Posted on 11/01/2008 5:07:01 AM PDT by vwatto
Election 2008: Pennsylvania Presidential Election Obama Leads By Four in Pennsylvania
Saturday, November 01, 2008
In Pennsylvania, John McCain is getting closer, but Barack Obama is still attracting a majority of voters.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of voters in the state shows Obama with 51% of the vote while McCain picks up 47%. That four-point advantage for Obama is down from a seven-point margin earlier in the week and a 13-point advantage for Obama earlier in the month.
Just 75% of Pennsylvania Democrats now support their party’s nominee, down from 86% in the previous survey. Obama is doing a bit better among unaffiliated voters while Republican support for McCain remains steady (see crosstabs).
(Excerpt) Read more at rasmussenreports.com ...
Any time any of us have to down there for some reason, we always come back and say “I spent a week in Balwmer, one day”....:))
The PA poll with 7 points leading shows 8% Dem advantage relative to 2004. Should’ve been clearer in the original post — Ras gives his state polls the same or more sauce that he gives to national polls.
[HA! We do that in Tennessee! We’ll do the mumble the name and look to see if they caught it. And then if we don’t get a scrunched up face reaction, we’ll say McCain a little louder.]
I’m not exactly a shrinking violet, but experience tells me Dems have zero reasoning power at are vindictive when confronted with facts. So yes, I tiptoe into conversations regarding my conservative leanings. I think this is a national phenomena.
If Obama wins, it will rip the backbone of this country apart.
I think McCain/Palin will win Pennsylvania, as long as they can overcome the Philly ACORN effect.
Let me make sure that I understand what you are saying. If I'm reading your last post correct you are saying that the PA state poll has an 8% Democrat advantage versus the 2004 actual. Is that correct??? If so, its even better than what I thought was in your earlier post.
correct.
I took the R/D/I samples from that 7% poll and normalized them to 2000 and 2004 R/D/I ratios. Even under the 2000 turnout model for PA, McCain won. Actually, come to think of it, I didn’t even try using it with the 2004 R/D/I ratio for PA, but I’m sure it’s higher.
I’ll go run the numbers for this poll now.
Is there ANY poll of Rasmussen that doesn’t have Obama over 50%?
Sheeesh.
This poll is good news, but Ras is junk this year.
There is a problem I see about the heavier weighting of the democrats. My guess is that the pollsters have determined through national polls that Obama will have far greater support from democrats because they will turn out in greater numbers. This is logical because Obama has spent far more money, has they support of the national press and McCain and the GOP are not exactly in favor by the general public.
So, the logical conclusion is to assign higher turnout figures to each and every state based on the expected national increases in proportion to historical turnout. For example, if Ohio and Pennsylvania had 40% democratic turnout in 2004 and it is expected that this year overall turnout of democrats will increase by 10%, then the expected turnout at the polls for Ohio and Pennsylvania would be 44% (40% x 1.1).
If this is the logic being used to weight the turnout in the battleground states, the polls in these states may be fatally flawed.
The reason they may be fatally flawed is that the battleground state’s historical turnout is already at peak amounts. The past campaigns have focused heavily on the battleground states and have filled the market with TV and radio advertising, visits from the candidates and celebrities, door to door volunteers, and phone trees.
There is a cost concept called diminishing returns. The first few advertising dollars picks up the low hanging fruit and need little money to reach them, the next buyers cost more to reach but they require even more money. At some point, the extra dollars are not going to make a difference. At same point, the extra popularity and media support are not going to change the turnout.
Applying this to the battleground states means that one should be very skeptical to assume significant increases in turnout for democrats.
OK, just ran the numbers. PA R/D/I split in 2004 didn’t differ significantly than 2000, so the numbers are close.
Using 2004 R/D/I model in PA, McCain wins 50.77 - 47.21 with the current Ras numbers.
Using 2000 R/D/I model in PA, McCain wins 50.43 - 47.54 with current Ras numbers.
Plus the fact that Obama has not been campaigning outside of Phily..
Ras internals aren’t as divorced from reality in the 4% poll, so this time it’s only about a 5% sauce.
What changed: Obama is now leading with Is by a 12% margin; the poll before this one, McCain was winning them 6% with the previous PA poll. That’s OK because Kerry won the Is in PA by 17%.
Anyway, the polls are all still crap.
Additionally, as I mentioned in my post (#110, above) too large a poll lead could cause some complacency among Democrats. If many Dems think Obama’s election is a ‘fait accompli’ they may stay home on election day and the huge turnout might not happen.
Talk radio, and the internets are doing a good job keeping the Republican based fired up, so I don’t expect to see a big dropoff in GOP voters. Nonetheless, we all need to make sure we get ourselves and our loved ones out to the polls on Tuesday.
My bad! I said “only 5% sauce”, but it’s too early in the morning to be working with numbers :-)
There’s still 7% sauce, because it was a 4 point O lead that would be 3 point McCain lead in 2000 models.
I hope the unrealistic Dem oversamplings also lend to voter depression. They will see long lines and decide to blow voting off. College kids in particular will not wait more than about 30 minutes.
Do you have 2006 turnout numbers?
exactly correct. we can win any fair vote in PA. The danger is the fraud in Philly.
Who ae you talking about? I don’t recall any recounts in 2004.
okay, by popular demand, I’ll try and find 2006 PA turnout and calculate using the 2006 voter model... give me a few minutes.
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