What the Media Should Report About the Ames Straw Poll (Romney, Huckabee, Ron Paul)

USAElectionPolls.com ^ | 8/12/07 | David Terr

[George W. Bush]

What the Media Should Report About the Ames Straw Poll

David Terr
Lead Analyst
Ph.D. Math; Berkeley
8/12/07

Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul Were Clear Winners, Mitt Romney Was a Loser

"Often, however, the media do not actually interpret poll results, but instead present simple, straightforward descriptive statements about them... Measures of association, correlation analysis, and multivariate statistical analyses are virtually nonexistent" - Asher, Ohio State University

I would first like to congratulate Mitt Romney for his impressive win at the Ames Straw Poll before I start criticizing him and tell you what the media is not reporting.

Candidate	Official Vote Count	Percentage
Mitt Romney	4516	31.5%
Mike Huckabee	2587	18.0%
Sam Brownback	2192	15.3%
Tom Tancredo	1961	13.7%
Ron Paul	1305	9.1%
Tommy Thompson	1039	7.2%
Fred Thompson	203	1.4%
Rudy Giuliani	183	1.2%
Duncan Hunter	174	1.2%
John McCain	101	0.7%
John Cox	41	0.3%

When you consider all the money Romney had spent in order to win the Ames Straw Poll, he did not do well at all. I do not know the actual dollar amount spent by the Romney campaign but I think it would be safe to say that it was on the order of hundreds per vote. But Romney is a smart businessman, he understands that winning this event will generate tons of free positive media attention worth far more than the petty millions he spent for Ames.

I cannot give the Romney campaign the win here today because his 31% at Ames is already close to the 27% he got in the University of Iowa poll earlier this month. Compare that to Mike Huckabee who got only 3% in that same poll getting 18% here.

What's even worse for Romney is the fact that Giuliani, McCain, Gingrich, and Fred Thompson were not even vying for votes at the Ames Straw Poll yet they are included in the polls that have Romney in the high-20s. And add to that the fact that 20% of Republican voters are undecided and you should have had a slam dunk by Romney by at least a 5:1 margin over his next closest competitor.

 

Actual Results - of the Latest Iowa Polls
Candidate	Univ. of Iowa	ABC News	ARG	Research 2000
Mitt Romney	27%	26%	21%	25%
Rudy Giuliani	11%	14%	22%	13%
Fred Thompson	7%	13%	13%	14%
Tom Tancredo	4%	5%	1%	2%
Sam Brownback	4%	5%	1%	2%
John McCain	3%	8%	17%	10%
Mike Huckabee	3%	8%	1%	2%
Tommy Thompson	-	4%	2%	2%
Ron Paul	-	2%	1%	1%
Duncan Hunter	-	1%	2%	1%
Newt Gingrich	-	-	4%	6%
Unsure	31%	7%	15%	22%
Other	10%	1%	-	-
None of these	-	4%	-	-

So what we did is we took the last 4 poll results and removed all the votes for Giuliani, McCain, F. Thompson, Gingrich, and the Undecideds and divvied up the rest of the votes to see the percentage.

Normalized Results - Removing Giuliani, McCain, F. Thompson, Gingrich, and Undecideds
Candidate	Univ. of Iowa	ABC News	ARG	Research 2000
Mitt Romney	71%	51%	72.4%	71.4%
Tom Tancredo	10.5%	9.8%	3.4%	5.7%
Sam Brownback	10.5%	9.8%	3.4%	5.7%
Mike Huckabee	7.9%	15.7%	3.4%	5.7%
Tommy Thompson	0%	7.8%	6.9%	5.7%
Ron Paul	0%	3.9%	3.4%	2.9%
Duncan Hunter	0%	2.0%	6.9%	2.9%
Percent of Total Poll	38%	51%	29%	35%

Flaws. The flaw with this is the error in assuming that voters who favor those candidates we had removed would be distributed across the rest of the candidates in the exact same proportions. The same would be true of the way the votes would spread out with the undecideds and the decideds. The last flaw is that by removing votes you decrease the sample size which results in a grossly high margin of error as much as 9%.

Despite all of that, 3 out of the 4 polls suggest that Romney would be getting 71-72%. And by averaging all of those normalized averages, we correctly predict the Top 4 finishers in exactly the same order they came in.

Candidate	Combined Normalized Average	Straw Poll Average	Percent Gain	Net Gain
Mitt Romney	66%	31.5%	NEGATIVE	-34.5
Mike Huckabee	8.2%	18.0%	220&	+9.8
Sam Brownback	7.4%	15.3%	207%	+7.9
Tom Tancredo	7.4%	13.7%	185%	+6.3
Tommy Thompson	5.1%	7.2%	141%	+2.1
Ron Paul	2.6%	9.1%	350%	+6.5
Duncan Hunter	3.9%	1.2%	NEGATIVE	-2.7

According to this estimate, Romney should have had an 8:1 margin of victory over his next closest competitor. In fact, I heard some analysts that made this exact conclusion.. they probably did something very similar to me to get their prediction.

I think the pundits that claimed Romney's win would be very comfortable hurt him in this Straw Poll. Much like when Clinton went for reelection in 1996 and all the pollsters claimed an easy Clinton victory, many voters were apathetic and just stayed home on election day. The same could have been true of Romney's supporters expecting a very comfortable win.

There is also the the likelihood that the Unsure voters flocked towards the other candidates (not Romney) in a larger proportion than the decideds did. That is very likely because whenever there is a race between a very well known candidate and someone less known, a voter being Undecided is usually a No vote to the well known candidate. The other unknown is how the Giuliani, McCain, Thompson, and Gingrich voters distributed across the other candidates. They may have supported Huckabee, Brownback, and Tancredo at a higher rate than they did Romney.

In looking at these results, Romney did more than a factor of 2 worse than expected as per the Combined Normalized Average (CNA). He was a big loser.

Mike Huckabee more than doubled his expected CNA and is obviously the true winner at the Straw Poll. Brownback and Tancredo had similar jumps but coming in third and fourth is about as good as kissing your sister.

Tommy Thompson barely moved up compared to the CNA thus he was clearly a loser. He has continuously said that unless he gets second place finish at the Straw Poll, he will not continue on with the campaign. Well sayonara Tommy because not only did you not do well but you finished sixth place.

Ron Paul showed a 350% improvement over his CNA at the straw poll and is clearly the second winner at the event. It is easy to show such a marked up win when you are only averaging about 2-3% in the polls but his polling average has been 50% lower than Duncan Hunter yet he wiped the floor of Hunter by a factor of 8. He had a raw net gain in percentage more than Tom Tancredo.

Ron Paul supporters should be very proud of his performance here. It may be reported as a horrendous performance because he came in fifth place but when you consider he was not even included in many polls just a few months ago and his poor polling numbers thus far have been keeping him down, 10% here is great.

Herbert Asher, a Political Science professor at Ohio State University, said that "continuing coverage of long-term trends, and background news is often neglected" by the media. The background news in this story is simple:

• Romney did not do well, his supporters may have stayed home expecting an easy win.
• Huckabee and Ron Paul soared above all expectations and are on the way up.
• Duncan Hunter and Tommy Thompson should drop out of the race.

I think Ron Paul's above expectations performance is a result of the underdog theory in reporting of polls. The concept that when supporters see their candidate down in the polls, they support him with greater angst.

With Mike Huckabee, I think the above expectations performance will have far greater impact on the presidential race than anything else. Look at the front runners: Romney is a mormon, Giuliani has been divorced and dressed in drag, McCain is old and dropping... Huckabee has set himself as the clear alternative choice. He had polled as high as 8% in Iowa (ABC News Poll) and will likely see himself in double digits in the next poll. In the next few months, it is going to be interesting to see if Huckabee can oust Romney. My perception is that once voters believe Huckabee can win, some of them will drop the Romney campaign for Huckabee. Because essentially a vote for Romney is a vote for traditional christian conservative values that Huckabee brings to the table.

Call this spin or whatever else you want but this is my interpretation of the data. Leave your comments below.

[George W. Bush]

Thanks for the PING George.

Well, I had to feed the trolls anyway. I knew they were getting hungry down under that dank bridge.

[padre35]

Romney is a very good business man and administrator, on those things he is top notch and he is well spoken and he does get things accomplished, we could do a lot worse then Mitt.

The thing that I like about Ron Paul is the lack of the need for back flips to explain the “why” he does things, his reasons are straight forward and crystal clear.

Fred has “some” of those qualities, being in the Beltway for so long though sort of makes his positions more mixed.

[George W. Bush]

The article about Ron Paul’s ‘earmarks’ was the last straw for me. What a hypocrite.

We're still waiting for the Paul-trolls to post any earmarks his district actually received.

[iowamark]

I am just reporting my own observation. I had 3 different campaigns offer me free tickets. I saw stacks of them being passed around.

You did have to show your ID to prove you were an Iowan but did not have to prove that you were a Republican.

[Badeye]

Fair enough. When they do, what will the Paulie Girls say then is the only pertinent question.

Will they remain true to their stated ‘principals’ or will they spend countless hours explaining it all away, as they did with his comment about our ‘policies in the last decade’ being the reason we were attacked on 9/11?

[padre35]

“I am just reporting my own observation. I had 3 different campaigns offer me free tickets. I saw stacks of them being passed around.

You did have to show your ID to prove you were an Iowan but did not have to prove that you were a Republican.”

Thanks iowamark, that is helpful.

Ron Paul doesn’t conduct polls, so it is hard to know which or even how many Dems support or even voted for the guy.

[Vanbasten]

So, Romney wouldn’t win unless he had 70%!!! OMG!

[Siobhan]

Fascinating interp. of data.

[NeoCaveman]

Why do you think he is the “best chance for a win?” His personal wealth is the only strong positive I see.

I wasn't asked but I'll chime in to as why I think he's a strong candidate:
He's an articulate and telegenic problem solver who has taken on big things like the Salt Lake City Olympics, he managed to get elected as a Republican in a deep blue state, he has been fantastically successful in business, and he'd be running against Hillary Clinton. Ok, the last part would be true for whoever we nominate.

[xjcsa]

Yep, Romney won.

Ron Paul also dusted both Thompsons, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain, against all expectations.

Those two pieces of data were the real news from this poll.

Agreed, except I think Huckabee's second place finish was notable, as well.

[CharlesWayneCT]

This analysis is quite flawed.

First, why would one think that Guilliani supporters would show up and vote “proportionally” for other candidates, much less a much more conservative Romney? It’s more likely that the Gulliani and McCain supporters would simply stay home.

Oh, except that they might see value in hurting the candidate who most threatens their candidate. So they might show up, and vote for a 2nd-tier candidate with no chance, in the hopes they can get ignorant fools to write about how it makes Romney a “loser”.

They might, for example, show up and vote for Mike Huckabee.

See, if they show up and vote for Guiliani, or Thompson, or McCain respectively, their candidate will still lose, and it will look like their candidate TRIED to win and lost.

But if they all show up and vote for Huckabee, it looks like Romney couldn’t out-distance the field.

Or better, many of them probably thought voting for Ron Paul would be funny.

[Turbopilot]

Thanks for the ping. This has been a surprisingly moderate thread, considering the content of the post.

[billbears]

My hometown checking in. Good to see. Alfred and Charlie’s BBQ is about 8 miles from my parents’ house. Know the area well and those numbers are about right for Gaston County. Dallas/Cherryville (upper part of the county) is even a little more so I’d think. If Dr. Paul is getting that much recognition in Gaston, I wouldn’t be suprised if he’s got some more presence over in that part of the state

[Badeye]

Thanks.

[Rameumptom]

Title should read "Author from Berkeley wants to paint Romney's win as a loss."

Romney won the straw poll by the same amount George W. Bush did in 2004. I guess that was a "loss" as well according to the Berkely crowd.

Romney beat the number two by a higher margin than Bush did. He won by 13% over second place to Bush's 10%. Romney's win says a lot no matter how the MSM try to spin it.

[jackieaxe]

Giuliani has... dressed in drag

I'm no fan on Rudy "One Note" Guliani but I am sick of seeing and hearing about how he dressed in drag for Halloween or Saturday Nite Live or something. OK, the guy's got a sense of humor, good! If you want to beat up on him mention how he parlayed 911 into a book and and lecture tour and is now running for President but didn't feel the need to run against H*llary Clinton for NY Senator. Can we stop with the stupid Rudy in drag discussions?

[NCSteve]

First, on the size and scope of government. Romney may cast about with a few platitudes about cutting taxes, but he has no position that differentiates itself from Hillary’s stated views on the role of government. It comes down to status quo. Hillary’s views on the role of government are not all that far outside the current state. Romney is a status quo kind of candidate. That’s why he gets the conservative moniker. From health car to welfare, Romney’s positions are all big government, he just uses different words than Hillary does.

[traviskicks]

that is a good analysis, thanks for posting it.

[Nav_Mom]

With all due respect, you are still being very vague...
Can you name specifically what Hillary & Romney agree on?
The war? Abortion? Gay Marriage? Immigration? Border security? Taxes?
As to the alleged health care similarities, IMHO there are none. Romney's version of health care was distorted and misrepresented in the dinosaur media (go figure)
I would be more apt to here your opposition to Romney if I felt you could point to actual issues. Thank you for your input.

[Nav_Mom]

I must confess, I was delighted to see “McVain” go down in flames in Ames. Thanks for the input.