Free Republic

For the past year conservatives have put their trust in one pollster and one pollster alone. While nearly every other pollster showed President Obama leading throughout the last year’s presidential race, Rasmussen Reports consistently showed better numbers for Romney, and had Romney leading through much of the last month. Conservative pundits claimed that Rasmussen was the only pollster showing the true state of the race, even though previous studies suggested that Rasmussen’s numbers actually leaned too far to the right in previous elections. The Election Day results are now in, and Rasmussen was not only off in their projection, but...

If the polls are correct, and President Obama wins a narrow Electoral College victory on Tuesday, the pivotal moment of the 2012 presidential race may have actually occurred in 2009. About two months after taking office, Mr. Obama set the terms of the government’s rescue of General Motors and

ARG Final National Poll: R 49%, 0 49% (+ 6 Dem) Interview dates: November 2-4, 2012 Sample size: 1200 likely voters Margin of error: ± 3 percentage points, 95% of the time

Barack Obama has edged ahead of Mitt Romney in the final days of the presidential campaign. In the Pew Research Center’s election weekend survey, Obama holds a 48% to 45% lead over Romney among likely voters. The survey finds that Obama maintains his modest lead when the probable decisions of undecided voters are taken into account. Our final estimate of the national popular vote is Obama 50% and Romney 47%, when the undecided vote is allocated between the two candidates based on several indicators and opinion

ST. LOUIS • Congressman Todd Akin has dramatically narrowed the lead of Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri’s nationally watched Senate race, according to a new poll. But the poll — commissioned by the Post-Dispatch, News 4 and the Kansas City Star — also indicates that Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment in August continues to affect the race. McCaskill still enjoys a significant gender gap, and three-quarters of her supporters call Akin’s comment “somewhat” or “very” important to their decision. The results show McCaskill leading with 45 percentage points to Akin’s 43 points among likely voters. That’s within the poll’s 4-point margin...

Public Policy Polling says Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill hold a narrow 4-point lead over Rep. Todd Akin in the 2012 campaign's closing days. She's at 48%, Akin at 44% in a poll of 835 likely voters Nov. 2 and Nov. 3. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.4%.

Hope you like this NPR/Democracy Corps poll, because it may be the last national poll we see for a while.  With Hurricane Sandy battering the upper Northeast, polling in the region will be impossible until at least the weekend, and possibly through Election Day.  Without access to that part of the electorate, national polls will be undeniably incomplete.  From here on in, it’s going to be nothing but battleground-state polling. So why not wrap up national polling on a high note?  In this survey conducted at least in part by James Carville’s group, Mitt Romney leads Barack Obama by a...

RT @justkarl: Early voting in OH. 2008: 1,628,013. 10/30/12: 1,257,320. Again, Obama won 08 by 260,000 and piled up a 20 point lead in early voting. Still think it will be close?

Part II – Media Polls – What Are They Good For? Let me start by drawing a quick distinction that I think is important – no one should confuse a public pollster who publishes results like Gallup or Rasmussen with a media sponsored poll that is, of course, made public. So when I’m speaking of media polls here I’m talking about polls paid for by “news” outlets. The first and most salient point is that a news outlet could get private polling data for its own edification about a race – either from a campaign or on their own. But...

Florida and its important 29 electoral votes are all but in the Romney camp, according to Sunshine State News poll of likely voters taken mostly following the third and final presidential debate. But the parties still have a big challenge ahead in their ground games. Early voting begins Saturday in Florida. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney pushed above the 50 percent mark in the poll conducted between Oct. 22 and Oct. 24 by Harrisburg, Pa.-based Voter Survey Service. Of 1,001 likely Florida voters, 51 percent were ready to vote for Romney to 46 percent for President Obama. Only 12 percent...

· President Obama currently leads Governor Romney by 4 percentage points in Iowa, 50 to 46 percent. · Governor Romney leads President Obama with independent voters by a margin of 48 to 36 percent. Both candidates received more than 90 percent support from members of their own party. · There is a wide gender gap in this survey. Romney leads by 18 percent among men while President Obama leads by 23 percent with women. · Iowans are divided nearly equally on whether they approve of President Obama’s job performance. 47 percent approve of his performance while 46 percent do not...

Full party id breakdown of sample is at the source, but it shows R+2. The recall was R+1 and I'm skeptical to think it'd be more than that. Think enthusiasm for Romney/Ryan is enough to get that done?

Part I: Real Pollsters Who Work for Campaigns As we enter the homestretch of this election and we all hang by every thread of polling data, I thought I would share some insights into polling data that I have gleaned from being involved in elections for the past 26 years. Some of this content has been provided by smart posters here, and by other folks like Jay Cost at the Weekly Standard. But some content might surprise you and hopefully allow you to discern between good polls and bad ones, when to be concerned, when to be skeptical and above...

Mitt Romney still leads President Obama in Arizona, but the race is tightening. A new Rasmussen Reports/CBS 5 survey of Likely Arizona Voters shows Romney with 52% of the vote to Obama’s 44%. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate, and another two percent (2%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

While this topic has been covered, it is now time to put real “meat on the bones” to explain why polling in this year’s presidential contest, not just nationally but in many of the battleground states, may be off when compared to the actual results. Looking at a vast array of polls coming out just two weeks before the presidential election, critically important states such as Florida and Ohio appear to be close and anyone’s guess as to the final result. And while some national surveys, such as Gallup, have shown Republican nominee Mitt Romney running ahead of President Obama...

Mitt Romney still earns 50% support in Virginia, but the presidential race remains a toss-up in the Old Dominion. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Virginia Voters finds Romney with 50% support to President Obama’s 48%. Only one percent (1%) remains undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.) Last week, Romney hit the 50% mark for the first time here, while Obama earned 47% of the vote. With the exception of last week, however, the candidates have been within two points or less of each other in every survey in Virginia since April. Virginia continues to be a...

Romney has a nine percent lead in the new QstarNews presidential poll released today. While the latest Rasmussen Reports Daily Presidential Tracking Poll shows Mitt Romney leading President Obama at 50 percent to 47 percent while the QStarNews Daily Tracking poll released today shows a Romney lead of 52 percent to 46 percent. The latest Gallup tracking poll of likely voters released today shows Romney leading 50 percent to 47 percent over the president. Mitt Romney's surge in the polls is even reflected in his slim lead today in the Real Clear Politics average of major polls.The new QStarNews Poll...

Foster McCollum White Baydoun (FMW)B, a national public opinion polling and voter analytics consulting firm based in Michigan and representing the combined resources of Foster McCollum White & Associates (Troy Michigan) and Baydoun Consulting (Dearborn Michigan) conducted a telephone-automated polling random survey of Michigan registered and most likely November 2012 General election voters for Fox 2 News Detroit to determine their voting and issue preferences for the presidential election. An initial qualifying statement was read to respondents asking them to participate only if they were very likely to vote in the November General Election. Thirty five thousand (35,000) calls were...

Mitt Romney has now reached the 50% mark for the first time in Colorado and leads President Obama by four in the critical swing state. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Colorado Voters finds Romney with 50% support to Obama’s 46%. Two percent (2%) like some other candidate, and one percent (1%) remains undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.) Still, Colorado remains a Toss-Up in the Rasmussen Reports Electoral College Projections. But Colorado is the fourth swing state that has moved in Romney’s direction in the past week. Florida, Missouri and North Carolina have now shifted...

The races for president and U.S. senator in Wisconsin are as tight as they can get, according to a new poll of likely voters. The Marquette Law School Poll, released Wednesday, shows Democratic candidate President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney in a virtual deadlock among Wisconsin voters, with Obama garnering 49 percent of the votes from likely voters and Romney 48 percent. For the U.S. Senate, former governor and Republican candidate Tommy Thompson was the favorite of 46 percent of those polled while Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin was the favorite of 45 percent of those polled. The poll...