Posted on 05/03/2012 10:50:28 AM PDT by xzins
If you combine the three types of incumbents — House, Senate, governor — they had a record of 66-17, which equates to a winning percentage of 80 percent. Depending on how you define the term, they may not have been “safe” for re-election — but certainly, most were favorites.
There is also not any particular evidence that, as Mr. Trende suggests, the majority of the undecided vote broke against the incumbents. On average, the incumbent candidates led by 8.1 points in the polls with 30 days to go; they won their elections by an average of 7.2 points. That’s not a huge difference, needless to say.
So, is there anything at all to the theory? A couple of qualifiers are in order:
First, as I stated above, if an incumbent is trailing in the polls, that’s a whole different matter. An incumbent is usually going to lose if he’s at 43 percent in the polls, and his opponent is at 48 percent. His problem, however, is less that he’s polling at 43 percent — and more that his opponent has a better number!
(Excerpt) Read more at fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com ...
If the incumbent is polling higher than the challenger, even if under 50%, the incumbent wins 80% of the time.
That's a whole lot different than the conventional wisdom being bandied about by Clinton insider turned Republican Trojan Horse, Dick Morris.
i think you really have to be soft in the head to think romney stands any chance of winning in november. he will get slammed harder than mccain did. the guy just isn’t likeable, he’s totally craven on conservative issues, and he doesn’t provide enough of a positive distinction between him and obama. romney’s campaign is doa. absolutely no one cares.
LOL. This is a “most people lie about sex” article by the NYT to reassure Obama’s supporters that he can still win.
They are the enemies of human rights, human dignity, self-determination, rational thought, and the quest for meaning in existence. They are the antithesis of intellectual, as they are blinded to learning and progressing by the delusions promulgated by their pathetic ideologies. They are hurtful, destructive, and mislead.
This piece by the NYT is designed to engender hope within the ranks of the left, who are demoralized by the fact that their ideology has been proved once again to be stupid and ineffective, and by the fact that their manufactured figurehead is polling poorly. Don't be deceived. Each and every time the left tries to demoralize you just remember that they are doing this because you are kicking their a**. The proper response is to kick harder - figuratively of course.
Wow. What a revelation. The guy who gets more votes wins. Amazing.
This is an old article if you look at the date. It far pre-dates this elections cycle.
The numbers, though, have nothing to do with anything other than those who were or were not polling below 50% prior to an election. It takes actual cases and adds them up.
Hah, this statistical chicanery is laughable even knowing that it’s the Slimes. Take a specific statistic, include seemingly-related results for what are really not related events, and use the now-inverted, wholly invalid results to refute the original specific statistic. Numbers don’t lie!
Translation: a 2nd term for Barack the Usurper is a fait accompli, and the NYT is damn sure going to do whatever they can to make it happen.
???
Did you read this article?
The NYT: Doing their daily level best to make sure no one can ever accuse them of being impartial or objective.
As there's no such thing as gerrymandering in House races, there's no possibility that an incumbent with low approval ratings would win anyway. Otherwise this data would be statistically suspect.
80% of incumbents leading their opponents, even if polling under 50%, won their re-election campaign.
That’s just a matter of adding up the numbers of those who fell in those categories.
It basically says that the leader wins and the follower loses.
That isn’t rocket science folks.
The notion that Dickie Morris, Clintoon’s sidekick, pushes is that losing in the polling should be ignored.
Which makes more sense? Really. That the loser is winning or that the loser is losing? Obviously, it’s #2.
If you’re losing then you damn sure better be worried about it, and not be off drinking kool aid with dickie morris.
Dick Morris is basically an idiot. He has some interesting insight once in awhile, but he is mostly just found a market for telling conservatives what they want to hear at this point. He is also the king of revisionist history. Dick makes incorrect predictions constantly and then goes back and qualifies his previous claims in order to say he wasn't wrong. I think BoR has won like a dozen steak dinners from Morris because of how often Dick is flat out wrong.
Obama plans to steal it!
The NYT spinning and whistling past the graveyard.
Romney sucks but IMO, Obama is a millsotne around the rats collective (ist) neck this Nov.
US House races, US Senate races, and United States Governors races: the results are not hard to find.
And we’re looking for those in which the incumbent was polling below 50% prior to the election. Again, not hard to find.
Adding and subtracting: not hard to do.
Result: like on a math test, what did the calculation say?
Hey....did you hear that?....We agreed on something!
(Someone should be throwing a party...LOL)
Presidents do not.
Presidents do not.
Except if your name is Al Franken.
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