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Posted on 11/13/2011 2:58:45 PM PST by Steelfish
NOVEMBER 13, 2011 WSJ/NBC Poll: Cain, Perry Woes Bolster Romney and Gingrich
By Jonathan Weisman
A week of turmoil in the race for the Republican presidential nomination has damaged Herman Cain and devastated Texas Gov. Rick Perry, all apparently to the benefit of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, according to new polling numbers from the Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey. (The full results are here.)
Republican presidential hopefuls (L-R), Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry at the South Carolina Presidential Debate at Wofford College Saturday. (Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images) The Journal/NBC News polling team late last week went back to re-interview Republican primary voters who had taken the Journal/NBC poll earlier this month. The results of 102 interviews, while not scientifically conclusive, are instructive.
Among those recontacted, 32% now say they favor Mr. Romney for president, up from 27% when they were surveyed between Nov. 2 and Nov. 5. During that earlier canvas, those 102 Republican voters favored former pizza executive Mr. Cain over Mr. Romney in a head-to-head race 51% to 47%. That same group now favors Mr. Romney 56%-43%.
Mr. Perry’s debate memory lapse last Wednesday may have taken an even greater toll. At the debate in Michigan, Mr. Perry asserted he would eliminate three federal cabinet agencies if elected, then spent nearly a minute trying to remember the third. Some seasoned commentators called it the worst debate gaffe they had ever seen.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
“and we are to believe the numbers represent scientific evidence.”
What’s funny is that the article actually admits that the poll is not scientifically conclusive but instead “instructive.”
Newt can take a billion dollars and advertise to hell freezes over and he will still lose the female vote. Plus the majority of the religious right. He will get less votes than insane McCain. That is just a fact of life.
It’s worse than that. It’s a resampling of 102 of 248 Republican respondents. IOW, a subset of a subset. The margin of error has to be huge.
The fix has been in for decades. All our little Republican primary voters know to do is back the candidate “whose turn it is.”
You are right of course. Many judge candidates not on intellect but appearance. The American people nearly always let us down.
From my stat education I recall that small samples can be very significant if drawn from a valid representative portion of the total population. It is this feature that determines the reliability of extrapolation to the population. It is this feature also which dishonest persons manipulate.
I already have over 184 votes in the poll I’m doing right now, and my poll is open for another 36 hours or so.
I’m hoping to get over 1000 votes, so please spread the word — ping your friends!
Here’s my poll, for anyone who hasn’t taken it yet:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2806879/posts
If it’s Romney who gets the nominee we’ve let ourselves down because the primaries are when the base has the biggest voice.
cindie
Save that prediction...
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