Free Republic

The Gallup national tracking poll now shows a very strong lead for Mitt Romney. As of Friday, he was ahead by six points among likely voters, having led by seven points on Thursday. However, the poll’s results are deeply inconsistent with the results that other polling firms are showing in the presidential race, and the Gallup poll has a history of performing very poorly when that is the case. Other national polls now show a very slight lead for President Obama on average, while state polls continue to indicate a narrow advantage for the president in tipping-point states like Ohio....

Obama's odds of winning re-election have climbed back to 65%-70% since the second debate, according to three sources we're tracking: Nate Silver's aggregate poll forecastIntrade's prediction marketBetfair's prediction market First, Nate Silver of the New York Times now gives Obama 66% chance of reelection. That's up from a post-first-debate low of ~60% a few days ago. And Silver says the impact of Obama's strong performance in the second debate hasn't yet factored into the polls he looks at. Nate Silver, New York Times  On Intrade, meanwhile, Obama's odds have climbed back to 65% from a post-debate low in the high...

Last week we got a report on a Mitchell poll from Michigan that has the New York Times swinging off the rafters. The Grey Lady got so apoplectic over the results because they showed Mitt Romney and Barack Obama tied at 47/47 in Michigan. Writing his rebuttal to this “outrage” the Times’ Nate Silver cited another poll that upon closer review provides virtually the same results. Silver’s new best friends at the Lansing-based EPIC-MRA polling company say Obama leads 49/46 with a 2.6 +/- Margin of Error which is all but the same thing. That the EPIC-MRA poll conducted in...

Rick Perry rebound in Iowa: Assisted by veterans? Polls show Rick Perry gaining ground and Newt Gingrich weakening in Iowa. Why Rick Perry may be picking up the vet vote. By Liz Marlantes, DCDecoder / December 14, 2011 Lots of news stories today about how the race to win Iowa is still wide open. The New York Times’ Nate Silver takes a whirl through the polling data and says any of five candidates could plausibly win. And Politico’s Maggie Haberman reports that internal poll numbers from the Mitt Romney and Rick Perry camps show Newt Gingrich’s lead in Iowa is...

Silver doesn’t quite go so far as to say that it makes a brokered convention or a late-breaking establishment candidate likely, but I’m willing to go that far. There’s just no way the Republican establishment lets Gingrich become their nominee. As Andrew Sullivan pointed out today, you’re already seeing the anti-Gingrich mobilization among conservative thought leaders: Here’s George Will, Charles Krauthammer, David Brooks, Ross Douthat, Tom Coburn and Ann Coulter, just for starters. There’s this Politico story about all the Washington Republicans who hate Gingrich. Now, I think it’s more likely that this mobilization leads to a Romney win then...