[Future Useless Eater]

The polls followed by Real Clear Politics seem to have mostly stopped reporting results since Cain took the lead.

At this point in time, RCP lists 6 national GOP polls completed in the last 14 days, but three of those will expire in the next few hours.
Currently RCP lists: Cain=26.0 Romney=25.0 Spread=Cain+0.5

In a few hours, unless a new poll arrives
... RCP will list: Cain=26.7 Romney=28.3 Spread=Romney+1.7 (based on just 3 national polls!)


But Real Clear Politics does not report or average in the results from the Economist/YouGov polls. I think they should.
These look like legitimate polls, and RCP should especially consider them since the other national pollsters seem to not want to report recent results.

If RCP were to include YouGov polls, The most recent five would look like this...

1st choices:	Date	Sample	Cain	Romney	Gingrich	Perry	Bachmann	Paul	Santorum	Huntsman	Spread
YouGov	10/15 - 10/18	273*GOP	31	21	8	8	4	10	3	3	Cain +10
YouGov	10/8 - 10/11	273 GOP	33	18	9	10	3	7	0	4	Cain +15
YouGov	10/1 - 10/4	273 GOP	21	17	7	10	3	8	1	3	Cain +4
YouGov	9/24 - 9/27	279 GOP	11	15	6	14	4	6	2	2	Romney +1
YouGov	9/17 - 9/20	266 GOP	8	15	7	34	4	11	4	2	Perry +19
2nd choices:	Date	Sample	Cain	Romney	Gingrich	Perry	Bachmann	Paul	Santorum	Huntsman
YouGov	10/15 - 10/18	273 GOP	19	18	14	12	12	4	5	3
YouGov	10/8 - 10/11	273 GOP	16	21	13	14	8	11	4	2
YouGov	10/1 - 10/4	273 GOP	21	17	7	10	3	8	1	3
YouGov	9/24 - 9/27	279 GOP	12	22	10	6	8	5	5	3
YouGov	9/17 - 9/20	266 GOP	7	27	8	17	8	7	4	2
sum 1st+2nd choices:	Date	Sample	Cain	Romney	Gingrich	Perry	Bachmann	Paul	Santorum	Huntsman
YouGov	10/15 - 10/18	273 GOP	50	39	22	20	16	14	8	6
YouGov	10/8 - 10/11	273 GOP	49	39	22	24	11	18	4	6
YouGov	10/1 - 10/4	273 GOP	42	34	14	20	6	16	2	6
YouGov	9/24 - 9/27	279 GOP	23	37	16	20	12	11	7	5
YouGov	9/17 - 9/20	266 GOP	15	42	15	51	12	18	8	4

I find the last table (my own creation) interesting... Gingrich is more favorable (for 1st or 2nd choice) than Perry, and Bachmann is more favorable than Ron Paul.

*The reason for estimating 273 likely GOP voters, is that in recent weeks each poll was of 1000 general population adults, and...
  -The US census says that of the adult population, 64.9% are registered to vote.
  -YouGov only asked those who were registered to vote whether or not they are likely to vote in the GOP primaries or caucuses.
  -And only 42% (of those registered) said they would likely vote in the GOP primaries or caucuses.
  -Only those likely to vote in the GOP primaries or caucuses were asked which GOP they liked... (Romney, Gingrich, Bachmann, Huntsman, Paul, Cain, etc...)
      1000 x 64.9% x 42% = 273 likely GOP voters.

---

With TWO most recent YouGov polls included

Much like what the government does with unemployment statistics, the following chart represents a 4-poll "rolling average" for the latest 20+ polls listed at RealClearPolitics.com (plus 2 from YouGov).

I also weighted the polls by their size. For example, a poll with a survey size of 1000 was weighted proportionately heavier than an 324 survey size.

Weighted 4-Poll Rolling Averages of the latest 20+ Polls listed at RCP [as of Oct 24]
plus the "YouGov" 10/18 and 10/11 polls inserted chronologically

Example Methodology		Single Poll Totals			4-Poll Totals			4-Poll Weighted Rolling Average Percentages
	When Taken	Sample	Romney	Cain	Sample	Romney	Cain	Romney	Cain
YouGov	10/15-10/18	273 GOP	57	85	2120	585	591	27.6%	27.9%
AP/GfK	10/13-10/17	431 A	129	112	2120	577	596	27.2%	28.1%
CNN/Opinion Research	10/14-10/16	416 RV	108	104	2173	554	629	25.5%	29.0%
Rasmussen Reports	10/12-10/12	1000 LV	290	290	2093	523	615	25.0%	29.4%
YouGov	10/8-10/11	273 GOP	49	90	1503	327	404	21.9%	26.9%
PPP (D)	10/7-10/10	484 LV	106	145	1621	372	376	22.9%	23.2%
NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl	10/6-10/10	336 RV	77	91	2161	470	416	21.8%	19.2%
Reuters/Ipsos	10/6-10/10	410 A	94	78	2475	555	435	22.4%	17.6%
WP/Bloomberg/PSRAI	10/6-10/9	391 A	94	63	2389	516	412	21.6%	17.3%
Gallup	10/3-10/7	1064 A	205	184	2925	626	507	21.4%	17.4%
ABC News/Wash Post	9/29-10/2	650* RV	163	111	2777	614	437	22.1%	15.7%
CBS News	9/28-10/2	324 RV	55	55	2490	535	388	21.5%	15.6%
Quinnipiac	9/27-10/3	927 RV	204	158	2613	574	364	22.0%	13.9%
Pew Research	9/22-10/4	876 RV	193	114	2686	610	277	22.7%	10.3%
FOX News	9/25-9/27	363 RV	83	62	2249	523	185	23.2%	8.2%
CNN/Opinion Research	9/23-9/25	447 A	94	31	2203	509	139	23.1%	6.3%
Rasmussen Reports	9/19-9/19	1000 LV	240	70	2503	535	145	21.4%	5.8%
USA Today/Gallup	9/15-9/18	439 RV	105	22	2048	415	97	20.2%	4.7%
McClatchy/Marist	9/13-9/14	317 RV	70	16	2055	389	97	19.0%	4.7%
CBS News/NY Times	9/10-9/15	747 RV	120	37	2238	410	121	18.3%	5.4%
Bloomberg	9/9-9/12	545 RV	120	22	2141	440	104	20.5%	4.8%
CNN/Opinion Research	9/9-9/11	446 A	80	22	245	82	477	---	---
PPP (D)	9/8-9/11	500 LV	90	40	167	60	344	---	---
ABC News/Wash Post	8/29-9/1	650* RV	150	20	76	20	189	---	---

---

[BagCamAddict]

Thank you.

[Future Useless Eater]

Another ballpark sanity-check for the national 'averages' could be to look at where these candidates stand when using a composite of the most recent STATE polls.

This could be done using the SEVEN STATE polls taken LAST WEEK; Texas, and six others.

One could assume those might represent the country as a whole pretty well, since these included TWO super liberal BLUE states (NH and HI) four battleground purple states ( IA OH FL SC) and one red state (TX)
If anything, the rest of the country might even lean MORE toward Cain as a whole.



I averaged these latest state polls from LAST WEEK to determine a composite, as follows:

	Sample	Cain	Romney	Gingrich	Paul	Perry	Bachman	Huntsman	Santorum	Spread
U.S. COMPOSITE	3449 GOP	30.7	22.2	9.1	8.5	7.7	5.2	2.0	unknown	Cain +8.5
TX	844 GOP	33	7	5	19	18	1	3	1	Cain +14
OH	500 GOP	34	19	14	7	5	6	1	1	Cain +15
HI	293 GOP	36	24	8	4	8	6	1	1	Cain +12
SC	476 GOP	32	16	8	6	12	6	1	NotAsked	Cain +16
FL	505 GOP	30.2	32.6	11.7	2.7	2.9	1.6	2	NotAsked	Romney +2.4
IA	GOP RV	26	18	12	10	6	11	1	NotAsked	Cain +8
NH	409 GOP	24	39	5	11	2	5	5	NotAsked	Romney +15
	Sample	Cain	Romney	Gingrich	Paul	Perry	Bachman	Huntsman	Santorum
U.S. ZOGBY	1214 GOP	45	21	6	8	7	1	3	3

I also show Zogby for comparison.... RealClearPolitics does not like them because they are an online poll.
But Zogby has 10% fewer 'undecided's than telephone polls... probably because those online pay closer attention to politics. ALSO, I see Michele B is low in the zogby and higher in the nationals, so it would seem Zogby relies more on men because more men use computers.

[Graewoulf]

Thanks for the PING! It is interesting that there are two major % groupings of Candidates now as shown on the YouGov plot.

Now that Perry has revealed his flat tax idea, it will be interesting to see if he can join the 25 % level. If so, at whose expense?

[cruise_missile]

Hope Romney has peaked.