Poll: Obama Edges Romney in New Mexico

Real Clear Politics ^ | 10Sep 2012 | Caitlin Huey-Burns

[Carthego delenda est]

“there are regularly counties with more voter turnout than residents”

One heavily hispanic precinct here in Grant County had 100% voter turn out last election. A very civic duty minded people in that precinct.

[tiki]

I expect a real push by the Catholics closer to the election.

[ABQHispConservative]

I’ve felt that New Mexico is inching towards being more competitive for Republicans. The power of the dems is diminishing in the state legislature and I hope it continues.

I am a bit worried about the senate race. It should be a lot easier to beat Heinrich. The guy is a loon. Wilson needs to go all out. She literally has nothing left to lose.

[1035rep]

Incumbent Races:
Closer Than They Appear

by Nick Panagakis

How will undecideds vote on election day? Traditionally, there have been two schools of thought about how undecideds in trial heat match-ups will divide up at the ballot box. One is that they will break equally; the other, that they will split in proportion to poll respondents who stated a candidate preference.

But our analysis of 155 polls reveals that, in races that include an incumbent, the traditional answers are wrong. Over 80% of the time, most or all of the undecideds voted for the challenger.

The 155 polls we collected and analyzed were the final polls conducted in each particular race; most were completed within two weeks of election day. They cover both general and primary elections, and Democratic and Republican incumbents. They are predominantly from statewide races, with a few U.S. House, mayoral and countywide contests thrown in. Most are from the 1986 and 1988 elections, although a few stretch back to the 1970s.

The polls we studied included our own surveys, polls provided to us directly by CBS, Gallup, Gordon S. Black Corp., Market Opinion Research, Tarrance Associates, and Mason-Dixon Opinion Research, as well as polls that appeared in The Polling Report.

In 127 cases out of 155, most or all of the undecideds went for the challenger:

DISPOSITION OF UNDECIDED VOTERS

.
Most to challenger 127
Split equally 9
Most to incumbent 19

http://www.pollingreport.com/incumbent.htm

[1035rep]

info

[newzjunkey]

Obama attracts 45 percent of the support to Romney’s 40 percent, with 8 percent of voters undecided, according to an Albuquerque Journal poll of likely voters. The survey includes the state's former governor, Gary Johnson, who is running as the Libertarian candidate; he garners 7 percent of the support.

Gary Johnson playing spoiler?

[gswilder]

This is the 2nd poll from NM recently that shows it close. Another one last week, had O up 3. Didn’t O win this by 15 points in 2008?

Thats why this O is winning poll meme, just doesn’t fly. The only states both O and R are campaigning in, are the states O won in 2008.

[WOSG]

They are ... New mexico is in play... but the libertarians will keep it in the D column. if that happens in Virginia as well ... then you can thank the 3rd party vote for delivering another Obama term.

Remember, Clinton NEVER won a majority of the vote ... he never had to.

[WOSG]

“Totally misleading spin. NM is supposed to be a solidly blue state that it is this close is bad new for 0.”

Yes. Romney team should put some money into that. We have a senate seat at play too. In a blowout we can win both.

[Gay State Conservative]

Gary Johnson = Virgil Goode = Ralph Nader = Ross Perot.