Nate Silver FiveThirtyEight-- Aug. 9: National Polls Shouldn't Panic Romney

New York Times ^ | August 10, 2012 | Nate Silver

[hcmama]

One problem is that the trend toward Mr. Obama in national polls has hardly been uniform. The Gallup national tracking poll has shown a very flat race. And Rasmussen Reports had a swing toward Mr. Romney in its release on Thursday, with his pulling ahead by four points in its survey. Weekly tracking polls from Public Policy Polling and YouGov have also not shown especially good numbers for Mr. Obama lately. If there had really been a shift in the race of the magnitude that the Real Clear Politics average implies — it has Mr. Obama gaining three points on Mr. Romney over roughly the past 10 days — we probably wouldn’t be seeing these contradictory data points.

[WaterWeWaitinFor]

Yes, Romney BETTER start getting into the race here. Any time, Mittens......... waiting......... waiting......

And he better dump that incompetent Andrea Saul, so called moronic spokesperson that answered “If Soptic lived in Mass. he'd have Romney care”..... AAAAAAAAAAAAAACH! What a buffoon. You think THAT guy will dump Obamacare?

At this point, I see Romney bringing a feather to a gun fight.

[Elle Bee]

we've nominated another Bob Dole .... but he's all we've got for now

.

hold your nose (again) and vote for him

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[Lib-Lickers 2]

if Obama is still down 3 points by RVs in the Fox Poll on the economy and they over sampled the Dems by 9 points it’s not good news for Obama..

[Buckeye McFrog]

Why is not Obama losing by 80%?

Because at least 45% of our population has concluded that life on the dole could be pretty sweet.

[LibLieSlayer]

Could it be that there are now over 100 million Americans on welfare? If this continues... 1/3 will ALWAYS vote for other people’s money.

LLS

[InterceptPoint]

Silver does a fair analysis.
+++++++++++++++
Yes he does. There is no doubt that Nate Silver is a highly competent analyst despite his obvious leftist views.

But his analysis still suffers from the garbage-in garbage-out problem. While he accounts for the RV vs LV problem (+2 for Romney with LV polls) it appears that he simply ignores the outrageous over-sampling of Ds that is a “feature” of a majority of the recent polls.

[hcmama]

Today’s Rassmussen tracking shows Romney maintaining a 4 point lead.

[drjimmy]

if Obama is still down 3 points by RVs in the Fox Poll on the economy and they over sampled the Dems by 9 points it’s not good news for Obama..

But Obama has improved his poll position on that question from 7 points down to only 3 points down in the past 2 months, so the trend is in his favor.

And the only other question that Romney leads Obama on is reducing the deficit. On every single other question, Romney is either only tied with or behind him, including handling foreign policy (-13), handling health care (-7), handling taxes (-3) and perhaps most significantly helping people achieve the American dream (-8).

Silver is certainly correct that it isn't panic time, but Romney needs to get cracking in the next few weeks to refocus the debate.

[untwist]

You are correct. Obama is spending a load of money right now just to hold Romney down. Obama has not gained a single vote with his latest rounds of assaults.

Romney hasn’t begun his real spending barrage yet. In 4 weeks we will see a different picture.

[uncbob]

Romney’s campaign people will use this as a signal they need ro move further left—Just watch these fools

[Perdogg]

44 RATS
35 GOP
21 OTHERS

[ScottinVA]

“44 RATS
35 GOP
21 OTHERS”

Thanks. What surprises me is FNC is connected to such a sham poll. If the Dems were to turn out at +9 better than Repubs this time around we ARE truly sunk as a nation.

[JLAGRAYFOX]

Number one, folks, do not pay any attention to polls, the Obamabot media is feeding you bogus information. The “real” campaign has yet to begin. The fact that Obama and his minions are resorting to the most negative and untrue political ads is proof they are in free fall and resorting to desparation tactics. Also, the demographics of recent primaries reveal a miserable Democrat turnout measured against a stunning Pubbie turnout.

My fear, however is that Romney is pulling a McCain campaign, whimp at best!!! I hope I will be proved dead wrong.

Shucks, I would have already named the VP candidate and had major attacks using the core issues on Obama & company, over and over again. See....folks I hail from NYC and am used to street fighting. Obama is a pure America hater, as is most of the Democrat Party. This election, IMHO, is it for America.

We either throw out Obama, or....we throw away our nation!!! That’s the whole story. And for me....Romney does not know how to street fight with these America destroyers, effectively. God knows, I am hoping I am dead wrong in my analysis!!!

[comebacknewt]

I think there is no doubt that the Obama / DNC attacks have hurt Romney. He has compounded it by not being on the airwaves combating them.

Has Obama struck a fatal blow? Probably not yet, but Romney is behind and has ground to make up.

If he continues to play it safe, he will continue to fall further behind and Obama and a number of FReepers will be ecstatic.

[arthurus]

Did you wait for Bush I in his re-election amble? He had a big gun on his hip but he never pulled out of the holster.

[arthurus]

I believe the oversampling is supposedly an estimate of how many more Democrats will actually vote than Republicans.

[InterceptPoint]

I believe the oversampling is supposedly an estimate of how many more Democrats will actually vote than Republicans.

That's correct. In 2008 Obama was +8 over McCain. In 2010, with the Tea Party energized Dem advantaged dropped to about +0. What will it be this year? I'm thinking it will look more like 2010 than 2008. If I'm right then Romney will win.

[hcmama]

I think there is no doubt that the Obama / DNC attacks have hurt Romney. He has compounded it by not being on the airwaves combating them.

I think that is a fair criticism of Romney's campaign thus far. His response to the fascist tactics of the Chicago goon squad does not indicate any awareness of the fact that in Obama he is dealing with a punk thug who is barely containing his contempt for this country. It is up to Romney to rip the mask off Reverend Wright's altar boy and I have yet to be convinced he is willing to do the job.

[hcmama]

That is true. But in 2008 at the height of hopey changey mania there was only a Dem +7 advantage in turnout. Does anyone really think that Obama will do better than that in 2012, especially after “Hope and Change” has now turned into “Hyped and Deranged?”

[RetSignman]

The truth is, ALL the pollsters and ALL the media looks forward to the presidential elections the same way the Mafia looks forward to the football season.

The Mafia doesn’t want gamblers to ever beat the spread so they juice the numbers to narrow the spread.

ALL pollsters and the media do the same thing, neither one wants a presidential race to appear to be one sided so they juice the numbers to tighten it up.

When the ‘game’ is in the last quarter, the pollsters stop juicing the numbers just to stay relevant for the ‘next season’.

All the media has to do is feign shock, stunned and surprised at the outcome. Then they bring out all their ‘experts’ to explain it all away to cover their asses.

Ret.