July 2, 2008
By Mark Blumenthal
The web site Political Wire published a sneak peak of at two new Strategic Vision (R) polls yesterday. While they included no information about survey dates and sample sizes, the reported the top-line numbers:
Florida: McCain 49%, Obama 41%, Barr 1%
Georgia: McCain 51%, Obama 43%, Barr 3%
We will update this entry (and our charts) with the results as soon we have the official release from Strategic Vision.
I corrected my typo and entered the numbers now posted by StrategicVision for Georgia and Florida. As of this writing the links for the releases appear to have the wrong release date (06/02/08) but list field dates of June 27-29 and a report different percentage for Obama in Florida (41%) than what PoliticalWire reported yesterday (43%).
By Mark Blumenthal on July 2, 2008 11:13 AM
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January 8, 2008
By Mark Blumenthal
I have few thoughts about New Hampshire in my mental "in-box" I want to try to blog this afternoon...
1) Break to Obama? - Reader "FlyOnTheWall," in a comment posted to my exit poll item this morning, noticed something important in the final round of polls on the Democratic race in New Hampshire:
I was struck by something this morning, looking at the final two days of tracking polls, and was hoping that you could illuminate the issue.
There have been 16 numbers released over the past two days, all conducted entirely since Iowa. Of these polls, 14 have pegged Hillary's support in a very narrow range of 28-31 percent. (The other two are from Suffolk, which has been a consistent outlier throughout primary season, but even Suffolk is only at 34.)
The Obama polls, by contrast, are all over the map. They put him anywhere from 32 to 42 percent, and are fairly evenly distributed over that range. In other words, everyone seems to agree on Hillary's level of support - but what determines the margin is the level of support for Obama.
What gives here?
Several readers have posted responses worth reviewing. Here is my quick take. "Fly" is right about the pattern in the data, as the following table shows. There is less variation in the Clinton percentage than for the other candidates, particularly Obama. But notice that Obama's support generally goes up as the percentage of undecided voters goes down.
That patterns suggests that as of the final snapshot, a lot of voters are leaning to Obama but not quite yet decided. That pattern is consistent with what we sometimes call the "incumbent rule." Obviously, Senator Clinton is not an incumbent, but much as they often do with incumbent candidates, voters may have largely made their decision about Clinton yet are still in the process of deciding to support her most prominent opponent. The final CNN/WMUR/UNH poll still has 21% of the likely Democratic voters saying they have "considered some candidates but are still trying to decide," including 18% of those who say they will "definitely vote" in the primary. Thus, some voters will carry their uncertainty all the way to their polling place, not making their final decision until they cast a ballot. This pattern usually suggests a "break" to the challenger (or in this case Obama), but as I learned the hard way in 2004, not always. We will know later tonight.
PS: MIckey Kaus and his readers noticed signs of the "incumbent rule" pattern in Iowa.
2) What is the Independent Mix? On First Read this morning, our friend Chuck Todd passed along the following:
Team Romney believes many of the tracking polls could be over-sampling independents. And if the indies move en masse to Obama, it could make for a more conservative GOP electorate, benefiting both Romney and (to a lesser extent) Huckabee.
This observation raises a good question. What is the percentage independent on the various tracking surveys. Unfortunately not all pollsters have included the relevant data in their releases, but the following table shows what I was able to gather from the final surveys:
A few notes. First, not all surveys ask about party the same way. Most of the numbers cited above appear to be based on self-reported party identification (what do you "consider yourself?") and party registration ("how are you registered?"). The CBS/New York Times survey, for one, reported party ID results. Second, I certainly may have overlooked party numbers, so please email me or leave a comment if you can fill in party numbers missing above.
Note, the numbers above are not the "independent split" calculation that Noam Scheiber blogs about here, although obviously, those numbers are related. The CNN/WMUR/UNH survey reported a 60% to 40% split to the Democrats on their last survey, Fox reported a 55% to 45% split in the same direction.
Two more points about independents (or more correctly, those whose party registration is "undeclared"). Some data in the CNN/WMUR/UNH report makes it clear that the bigger the turnout, the greater the undeclared contribution in both party primaries. Not surprisingly, as the table below shows, the "definite" voters voters are more likely to be undeclared than those who say they "may vote" or that they plan to vote but not if an "emergency" comes up.
One indirect measure to look for in the exit poll tabulations tonight is the percentage independent in each primary, and how it compares to what the pre-election polls were reporting.
Note: I want to apologize to those who continue to receive the "too many comments" error message when attempting to post a comment here. Suffice it to say, you have not posted too many comments to Pollster.com. We have been trying to squash this bug for months now (without success) and, unfortunately, the very heavy traffic we are experiencing today is aggravating the bug.
By Mark Blumenthal on January 8, 2008 2:23 PM
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December 13, 2006
By Mark Blumenthal
I spent yesterday morning at a post election conference sponsored by Charlie Cook's Political Report, James Carville, Congressman Tom Davis and the Northern Virginia Community College. The conference kicked off with a panel of four very experienced campaign pollsters, two Republicans and two Democrats. They covered many subjects, and I can't possibly do them all justice here, but I do want to pass along some of what the pollsters had to say on what I typically refer to as the Incumbent Rule.
Carville called it "as good a pollster panel as has ever been put together," and he wasn't kidding. The Republican pollsters were Republicans Neil Newhouse of Public Opinion Strategies and Dave Sackett of The Tarrance Group. The Democrats were Harrison Hickman of Global Strategy Group and Stan Greenberg of Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner. Each is a principal in their own firm, and each has been involved in some of the most competitive statewide races since the 1980s, and collectively their four firms polled in over 180 races for Senate, Governor and the U.S. House in 2006. It is hard to imagine any four campaign pollsters with more comparable experience.
Carville moderated the pollster panel, and his first question concerned his observation that a "doctrine" prevalent in the 1980s among campaign mangers and consultants "that challengers close better than incumbents" in the final days of a campaign. As Michael Barone put it earlier this year, the idea is that "an incumbent is not going to get a higher percentage in an election than he got in the polls." Carville's question: Is that doctrine no longer valid?
A more complete look at the incumbent rule and remains on my to-do list for the next month or so, but in writing up this post, I took a quick look at how incumbents fared in the (still largely) unofficial election results as compared to our final last-five-poll average in the most competitive races for Senate and Governor.
As the table below shows, on average in these particular races looking only at the last five polls in each race, the rule did not apply particularly well. On average, both incumbents and their prime challengers picked up 2.4 percentage points -- an almost exact 50-50 split in the most competitive statewide races.** In some cases, such as the Pennsylvania Senate race, virtually all of the undecided went to challenger Bob Casey, but the pattern was otherwise typically muddled.
The tougher question is the one inherent in Carville's question to the pollsters: Why the recent change in what had been pollster doctrine? Here is a summary of what the four pollsters had to say:
- Republican Neil Newhouse noted the example of his client, incumbent Republican Jim Gerlach (Pennsylvania-6), who was in a 44% to 44% tie on their final internal poll conducted a week before the election. In the "old days," Newhouse said, we would have assumed an easy Murphy victory. However, Gerlach ultimately prevailed (51% to 49%) after a closing with a final television ad featuring a personal appeal by Gerlach that Newhouse credited for the victory. As for the incumbent rule, Newhouse said, "we are seeing a bit of a change, but not much consistency." While he still tends to give challengers the "benefit of the doubt" when incumbents are under 50%, Newhouse believes it is no longer "carte blanche automatic" that the undecided vote on the final poll will all go to the challenger.
- Republican Dave Sackett agreed and credited the much shorter "fifteen minute" news cycle for the ability of incumbents to turn the tables on challengers late in the campaign. He noted that his client Deborah Pryce (Ohio-15) as trailing "all the way through" on internal tracking polls, which would presumably include one in the final week (he noted via email that the margin had closed to within sampling error on the final poll). However, according to Sackett, the Pryce campaign outspent Democratic challenger Mary Jo Kilroy by a two-to-one margin over the final weekend, and credits her narrow victory to that final burst of communication.
- Democrat Harrison Hickman pointed out that in the 1980s, the conventional wisdom was to avoid mention of your opponent, a habit that helped explain why challengers won much of the late undecided vote. Now, he said, the general pattern is for incumbents to vigorously attack challengers throughout the campaign. "Incumbents put so much more pressure on challengers then they used to." (See this pre-election column by Dick Meyer of CBS News that includes data Hickman gathered showing the impact of negative advertising on candidate favorable ratings since 1986).
- Finally, Democrat Stan Greenberg agreed with his colleagues that the traditional pattern, seen as recently as 1996 when Bill Clinton got 49% in their final poll and 49% of the vote on Election Day, has changed. He speculated about another possible explanation, that elections for the House and Senate have become increasingly "nationalized" since 1994. Pointing to the increasing "partisan consistency" in pre-election polls (each party's candidates winning 90% or more of voters of that party's voters), Greenberg argued that elections now "get crystallized in a specific way nationally" and that local elections get "swept up" in a national tide that may negate the traditional last minute shift of undecided voters to challengers.
Of course, the solution to this very interesting puzzle is inherently speculative. It is also worthy of more analysis than I gave it above. Hopefully, we'll have more to come over the next month or so.
By Mark Blumenthal on December 13, 2006 5:57 PM
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August 22, 2006
By Mark Blumenthal
Last week I discovered an interesting new blog devoted to political polling called Crosstabs.org. Actually, Crosstabs.org is something of a blog within a blog, a site nestled within the conservative site RedState.comorg. It combines frequent posts from blogger Gerry Daly -- who used to blog at his own site, Dalythoughts, and comment from time to time here on MP -- with an interesting twist. The new site will include occasional contributions from five Republican campaign pollsters: Robert Moran of Strategy One, Bob Ward of Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates, Brent McGoldrick of Grassroots Targeting, Bill Cullo of Qorvis Communications and Rob Autry of Public Opinion Strategies.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then MP certainly welcomes the presence of more professional pollsters into the blogosphere, regardless of their political perusasion. When it comes to methodology, we all do things a bit differently, and readers will benefit from having more perspectives online. Take the issue of the "incumbent rule," for example. In their first week, the pollsters at Crosstabs.org have posted some thoughts worth reviewing here, here and here.
Now, obviously, Crosstabs.org will handicap polls from a conservative perspective (just as Dalythoughts did during the 2004 cycle). Chris Bowers and his colleagues at MyDD and Ruy Teixeira at Donkey Rising have long done the same from the liberal side of the blogosphere. And while I try to keep the handicapping and commentary as neutral here as I can, there is no doubt that I am a Democratic campaign pollster. So a little balance is not a bad thing.
Welcome to the neighborhood Crosstabs.org!
By Mark Blumenthal on August 22, 2006 12:57 PM
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August 14, 2006
By Mark Blumenthal
Time to revisit "incumbent rule," thanks to Mickey Kaus who highlighted this observation last week by Michael Barone's column in U.S. News & World Report:
It may be time to revise one of the cardinal rules of poll interpretation--that an incumbent is not going to get a higher percentage in an election than he got in the polls. Lieberman was clocked at 41 and 45 percent in recent Quinnipiac polls; he got 48 percent in the primary election. The assumption has been that voters know an incumbent, and any voter who is not for him will vote against him. But the numbers suggest that Lieberman's campaigning over the last weekend may have boosted his numbers-or that the good feelings many Democratic voters have had for him over the years may have overcome their opposition to his stands on Iraq and foreign policy.
I wrote about the incumbent rule quite a bit in the run-up to the 2004 elections (especially here and here), applied it the polls in Ohio and then considered how the rule came up short (here and here). Reconsidering the rule has been buried on my MP to-do list for some time, and while I lack the data to provide conclusive answers, today is as good as any to think out loud about some of the key issues involved.
The best known empirical assessment of this "cardinal" rule was written by Chicago pollster Nick Panagakis for the Polling Report in 1989. He gathered 155 final polls spanning the period from the 1970s to 1988 (though most came from 1986 and 1988) and found that for 82% of the polls, the majority of the undecided broke to the challenger. Note, that this statistic tells us how many polls showed undecideds breaking for challengers, not the proportion of the undecided voters that broke that way.
In September 2004, MyDD's Chris Bowers persuaded Panagakis to share his database and updated it with polls conducted from 1992 to early 2004. Bowers took the process a step further, calculating the average split of the undecided vote over all the elections. He noticed something obviously important in retrospect. The incumbent rule seemed to be weakening (although he had little data from 1996): 80% of the undecided vote broke to challengers in the poll Panagakis collected between 1976 and 1988, but only 60% went to the challenger in the polls Bowers gathered between 1992 and the summer of 2004. And challengers did worst of all in the polls in 2002 and the spring/summer of 2004 (42% to the incumbent, 58% to the challenger).
I have not attempted the same sort of comprehensive review of all of final polls from the fall of 2004, but on the final national presidential surveys an average of roughly 40% of the undecided vote broke toward challenger Kerry. And the break of undecided voters in battleground states looks closer to 50/50. "According to the exit polls," as Slate's David Kenner and Will Saletan pointed out, "Bush got 46 percent of those who made up their minds in the last week of the campaign and 44 percent of those who made up their minds in the final three days."
One question I have wondered about is whether the apparent weakening between the 1980s and 1990s could have been an artifact of the changes in the nature of pre-election polling or the particular races included in the database. For example, did the 1990s see more polling in contests for Senate, Governor and local offices and less in presidential races? Did long term changes in the timing or volume of pre-election polling affect the statistics?
The more important question is why undecided voters have stopped breaking toward challengers in the final week of the campaign. There are many theories.
- One possibility is that post 9/11 politics makes voters more reluctant to take a chance on challengers. Are undecided voters more averse to change given the current emphasis on war and terrorism in our campaigns? Some of the high profile Senate and Gubernatorial races saw a break favoring in incumbents in 2002 (though the incumbents were not exclusively Republican). Consider also this bit of purely anecdotal evidence from MyDD's Matt Stoller:
I phone-banked a bunch of undecideds who in all likelihood flipped to Lieberman in the waning days of the campaign. "I hate the war, I hate Bush, but I'm just not sure we can pull out right now" was the way they put it.
- There is also the alternative theory Barone articulated in his column last week:
The left is noisy, assertive, in your face, quick to declare its passionate support. Voters on the right and in the center may be quieter but then stubbornly resist the instruction of the mainstream media and show up on Election Day and vote Republican, as they did in 2004, or for Lieberman, as some apparently did this week.
- Or could this change reflect a change in the nature of campaigning? Negative television ads were a rarity in the 1970s, but have grown increasingly commonplace in the years since. Has the willingness of incumbents to "go negative" limited the ability of challengers to make the race a referendum on the incumbent and shifted the attention of late breaking voters to the alleged shortcomings of the challengers?
Unfortunately, I have no answers tonight. What is clear is that past trends are not much help in interpreting the pre-election polls of 2006. How the undecideds will "break"in the final days of the 2006 campaign is anyone's guess.
UPDATE 8/15: Readers have made a number of points worth reviewing in the comments section about possible shortcomings in the speculation above, as well as with the previous analysis of the incumbent rule. One thing worth noting is that academic political scientists and survey researchers have devoted little if any attention to the incumbent rule. We certainly have a lot to learn about this "cardinal rule," despite its past popularity with campaign pollsters including yours truly.
By Mark Blumenthal on August 14, 2006 11:17 PM
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