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May 17, 2012

How Are The Presidential Polls Looking?

Patrick Laverty

Speaking of polls, how are the polls looking for President? After a tough primary season, what are Romney's chances against Obama?

I think the go-to site for national polling is http://realclearpolitics.com. They're a site that aggregates a few of the major polling organizations and comes up with an average of them all. Currently, they're showing Obama with a 2.5 point lead over Romney.

However, when looking at polls, all pollsters will agree that when your sample includes "likely voters" and not just "registered voters", you tend to get better and more realistic results. Real Clear Politics includes both types, but what happens when we only look at the polls that questioned the "likely voters"?

PollDates TakenSampleObamaRomneyLeader
Rasmussen Tracking5/12 - 5/15 1500 LV 46 47 Romney +1
Wash Times/JZ Analytics 5/11 - 5/12 800 LV4344Romney +1
Politico/GWU/Battleground4/29 - 5/31000 LV4748Romney +1
Democracy Corps (D)4/28 - 5/11000 LV4747Tie
*Data taken from realclearpolitics.com

Well, I don't know if it can get much clearer than that. Who cares if someone is registered to vote. They don't matter. The people that do matter are the ones who will vote. That's why the polls that include the likely voters are often more accurate than those with just the registered voters. And when we look at the likely voter polls, we see that President Obama could be in for a tough run going forward. But there's still a long way to go.

Comments

Willard Scissor-hands Romnney's formula, purchase a firm with no money down, then begin extracting huge management fees and paying Willard huge dividends. Previously profitable companies were burdened with huge debt.

Scissorhands would slash costs, fire workers, raid their pensions, cancel their health insurance
With luck, Willard would be able to dump the firm in a few years for millions more than he paid. But it didn't matter if the company succeeded or not. Since he was yanking out cash early and often, Romney would profit even if the companies failed

Posted by: Sammy in Arizona at May 17, 2012 2:27 PM

Sammy the Troll - Have you managed to get on the Obama Campaign payroll yet? If not, you're getting screwed working for free, buddy. People across the country right now are getting paid well above minimum wage to troll up political threads and pump out such drivel online.

Posted by: Dan at May 17, 2012 2:51 PM

All that these polls really show is that Pres. Obama can be beaten in Nov.

Watching the "right track/wrong track" numbers is generally a good indicator, and I think those numbers right now are not good for the Pres.

If I had to predict today, I'd say a big electoral win for Romney, but there's still plenty of time for him to blow it and for Pres. Obama to stage a comeback.

Posted by: brassband at May 17, 2012 2:59 PM

"President" Obunko from Kenya will be defeated by a US born candidate. Sammy can move to Nairobi with his messiah the minister of divisiveness.

Posted by: ANTHONY at May 17, 2012 11:14 PM

I don't have a source for really old polling numbers, so I don't know an accurate history. But, it would seem to me that an incumbent President who is "tied" at this stage of the game is in trouble.

Posted by: Warrington Faust at May 18, 2012 8:22 PM