Posted on 02/11/2008 1:10:17 PM PST by dangus
Friday, Rasmussen didn’t even poll Republicans on their primary choice; the national news media already announced McCain had won the nomination. Saturday Rasmussen did release their poll: McCain trounced Huckabee, 55-24. Sunday, as the nation learned Huckabee was still a candidate, Huckabee improved, but still trailed greatly, 49-29. Monday’s poll shows Huckabee pulling to within 12 points, 46-34.
This seemed in monumental conflict with Gallup, which showed McCain winning over those same three days, 56-25. But now another poll, AP/IPSOS shows the race just about as close as Rasmussen, 44-30. (The GOP establishment should be nervous that Ron Paul also polled at 9% nationally.)
But is it even closer than Rasmussen shows? All three polls were taken over the same time period. Only Rasmussen released results each day. With them having done so, we can extrapolate from the data roughly which percentage of respondents supported each candidate each day. Saturday McCain won 55-24. To have dropped to a 49-29 lead, McCain must only have led in Sunday’s poll, 43-34. And to have dropped further to a 46-34 lead, McCain seems to have actually lost Monday’s poll, 40-44.
Some caution is necessary: When splitting hairs like this, the effect of rounding and statistical error is amplified. Depending on rounding, McCain and Huckabee could have tied at 43 percent in Monday’s poll. And the margin of error for such a small sample is six percent… which means McCain could have gotten six percent more, and Huckabee could have gotten six percent less. Which means McCain could actually have led Huckabee by twelve percent in the most recent day’s polling data. (But, by the same logic, Huckabee could be winning by twenty percent.)
AP/IPSOS’ three day results are very similar to Rasmussen. Unfortunately, AP/IPSOS didn’t release day-to-day numbers. So we can’t tell if Rasmussen’s results are the result of an amazing tightening, or just bizarrely flukish data on Monday’s release cancelling out equally bizarre data the other way on Sunday. But it seems safe to say that AP/IPSOS confirms that Rasmussen’s overall three-day data is realistic.
So why is Gallup’s so skewed in comparison? Gallup polled “voters” not those who were were most likely to vote. It’s likely less politically active voters were less likely to realize that there was still a battle to be fought. Also, Gallup’s polls counted independents, even though independents won’t be allowed to vote in most remaining states.
It’s still worse for McCain coming up. Whereas California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Delaware, and New Hampshire all have large numbers of moderate Republicans, and all voted for McCain, of the remaining states, that’s only Oregon, Maryland and Vermont tend towards moderates. (I’d also suppose McCain could do well in the military-heavy states of Virginia and Hawaii.) And what happens if McCain voters believe the media hype and don’t bother to vote, while Huckabee’s supporters swarm to the polls?
The notion that Huckabee can’t win simply isn’t at all true. Republican states are mostly winner-take-all, so Huckabee can still nearly every remaining delegate with 51% of the remaining votes. (And even that doesn’t account for the Paul voters.) Even winning scarcely more than half of the remaining delegates could force a brokered convention. Or, more likely, a negotiated victor with Romney supporters and state party leaders picking the winner. Whereas such a deal would haunt Clinton or Obama, who have already considerably tapped potential primary donors, Huckabee could campaign full-throttle on what are legally "primary" funds.
McCain couldn’t even win his home state [AZ] by a majority. He received 48% of the vote. Compare that to Obama [65%], Hillary [57%], Romney [51%], and Huckabee’s [60%] performance in their home states.
Most of our remaining states are not winner-take all.
Virginia IS winner-take-all, but will most likely go to McCain because of the military vote. We were working really hard for Romney here, and thought we had a shot, but it was an outside shot, and I haven't found all that many Romney people who are switching to Huckabee.
Huckabee is doing a lot of phone calls here, and so is Ron Paul, and I think Romney's going to get a good number of votes.
My guess is that McCain may not get 50%, but will win and take all 68 delegates.
I think we are the last statewide WTA. Some others are WTA by congressional district, and the rest are proportional.
BTW, a 14% margin is not a race. Huckabee hitting 40% would be a race.
>> You get delusions of grandeur as a symptom, I hear.<<
Yeah, this one guy who had syphillus thought he was Napoleon!
(Oh, wait... he WAS Napoleon.)
I don’t want your money, send it to FR. Regardless, McCain is unfit for command.
Easy my FRiend, I like you pissant. McCain is much more fit for command than Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama and you know it very well.
Yes. So is Joe Biden or Arlen Specter. But I would not vote for them either.
>> BTW, a 14% margin is not a race. Huckabee hitting 40% would be a race. <<
Pay attention:
“Only Rasmussen released results each day. With them having done so, we can extrapolate from the data roughly which percentage of respondents supported each candidate each day. Saturday McCain won 55-24. To have dropped to a 49-29 lead, McCain must only have led in Sunday’s poll, 43-34. And to have dropped further to a 46-34 lead, McCain seems to have actually lost Monday’s poll, 40-44.”
By tomorrow, we’ll know if its a race. We’ll see if (1) Huckabee wins Virginia (which is worth twice as much as Maryland), and (2) if the Rasmussen tracking polls show Huckabee continuing to move up. 45-36 or closer will confirm if Huckabee has moved into a tie.
Another thing to consider while considering ‘best case scenarios,’ Huckabee does not poll well on Sunday. Many of his voters got to church and eat out, then got to church again.
In the latest Survey USA poll of Virginia, they show Huckabee gaining a lot of ground but half of the poll was conducted before he won on Saturday and wasn’t affected by a bounce.
“Any momentum Huckabee accrued from those wins would only partially be reflected in these interviews, half of which were completed before the results of the Saturday wins were known.”
The second half of the poll was conducted on Sunday which includes a potential bounce but would tend to favor McCain.
“The waters are choppy. The numbers reveal an ebb and flow in the Republican electorate. The data should be interpreted with caution.”
I problably mis-placed puncuation or assumed you would understand what I was implying, only that Obama has many of the gifts that Reagan had, not the substantive ideas.
Obama has been very careful to play to his left without boxing himself into any policy. He agrees with Bush on Lebanon. He has left himself a way out of leaving Iraq abruptly by saying he may discover new details when he assumes office. In other words, he’s a politician and if he can’t find any way to rescue his party from the label of defeatist, he will not change the policy in Iraq.
While I agree generally that Democrats are weak at war, they are subject to the same mandate of any republican, if the people call for vengence, vengence will be swiftly taken.
No democrate that could be elected today, would have behaved any different than GWB on 9/12/00. The american people were angry and vengence was swift and sure.
No politician wants to be cast as a coward in defense of his nation.
“If you hadn’t noticed, Conservatives don’t like candidates that have to “shift right”. They like folks that are already there.”
Who? Huckabee. Prolife socialist. Soft on crime. High taxer. No thanks. Not now. Not ever. He is not a conservative in any meaningful sense. He is getting his 15 minutes as the alternative to McCain. His shelf life is about 2 more weeks.
Mike Huckabee is very popular with our military.
No, Not Huckabee, not Romney, not Giuliani, or Thompson, and Certainly *not* McCain, the Traitorous Bastard. Not a one is a Conservative. The Conservatives in this race were Hunter, Tancredo, and Keyes.
I have no dog in this hunt, and the Pubbies can go hang. Especially so wrt McCain. There is nothing on this earth that could move me to vote for him.
He is the Betrayer.
He is without honor.
He is unworthy.
Which military? The military guys I know and love don’t care to much for him. In fact, most blame him for the problems with the problems taking place, which will give us McCain.
Think Henry the 8th ... :) (want 8 wives ?)
The “analysis” of Rasumussen daily tracking 4-day averages has never worked correctly, because Rasmussen has factors that he uses and a more complex algorithm, which is proprietary.
Every time I’ve seen someone try to extrapolate the daily numbers from his 4-day average, the numbers have ended up blowing up rather than giving the results Rasmussen reports.
Yeah, I just saw today’s.
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