questioning of the polls saved the day and scared pollsters back to reporting poll numbers honestly. The guy has gone on to launch two new unskewed sites: unskewed media and unskewed statistics. A new right wing hero is born.
@Geek, Esq.:
Or alternately if Romney suddenly pretends to be an Almost-Obama in the debates, he can peel off some people who are really pretty happy with Obama.
I think Romney’s debate performance was what Romney needed, but I still think in the end Obama is going to win the election. Romney still has a tougher road to electoral victory and doesn’t really have any states he can afford to lose. Obama can write off a few states, shuffle his efforts into some others and get the votes he needs.
One thing Obama can’t afford is to blow it in another debate and he can’t afford anymore Benghazi like failures (and Benghazi at this point was and is pretty clearly a failure and he should be glad the media adores him, because any other president would have been beaten with that sledgehammer constantly since 9-11).
@john personna:
Well, he was everything Obama was supposed to be–energetic, charismatic, speaking of a big picture, projecting optimism and determination.
Obama looked like circa 1974 Nixon.
Given the ambivalent fundamentals, this race was going to come down to a good candidate beating a bad candidate.
Unfortunately, Romney has become a good candidate and Obama has become an awful one.
“I haven’t been a perfect president, my opponent would agree.” Puke.
@Geek, Esq.:
I don’t care about stagecraft, I care about issues. Things like this:
Previously Romney has said that he’d repeal ObamaCare and the federal requirement that insurance companies cover pre-existing conditions. Knowing that, Obama asked “what about pre-existing conditions?” Romney just lied and said “My plan covers pre-existing conditions.”
Previously Romney has said that this contraction, stimulating reductions in Police, Fire and Teaching has been a good thing, a needed adjustment. Knowing that, Obama asked “what about teachers?” Romney just flipped and said “I love teachers, we should hire more.”
Maybe Obama should have found some way to say “liar” that wouldn’t turn into a spitting match, but the sad thing is a debate isn’t the web, you can’t link out, or show past video.
The news shows can do that though, and have shown Romney vs. Romney, and his totally opposite positions.
@Geek, Esq.:
Shorter: Do you care about Romney’s positions at this point, or only want the ticket to win?
Follow-up: Which positions do you believe on pre-existing conditions and teachers, the ones in the debate, or the flips before and after?
(Some people will just believe the last thing the Romney campaign tells them to believe, but I have no respect for those people. That is not any kind of enlightened democracy. That is base partisanship.)
@john personna:
Well, of course Obama is better on the issues and would be a vastly superior President. Romney plus a Republican Congress would be a disaster.
Unfortunately, Obama is not up to the job of beating Mitt Romney. He went out on that stage and had nothing to say to the American people.
@john personna:
Sure you care about that, and I care about that.
But people like us don’t decide elections.
This seems like as good a place as any to ask – Is this website abnormally slow to load, or is it just my crappy work computer?
@john personna: Regarding the lies: I just saw a clip from Ryan where he accused the Obama campaign of taking a dirty strategy of just calling Romney/Ryan liars. Good grief, media, please call him on that. No, we’ll just hear how this new tactic is affecting the poll numbers.
I can’t understand how Kerry was so tainted with the “flip-flopper” label in 2004 (unfairly, no less), yet Romney, who takes it to unbelievable heights, gets off scot-free. Like you, I can’t respect anyone who lies and changes positions so easily. Never mind that we have no idea what his actual positions really are; how can you vote for that?
Yes, it’s a sporting event. I’ve always believed it was about emotion, not policy, not even the state of the economy. Those are part of the whole, but in the end they set the table for an emotional decision.
Mr. Obama punctured his own myth of invincibility. I said on the night of the debate that it was devastating. No policy changed, the economy did not worsen, what changed was emotional. Mr. Obama seemed not to care. Mr. Romney didn’t win, Obama threw it away.
Can Obama get it back? Maybe. But in a single night he turned this around the wrong way. He squandered the hard work of his campaign. It was a shocking bit of work, and now Obama has an uphill fight.
By the way, if I was a blogger, I would try to be a positive force for change and write about these issues rather than just be another yahoo writing about polls and delegate counts. How about it, James et al: How do you feel about all of this?
@reid:
The left wing lame street media, that’s why!
@Geek, Esq.: The argument never was that polling was inherently corrupt, rather that pre-debate polling were using a voter model that was highly suspect. Using the 2008 numbers (39D/31R/30I) to predict this outcome is as foolish as using 2010 numbers. But when the pollsters were using numbers favoring Democrats that exceeded the 2008 results, then every honest person ought to question the output. Pollsters are now starting to model a much more likely turnout (one that has always been discernible, if one removes their head from the anus of the DC/NY ‘elite’ media), and they are showing that Romney has widespread support across many demographics.
@john personna: “Romney just flipped and said “I love teachers, we should hire more.””
He didn’t say that. Romney said:
I can understand how people hear that he wants more teachers, (Russell Walter Mead made this mistake as well). I would also say this statement is not a lie, but its misleading:
@bains:
The pollsters haven’t changed their methodology. What’s changed is the answers of the people who pick up the phone.
it’s not the case that Romney was ahead and Obama was behind.
Obama was ahead. Romney was behind.
What happened was not pollsters improving their methodology. It was the most spectactular implosion of a general election candidate in modern times.
@PJ:
Because the Obama campaign made a strategic decision to portray Mr. Romney as far right rather than as a flip-flopper. It was one or the other, it couldn’t be both. They felt it would be easier to paint him as extreme, so that’s where they went.
@ Michael Reynolds…
Of course now that he has tacked to the center…they are free to portray him as a flip-flopper…as he had to flip-flop (several times) to tack to the center.
@michael reynolds: Or Team Obama felt their candidate was vulnerable on flip-flops as well. Here is my prediction. If Obama levels a flip-flop charge in one of these debates, Romney will be prepared with a list of Obama’s flip-flops, some of which liberals might even have complained bout. I predict I will find most flip-flop charges overwrought.
@C. Clavin: @PD Shaw:
Clavin: Four weeks out is a hell of a time to have to alter your strategy. The deadly problem is that Mr. Obama blew up his own narrative. It’s not as simple as failing to refute Mr. Romney, it’s that he lost his audience. Like an actor falling out of character in a play. It is very hard to put back together.
PD: Obama’s flip-flops are around the margins, on issues only the hard left cares about. Romney’s go all the way down to the marrow. The man stands for nothing.
Don’t confuse winning a debate with becoming a good candidate for president. Romney is a creep. He’s an empty, hypocritical, self-interested jerk indifferent to anyone unlike himself. And he represents a party that is ignorance, belligerence, racism, and privilege personified. A Romney win is bad for this country.
@Michael Reynolds…
I’m not sure it is much strategic as tactical. And I am sure they would prefer not to. But given lemons…
@michael reynolds: I thought the debate was pretty much a wash, perhaps Romney winning by a small margin, so my judgment on these things might be questionable. I do think, however, that all of the “obvious” points that people in the audience thought Obama should have raised were also obvious enough that Romney would have prepared a response.
If the effect of the debate was greater than I felt it deserved, its likely because Team Obama had successfully demonized Romney and the public has become accustomed to Republican Presidential candidates that sometimes have difficulty stringing words together to complete a sentence. You really don’t get a do-over on expectations.
@PD Shaw:
Team Obama didn’t demonize Mr. Romney. Romney showed his true self in the astounding flip-flopping, the nastiness of his campaign in the primaries, the facility with which he lies, the Libya thing, the Ryan choice, the refusal to release his tax returns, and the 47% tape. Nobody demonized Romney. Romney is the same man he was before the debate. His party is the same party. Nothing he said or did in the debate changed the fact that he is utterly unfit to be President of the United States.
@michael reynolds:
Part of it may actually be that the flip-flopper thing didn’t hurt Kerry as much as people thought it did. Realistically, Bush won with a good economy by a very narrow margin by turning out his base and being a wartime president (albeit an incompetent one).
There’s a certain amount of cynicism baked in regarding politicians–people assume they’re all somewhat loose with the truth, that they change positions when advantageous, etc.
Where they really damaged Romney was neither ideology or flip-flopping but rather that he would pursue policies that helped the rich instead of the poor.
My one hope for Mr. Romney is that if he’s elected he continues to be as big a flip-flopper and liar as he’s been thus far, because then maybe we can avoid a disastrous war with Iran, and maybe we won’t have to yank health insurance from millions of people, and maybe that greedy jackass won’t rape the poor and middle-class to shovel more money into the pockets of his entitled class.
So here’s hoping if he wins he continues to be as big a fraud as he’s been up till now.
@michael reynolds: You don’t live in a swing state, Obama was running wall-to-wall negative ads on Romney since he became the presumptive nominee and before Romney couldn’t ramp up his message. Its generally accepted as the reason why Romney underperforms his national average in swing states; Obama spent a lot to define the election around how unacceptable Romney is as a person.
@PD Shaw:
My paraphrase looks pretty good, thanks.
@Geek, Esq.: I largely agree, though I think Kerry’s problem was the worst I’ve seen. “I was for it before I was against it” came out of Kerry’s mouth in one breath; its not dispubatable as a change of position. Also, I don’t think I ultimately ever understood Kerry’s position on Iraq; almost every other Democrat was more coherent. (Edwards: “I was wrong.”)
Obama and George W clearly modified thier positions as they moved to the center (Its not clear to me what Kerry was doing). McCain moved to the center by refuting his support for flying the Confederate Flag over the South Carolina state capitol. Generally, I think the center rewards moves to their position.
And then there are always people who hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest.
@PD Shaw:
Look, here is what Romney said about policemen, firemen, and teachers back in the day:
Then in the debate, as you quote, he said this:
He said “I reject the idea that I don’t believe in great teachers or more teachers” when in fact that is a reversal.
And hell yess, “I reject the idea that I don’t believe in great teachers or more teachers” is pretty much the same as “I love teachers, we should hire more.”
Well, James, what make you of this: TNR Daily Breakdown: Pay Attention To Dates?
There’s no contradiction between Romney saying he opposes a federal “stimulus” that would put the U.S. a further trillion dollars in debt to pay for state-level and local-level government (as he does in the first instance) and Romney saying that “every school district, every state should make that decision on their own” to hire more teachers (as he does in the second instance).
You can be in favor of the states doing something without being in favor of the federal government piling on another trillion dollars of debt to pay for it.
No one here is mentioning the “angry Negro” theory.
Obama comes from Hawaii, the wiki wiki state, and also perhaps the most polyglot, genetically diverse state. Its quite a bit different growing up hapa in Hawaii than the mainland. He is well aware of the mainland rigidity regarding race.
Look, the guy must know a little something about not alienating whitey. He got himself elected president for chrissakes. His finely honed calculus regarding this “threat” of the uppity black man I am sure has been refined over the decades.
As has been well chronicled, his cool demeanor and natural “go along to get along” strategy may have cost him on Wednesday.
But lets look at the next two debates. Mr. Reynolds, I share your pessimism, but lets look at the bright side, he can stop the MO of Romney and regain the big lead he gave up.
Think about it. Obama now has an excuse to bash Romney with impunity. The subliminal distaste of whitey seeing a black man castigate “one of the tribe” is gone since the logical mind will judge Obama’s response this time as essential since he was too laid back the last time.
I think this is a huge psychological advantage as now he can come out and attack romney since its good strategy and everyone is expecting it and will not be “threatened” by it.
The next debate is a town hall meeting and the last debate is on foreign policy. Both Obama’s strengths.
The first debate debacle will be forgotten if O aggressively challenges the lies and regains his edge.
The last debate will showcase the morons advising R and if O can successfully “necklace” R with the burning tire of neocon lunacy, game over.
So, don’t count O out yet. The press loves a horse race and will portray Romney poorly if he doesn’t duplicate his first debate performance (which he can’t possibly top)
They will want to set up the rubber match as the key to the election bla bla to keep the masses tuned in and to force the campaigns to spend all that $$$$$$$ on commercials.
@Buzz Buzz:
Perhaps you’re unaware that most (all?) state governments cannot run deficits, which is why having the federal government available to step in during recessions is helpful. You’d think Romney would realize that as well, with him actually running for President.
If all three cable news channels are going concentrate on style, I think it likely Mitt will win. He’s a heck of a salesman who has the advantage of not having a record to defend.
The abject panic Chris Mathews, Sullivan, et all demonstrated when Mitt’s statements are filled with BS? At least FOX knows what they are doing.
Perhaps some shouldn’t confuse losing a debate with losing an election…
And speaking of flip-flops…those who are gloating about the polls now were freaking out about biased polls just a week ago…get your story straight, will you…
@Buzz Buzz:
Except that too is a contradiction. Romney did NOT support localities spending more, when he said:
He argued then that the mandate, from the American people, was for less spending. That was his platform.
@this:
Dear Idiot Down-voter, what part of this did you misunderstand?
Of course, that was only pre-debate Mitt. Totally a different person, right?
No, john personna, there is no contradiction, which is clear when you look at the non-truncated statement by Romney in the first instance.
1. Romney is not in favor of the federal government borrowing another trillion dollars for another non-stimulating “stimulus”.
2. Romney is in favor of state and local governments being able to decide for themselves to hire and pay for more workers if that’s what they want to do.
To repeat: You can be in favor of the states doing something without being in favor of the federal government piling on another trillion dollars of debt to pay for it.
The Federal government vs. State and local government. Learn the difference.
@Buzz Buzz:
Then he misled in the debates. He was not clear that he would not support federal funding for schools, and he was not honest that this would mean continued teacher lay-offs.
(If Romney was only saying “I favor magic” this is typical but not useful. It does not inform voters of true choices.)
@Buzz Buzz:
If I understand you correctly, you are opposed to tax cuts during recessions (1/3 of the stimulus was tax cuts), and want more layoffs of teachers, firemen and policemen during recessions, regardless of whether or not those layoffs are a good idea.