Time to panic.
Posted on 09/06/2004 12:31:30 PM PDT by MrChips
Just announced on CNN.
I think the scrambling by the Kerry team is one evidence that the polls showed a significant bounce of some kind.
Whose numbers are right really doesn't matter, IMHO.
But it must have been enough to warrant a shake-up in the Kerry campaign.
Better than Rasmussen's. I still don't like polls over Labor day weekends.
The ultimate goal is have more people vote for you than your opponent.
Decreasing the number of people who votes for your opponent is as good a means to achieve that objective as getting more people to vote for you. Therefore any analysis of polling should take both strategies into account, not just the latter.
7 points is solid and this will hurt the Democrats just as much as it hurt them hearing the 11-point leads in the other polls. It just confirms that Bush has got the momentum, no matter how you slice it.
Is that the same book that said Dubya brought male hookers to the White House and that momma Babs is a practicing Witch?
Excellent news. Unlike most other polls, if Gallup says President Bush is up seven, chances are he is really up seven. Also, he is now polling over 50%.
Because of the holiday weekend and the massive storm coverage it may take a week or more to measure the true post-convention bounce. Next week's polls should be more accurate.
"Decreasing the number of people who votes for your opponent is as good a means to achieve that objective as getting more people to vote for you. Therefore any analysis of polling should take both strategies into account, not just the latter.'
This is true. But the fact that 7% of the voters who were GOING to vote has disappeared from Kerry's column, doesn't automatically assume they are going to vote for Bush.
They might possibly make a last minute decision to vote for Kerry again which could bring the race dead even again.
The 7% is out there somewhere.
"I think the scrambling by the Kerry team is one evidence that the polls showed a significant bounce of some kind."
I agree.
There has to be some real damaging internal polling that has the DIMs shaking in their loafers.
Time to panic.
Does that make sense to you?
fuzzy math?
I don't remember 'bounce' ever being calculated that way. I've been watching these things for a long time, and I always remember them being calculated as 'gain in lead.' If a man was up 2 and is now up 12, that's a ten point bounce.
Bush 285EV and Kerry 237EV, the rest EV are toss ups. Still close in the battleground states. Kerry is not out, he's only down. But Bush is in the driver seat (...and he always was).
Campaigns spend a lot of money on polling. You don't shake up your team if you are only slightly behind when your opponent just finished his convention.
I don't recommend getting over-confident, but I would guess that after months of GWB being slightly behind, he has now opened a 5-7 point gap. I'm also guessing the bulk of it opened just BEFORE the convention.
Differences Between Polls
September 6, 2004--We have been flooded with e-mails asking (in varying tones of politeness) why our poll results seem different from those released by Time and Newsweek.
There are two basic explanations, one involving our polling data and one involving the newsmagazines. For those who need to know the answer before the explanation, the bottom line is that the President is ahead by 4 to 5 points at this time. That's a significant improvement over the past few weeks, but not a double digit lead.
Our current poll (showing the President ahead by just over a point) includes a Saturday sample that is way out of synch with all the days before it and with the Sunday data that followed. In fact, Saturday's one-day sample showed a big day for Kerry while all the days surrounding it showed a decent lead for the President.
It seems likely that Saturday reflects a rogue sample (especially since it was over a holiday weekend). But, it remains in our 3-day rolling average for one more day (Tuesday's report). If we drop the Saturday sample from our data, Bush is currently ahead by about 4 percentage points in the Rasmussen Reports Tracking Poll.
That's still a smaller lead than shown by Time and Newsweek. Those polls appear to have the mirror image problem of a Los Angeles Times poll in June reportedly showing Kerry with a huge lead. That LA Times survey included too many Democrats in their sample. Today, it seems likely that Time and Newsweek included too many Republicans.
Time reports that Republicans will vote for Bush by an 89% to 9% margin; Democrats for Kerry by an 80% to 9% margin; and, unaffiliated voters for Bush 43% to 39%.
Four years ago, 35% of voters were Republicans, 39% were Democrats, and the rest were unaffiliated. If you apply those percentages to the Time internals, you find Bush up by about 3 percentage points. If you do the same with the Newsweek internal numbers, you find Bush with a six point lead. Those results are very close to the Rasmussen Reports data (excluding the Saturday sample).
All of this leads me to conclude that the President is currently ahead by 4 or 5 percentage points.
For those who say turnout might be different this time, I agree. It might be different. One of our great challenges between now and Election Day is to figure out how much (if at all) the turnout will change from historic norms. Partisans from both sides seem convinced that there are special circumstance that will increase turnout for their team. Others speculate that their may be a smaller number of unaffiliated voters since events of the past four years have caused people to take sides.
Whatever the turnout differences may be, they will not be big enough to match the implications of the Time and Newsweek polls.
As always, it's useful to use common sense when reviewing poll data. If a poll suggests that 10 or 20 percent of Americans are changing their mind on a regular basis, it should be viewed with caution. Most of the time, you will find that the partisan mix of the polling sample is changing more than the actual perceptions of voters.
Yesterday, we released a brief assessment of the Bush Bounce. Based upon our 7-day Tracking data (less susceptible to one-day rogue samples), it appears that the President has gained more than five points over a three week period of time. Given the Swift Boat issue and the Republican National Convention, that seems to be a reasonable measure of the shift.
During the Republican Convention week, the President's numbers improved across the board. He took the lead in the 16-Battleground States, his Job Approval ratings went up to their highest levels in six months, and the number saying the country is moving in the right direction increased to its highest level of the year.
Gore was the first person since 1948 to lead after Labor Day to actually lose the election, but he did lead the popular vote.
Even better sign though is that the Gallup leader has consistently polled right at or within a point or two of his Labor Day number. Thus Bush being at 52% is the Key - this means he should poll 50-54% on election day.
Not saying this is in the bag, but historically speaking Bush is in the catbird seat now. Bush still needs to run as if it is neck and neck but at least at this point the omens are all good ones.
Labor Day lead, Approval over 50%, Unemployment 5.4%, Economy growing, Job Numbers good, etc etc.
"I've been watching these things for a long time, and I always remember them being calculated as 'gain in lead.' If a man was up 2 and is now up 12, that's a ten point bounce."
This may be the case in the way that it is reported.
But if Bush polled 48% last week and his numbers never change, but Kerry polls 47% last week and now is at 40%, he(Bush) didn't receive a 'bounce'. Kerry just lost votes.
To me a 'bounce' would be an increase in percentage points from a previous poll.
It's still possibly for Kerry to 'reclaim' the lost percentage, because it hasn't automatically fallen into the Bush column.
Just my rationalization.
The poll was of likely voters (TV does not say how many) with a 3.5% margin of error (under 3% would be a better poll). The best news is in some of the internals. Only 38% see Iraq as a mistake. Over 50% approve of Bush's handing of the presidency.
That rather silly and unlikely example is not mine.
If we were talking about Kerry, Schneider (and no doubt Gallup too) would be talking about a 4 point bounce.
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