and contrary to current spin, there were some hotly contested Dem primary races lower down on the ballot in Ohio, not least of which was Kucinich vs Kaptur.
Does anyone sense a narrative trend? Ignore national polls showing the incumbent at 46. Focus on Ohio, early voting, and gender gaps.
Poll Ping.
Across the board I think we’ve had a lot of good news and I do believe we can win without OH, but shouldn’t have to.
But, I also have one concern that may be nothing. The polls out of OH just last week were showing huge indie leads for Romney some 20+ and thus were very heavily skewed to make it look like O was ahead. However, Rasmussen has the indies almost equal in his new OH poll with an R+1 sample and several dem leaning polls lately seemed to show much more fair breakdowns of D/R with indies trending away from Romney.
I think there are a few possible scenarios. Dems are putting together a concerted effort to have their people report as indies in polls ? There is a real surge for O with indies in some battleground states. Why ? Maybe the exploitation of comments by Akin and Mourdock about rape and abortion is working with indies ? In PA I’ve noticed the pro-O commercials turning to positive themes exclusively, something I’d like to see more of from Romney. Maybe this works with indies ? Finally, it could just be statistically noise and differences in polling techniques.
This is my last real concern, the next few days should tell whether it’s a real one or not.
I remember thinking something similar to point #1, that D voter affiliation in OH is being vastly underreported, because presumably so few Ds voted in the ‘12 Democratic Primary given the obviousness of who was going to win it.
Another factor to consider is that there were likely a number of crossover-Ds who voted in the ‘12 Republican Primary, so R voter affiliation may also be somewhat overestimated.
Even still, only 1.2mln voted in the important R primary compared to 1.1mln in the meaningless D primary. A trend suggesting to me that there may just not be anywhere close to the necessary levels of Rs needed to win OH.
I can recall our side trying to ignore polls in 2008 with all manner of inside style info and all we got was letdown. While it’s obvious Obama is way off his 2008 pace and imho will lose the popular vote, if Ohio’s D vs R registration is dependent on if you voted in the primary, how can we disqualify the polls that say D+7, etc.?
I’m not trying to be contrary, I just wonder if there’s something more solid to grasp.
Why would polls give a non biased view of the popular vote with Romney up in just about every poll, but add bias to Ohio? Why not fudge the overall number too?