One possible obstacle was suggested recently by The New Republic's Jon Chait, who suggested that Democrats can't sustain enthusiasm when their party holds the presidency like Republicans:

The Democratic base tends to lose interest in the threat of right-wing politics when their party holds power. Republicans, I'm guessing offhand, have had more success energizing their base during Republican rule. (Anybody want to quantify this?) Specifically I'm thinking of the 2002 and 2004 elections, which featured revved-up Republican bases despite total GOP control of government.

My seat of the pants analysis is that this reflects a psychological difference between the left and the right. The liberal coalition is more ideologically diffuse and attracted to individualism. Sometimes you see left-wing splintering at the end of periods of Democratic control -- 1948, 1968, 2000 -- but more often it's simply harder to make liberals understand the urgency of preserving their party's control of power against a hypothetical threat. Conservatives, by contrast, may find the idea of rallying behind a leader more attractive. Liberals were obviously very enthusiastic about the historical nature of Obama's election, but the enthusiasm has waned since. The conservative cult of personality around George W. Bush actually seemed to peak in 2004.

Is this claim supported by the data? Gallup has asked survey respondents whether they are more or less enthusiastic are about voting than usual in every election since 1994. In previous years, I use the last available poll before the general election. However, Gallup changed their question wording this election cycle for the enthusiasm question so I rely on the June 11-13, 2010 survey (the last using the old wording) to make sure the results are comparable with previous years (the current estimates of enthusiasm using the new wording are very similar).

Using this measure, I calculate net enthusiasm by party (% more enthusiastic - % less enthusiastic) and then take the difference between parties, constructing a measure of the net enthusiasm advantage for the president's party.* (This abstracts away from features of the election that may increase or decrease enthusiasm in both parties.) The results are more ambiguous than Chait's claim:

Democrats have been less enthusiastic relative to the other party in the first midterm under both Clinton and Obama than Republicans were under Bush, but it's important to keep in mind that the 2002 election is an outlier due to 9/11. By comparison, 1994 and 2010 were extremely unfavorable electoral environments. In more favorable conditions (principally, a booming economy), we see that Democrats were relatively more enthusiastic for Clinton in the 1996-2000 elections than Republicans were for Bush in 2004-2008. It's unlikely that Democrats will close the enthusiasm gap with Republicans in this election -- the conditions are just too unfavorable -- but the historical record doesn't indicate that they are incapable of enthusiastically supporting a Democratic president.

* I relied on Gallup's tabulation of enthusiasm by party (including leaners) when available. I calculated results myself for 1996 and 2000 using survey data archived by the Roper Center. Note: The 1996 survey includes "the same" as an option for the enthusiasm question; in other years, it was only recorded if volunteered by the respondent.

[Cross-posted to brendan-nyhan.com and Huffington Post]]]> http://www.pollster.com/blogs/can_democrats_sustain_enthusia.php http://www.pollster.com/blogs/can_democrats_sustain_enthusia.php 2010 Wed, 29 Sep 2010 10:43:21 -0500 questions@pollster.com (Steve Lombardo) by Steve LombardoThe race is on. No, I'm not referring to the one between Republicans and Democrats; instead, I'm talking about the race between pollsters and media organizations to project this November's GOP margin of victory. There have been some pretty smart analyses produced over the last several weeks, including ones by Cook, Rothenberg, RealClearPolitics, FiveThirtyEight and, most recently, the vaunted NBC political unit with its Voter Confidence Index. However, in the quest to compare this year to other "wave" elections (see 1994, 1982 and 1974) they may have all missed the most important phenomenon of all: the growth rate of this potential electoral hurricane. We have all been so concerned about looking at this as some fixed point in time--by, for example, trying to compare this year to elections that took place 30 and 40 years ago--that we have forgotten to look back just 90 days ago. When one does, the only conclusion that you can have is the following: we are seeing an intensifying political storm that for Democrats is the electoral equivalent of a catastrophic hurricane.

First, here's a quick primer on hurricanes. According to climatologists, hurricanes can release an amount of energy in one day equal to all of the electricity generated across the globe in 200 days. Hurricanes also keep building as long as they keep getting energy from warm water. Hurricanes strengthen via the temperature of the water: the hotter the water, the more strength it gains. But if a hurricane moves over land or colder water, it starts to fizzle out. Just like climatological hurricanes, an electoral hurricane is fed by an energy source. In politics this energy source is usually voter anger and frustration with the status quo. The Tea Party movement is one byproduct of this energy (to further this analogy, wind and rain are by-products of regular hurricanes). So the question is will this political hurricane continue to feed off the warm water of voter anger, or will those waters cool a bit as we get closer to shore (Election Day)? To judge, let's look at how this storm has intensified over the last 200 days.

We examined five key measures of voter anger: the percentage of voters who say the country is on the "wrong track," the President's disapproval rating, Congressional disapproval rating, the Generic Congressional ballot share for the party out of power (GOP) and the Party ID for the out-of-power party (GOP). All of these are negative measures for Democrats; that is, the higher the number the worse for the Democratic Party. (All data is from Pollster.com monthly averages for registered voters.) We then simply calculated the sum of these negative measures, which we will call--trumpets please--the LCG Voter Anger Index.

As you will note from the table below, the Voter Anger Index score in February of this year was 246. In May it rose to 250 and in August it stood at 259. In the last 90 days it has risen 9 points. The lesson here is not just that anger is high, it is that it is increasing with each passing day/week/month. The water temperature is not cooling; instead, it is getting warmer and feeding the storm. If it increases another 20 points by Election Day, the result would be catastrophic for the Democratic Party. We are talking about a 50 - 60 seat loss in the House and loss of the Senate.

When we look at this from a historical perspective, we see that the anger level in February was already equal to 1994. In August of this year the Voter Anger Index was a full 14 points (or 6%) higher than it was in November of 1994. It is also important to note that this index is based on registered voters. Our assumption is that voter anger is even higher among likely voters and the measures we've seen--like the generic ballot--do suggest that.

Hurricanes are named. We all remember Katrina. For really destructive storms, the World Meteorological Organization sometimes takes names off the list. People don't want to see the name again. Democrats might soon want to have this year's election removed from the history books as well.

Current Political Environment

There is no doubt that the White House is now fully engaged in the mid-term elections. The question will be whether this is too little, too late. Real world events have a way of either complementing or distorting/diminishing the President's message as his party tries to hold Congress. We are getting some key month's end economic data this week and it will impact voter attitudes. Here are some observations on the current political milieu:

1. The "pledge" is a winner for the GOP if it does no harm. The pledge is important for Republicans because of the signal it sends to voters, not because of any specific policy agenda item. If voters have a neutral to slightly positive impression of the pledge it will have done its job. The goal of the pledge was to help clarify the GOP brand and toward that end we think it generally works. On the other hand, don't expect any big boost for Republican candidates as a result of the unveiling.

2. The focus on Christine O'Donnell's controversial comments may doom her candidacy in DE but have little effect on the GOP as a whole. This is all about her personally and there will be little residual impact on Republicans elsewhere or the Tea Party.

3. There has been a substantive drop in Obama's approval rating that is reflected in perceptions of his ability to handle issues. The recent Politico/GWU/Battleground poll asked who voters thought would be better in handling certain issues: Obama or Republicans in Congress. On turning around the economy, 49% chose The GOP (and only 41% Obama) and on creating jobs, 51% picked Republicans in Congress while only 40% chose Obama.

4. The economy remains the number one issue but likely voters are being driven by two secondary but potent issues: 1) perceptions that the stimulus (and TARP) was a government handout and a failure and 2) that the healthcare reform law was an example of too much government intrusion and over-reach. While some in Washington still find it difficult to believe, anger over the deficit and spending in general is what is driving the likely midterm voter and it is a powerful and emotional issue.

5. On the economy, the political problem continues to be one of unmet expectations. People expected things to get better more quickly than they have. The country lost 7.6 million jobs since the start of the recession in December of 2007, but we have only recently begun adding jobs over the last few months (and at an awfully slow rate). It will likely take years to add back those jobs. Similarly, household net worth has recovered only four percentage points of the 21% lost according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. The problem was that people expected things to get better much, much faster. That has hurt Obama and Democrats as much as anything.

Thanks again to John Zirinsky and Peter Ventimiglia for their insights and contributions. For real-time reactions to events and more thoughts on the public opinion environment, please follow us on Twitter @lcgpolling.

The Quinnipiac poll shows Blumenthal's margin over McMahon narrowing to just three points (49% to 46%), a slightly closer margin than on their previous poll earlier in the month (51% to 45%). Rasmussen Reports also released a new Connecticut poll yesterday that showing Blumenthal ahead by just five points (50% to 45%), a slightly closer than the 9-point margin they found earlier in September (53% to 44%). The new surveys narrow Blumenthal's lead on our trend estimate to just four percentage points (49.8% to 45.3%), shifting the race to "lean Democrat" status.

The Blumenthal campaign will likely quarrel with these numbers, as they preemptively shared results of an internal poll yesterday with other media outlets, purportedly showing their candidate with a double-digit lead. But while the levels of support measured by the Quinnipiac and Rasmussen surveys may or may not be right, the trend evident in their results is unmistakable: McMahon has narrowed the gap significantly since winning the Republican primary in August.

Elsewhere, two new polls in Pennsylvania produced results consistent with previous data. In the Senate race, a new Muhlenberg College/Morning Call poll shows Republican Pat Toomey leading Democrat Joe Sestak by 7 points (46% to 39%), while a new automated survey by the Republican firm Magellan Data and Mapping puts Toomey ahead by 8 (49% to 41%). That makes 18 public polls in a row since July showing Toomey with a nominal lead. Our more sensitive trend line shows that while voters have been growing increasingly decided, the roughly 7-8 point margin between Toomey and Sestak has not changed since August.

In the Pennsylvania governor's race, the Muhlenberg College poll shows Republican Tom Corbett leading Democrat Dan Onorato by 9 points (48% to 37%), while the Magellan poll has Corbett up by 12 (50% to 38%). Corbett's margin on the Muhlenberg result is one of the narrower reported in recent weeks. Our trend estimate gives Corbett a roughly 12-point advantage (50.3% to 38.7%).

In Delaware, Rasmussen Reports' latest poll shows Democrat Chris Coons leading Republican Christine O'Donnell by 9 points (49% to 40%), a slightly narrower margin than the CNN/Time poll found a week ago (55% to 39%).

The Rasmussen poll also found 5% support for Mike Castle, the incumbent Senator who lost the Republican primary to O'Donnell earlier this month. Castle is said to be considering a write-in candidacy. Rasmussen's approach was to omit reference to Castle in the first part of the question, but offer him as a option in the second. If the answer categories followed Rasmussen's typical format, their respondents would have heard something like this:

If the 2010 Election for United States senate, were held today would you vote for Republican Christine O'Donnell or Democrat Chris Coons?
If you are for O'Donnell, press 1
If you are for Coons, press 2
If you are for Mike Castle, press 3
If you are for someone else, press 4
If you are not sure, press 5

In this case, if the Rasmussen system allows respondents to answer immediately (without waiting to hear all the choices), many would have chosen O'Donnell or Coons before hearing that Castle was an option. Measuring support for a write-in candidacy is difficult, especially when it is still hypothetical. This sort of question will tend to measure the floor of a write-in candidate's support. So don't be surprised if other Delaware polls in the near future offer Castle as a more explicit option and show more potential support.

[Cross-posted to the Huffington Post]

Oklahoma

2010 Senate
68% Coburn (R), 26% Rogers (D) (chart)

A new Field poll of California released this morning shows Boxer leading Fiorina by six percentage points (47% to 41%), while a new automated SurveyUSA poll yields fewer undecided voters but gives Boxer the same six-point advantage (49% to 43%). A handful of automated surveys in late August and early September suggested a tighter race, including two earlier polls from SurveyUSA that gave Fiorina a slight edge, but the last five surveys conducted since mid-September all show Boxer with nominal leads.

Our standard trend estimate, based on all available public polls, now shows Boxer leading by a roughly three-point margin (47.5% to 44.3%). Our more sensitive trend line, shown below, illustrates the tightening in late August. Since the current estimate from that line gives greater weight to more recent polls, it gives Boxer a slightly larger lead (47.8% to 43.2%).

The two new California polls also suggest a reversal of the previous trend favoring Republican Meg Whitman. The Field poll results released yesterday show Whitman tied with Democrat Jerry Brown (at 41% each), while SurveyUSA gives Brown a small but statistically insignificant advantage (46% to 43%). So while six surveys had shown Brown with nominal leads in August and early September, the five most recent polls show either a tie or a slight Brown edge.

Our standard estimate shows a slight Whitman lead (45.9% to 44.4%), but our more sensitive trend line points puts Brown ahead by a single percentage point (45.5% to 44.1%). Either way, the California governor's race is currently the closest in the nation.

SurveyUSA also released a new data this week in Washington confirming a similar rebound by Democratic Senator Patty Murray over Republican challenger Dino Rossi. The new automated poll gives Murray a two-point edge (50% to 48%), a marked improvement from their last survey in mid-August showing Rossi leading by seven. Our trend estimate now shows Murray ahead by roughly five points (50.8% to 45.8%), as all four surveys released in the last two weeks show Murray at least nominally ahead. Rossi continues to do slightly better on automated surveys by SurveyUSA and Rasmussen than on live interviewer polls conducted recently by CNN/Time and the Elway Poll.

Elsewhere, Democrats also received encouraging news in Florida, where a new Mason-Dixon poll shows Democrat Alex Sink holding a six percentage point lead (47% to 40%) over Republican Rick Scott. That margin is slightly better than on our trend estimate, which has Sink ahead by just over three points (49.6% to 46.4%), but five of the six polls conducted in September have shown Sink with nominal leads.

Late update: A new Mason Dixon poll published this morning by the Las Vegas Review Journal shows Democratic Senator Harry Reid and Republican challenger Sharon Angle tied at 43% each. We have now seen eight remarkably consistent surveys in Nevada this month reporting margins ranging from a 3-point Reid edge to a 2 point Angle advantage. Our trend estimate gives Reid a margin of a half a percentage point (45.6% to 45.0%) -- currently the closest Senate contest in the nation.

Cross-posted to the Huffington Post

Nate Silver says generic ballot polling may underestimate Democratic support; Jay Cost responds.

Mark Mellman thinks we shouldn't read too much into bouncing generic results.

Tom Holbrook calculates how predictive House district polling has been since 2006.

Frank Newport reviews the many ways pollsters can reporting pre-election tracking results

Bob Erikson wants the Democrats to run a national campaign; Andrew Gelman adds more.

Tom Jensen notes that unhappy Democrats are more likely to vote.

Jamelle Bouie points out that the enthusiasm gap is typical in midterm elections.

Gary Langer finds only a quarter of Americans would want their child to run for office.

DC AAPOR is accepting reservations for its 2010 conference.

And 1 in 5 Americans believe President Obama is a cactus.

The two newest polls on New York's Senate contest out this morning come from Quinnipiac University and automated pollster SurveyUSA. Quinnipiac finds Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand leading Republican challenger Joe DioGuardi by just six percentage points (48% to 42%). SurveyUSA shows an even narrower contest, with Gillibrand up by just one point (45% to 44%). Both results represent a sharp break from previous polls, which typically had Gillibrand leading by double-digit margins. Our standard trend estimate which still considers data from previous surveys, now shows Gillibrand ahead by just under eight percentage points (47.9% to 40.1%).

Both surveys also indicate a closer race for New York Governor than other polls taken previously. Quinnipiac has Democrat Andrew Cuomo leading Republican Carl Paladino by six points (49% to 43%), while Survey USA puts Cuomo ahead by nine (49% to 40%). Our trend lines show the race narrowing to a 49.0% to 37.8% Cuomo lead.

******
UPDATE: Just after we published the HuffPost version of this story, the Siena Research Institute released a new survey showing very different results from those from Quinnipiac and SurveyUSA. Their survey of all registered voters shows Gillibrand leading DioGuardi by 26 points (57% to 31%), and Cuomo leading Paladino by 33 (57% to 24%). While a likely screen would have likely produced closer margins, the differences between the Siena, Quinnipiac and SurveyUSA polls are still enormous and not easily explained.

Our updated trend estimates now show Gillibrand leading by nearly ten points (47.7% to 38.1%) and Cuomo leading by 13.5 (53.2% to 39.7%).
*****

Why the change? The most important factor is probably last week's primary elections in New York, which resolved hard-fought Republican contests for both offices. Previously divided partisans often rally to their party's nominee following a tough primary -- remember the way Barack Obama received an almost immediate boost in polls from Democrats once his battle with Hillary Clinton came to an end in 2008. So some of the change may represent a consolidation of support among Republicans. For example, DioGuardi now receives the support of 88% of Republicans on the Quinnipiac survey and 74% of Republicans on SurveyUSA's poll.

Probably just as important, both polls also represent a shift to likely voter screens. Quinnipiac's previous New York surveys have been among all registered voters, and this poll is SurveyUSA's first in New York for the 2010 cycle. Only Rasmussen had previously applied any sort of likely voter screen to the New York results -- and they also showed both races closer than other pollsters, though not quite as close as these two new surveys.

Also, while the pattern is not consistent, Quinnipiac and SurveyUSA have produced results in recent weeks that are much more favorable to Republicans than likely voter surveys by other pollsters -- in the races for Senate in Ohio and Governor in Pennsylvania for Quinnipiac, and for Senate in North Carolina for SurveyUSA. Nate Silver notes a similar pattern for SurveyUSA in House races.

The impact of likely voter screening on poll results, especially this year, is evident in the four new polls released yesterday by CNN and Time, and in three more they released last week. While their new results largely confirm what we have seen from other recent surveys, CNN and Time are somewhat unique in that they release results for both likely voters and their larger samples of all registered voters. As the table below shows, the difference on the Democrat-minus-Republican margin is often quite large -- as much as 8 or 9 percentage points in Wisconsin, Delaware, Colorado and Ohio.

It is important to remember that few likely voter screens are created equal, as different pollsters often use very different methods to model or screen for what they all describe as "likely voters." And worse, only a handful of pollsters disclose the details of their process. This is an aspect of this year's polling that we will continue to watch closely.

[Cross-posted to the Huffington Pos]

Some of you may have missed the news when it happened, and some of you may have forgotten, but we joined forces with the Huffington Post this past July (and answered some common questions about the acquisition here). Sometime later tonight or tomorrow, if all goes well, we will flip a virtual switch and begin "redirecting" traffic from Pollster.com to Pollster's new home on the Huffington Post.

A lot of very talented HuffPost developers have worked very, very hard over the last few weeks to move all of the features, content and data you have come to depend on here at Pollster to HuffPost. Our primary aim during this first wave of our relaunch has been to move everything without "breaking" anything. Thanks to the superhuman efforts of the HuffPost tech team, we think you will be satisified that while the web address will be different, everything you like about Pollster will make the trip with us.

Once we have relocated, we will begin adding some exciting new features that take Pollster.com to the next level, including quite a bit that will debut in the next few weeks. So we hope you come along and stay tuned.

Meanwhile a few more specific notes about the move:

We have managed to move every entry -- every chart, every map, every blog post, every Poll Update -- to Huffington Post. That includes our collection of charts from 2006 (which for a variety of technical reasons, I feared we might not be able to move). Needless to say, we will continue to update all active charts with new data. And your bookmarks to our existing pages should continue to work. We will simply redirect you to the new home for each page.

• Our classic format poll maps will be active and functioning and will help you scan and navigate to chart pages. These are actually already active on Pollster now for races for Senate and Governor. If you're glad to see them back, don't worry, they will remain in place on HuffPost.

• Once we move, you will also see that our charts feature prominently in a new HuffPost feature called Dashboard. We think you will find Dashboard engaging and useful -- it will include more than just polling data -- but if you prefer our classic poll maps and charts, again, don't worry, those will be there too and easily accessible via our new Pollster page.

• While we have made copies of all blog posts, the original reader comments left on those posts will remain in place on their original Pollster.com locations. The HuffPost version of each entry will include a special link to take you back to the comments left on the original Pollster.com version.

• All of our RSS feeds will continue to operate without interruption. All of our feeds will continue to provide the full post and not excerpts. Author specific feeds will require a different link, although all will be active immediately.

Now all that said, despite the best of intentions and a lot of hard work, a few things -- such as a complete index to archived blog posts -- may not be in place immediately. We will work to move anything left behind over the next week or two and will try to keep you updated on any such issues as they arise.

I welcome your comments, suggestions, problem reports or complaints -- just email me. If we have managed to "break" something you care about, please let me know. I can't promise I'll have time to respond personally to every message, but I'll definitely read them all.

A special note on comments and the Pollster.com commenter community: Admittedly, given Huffington Post's far bigger audience, the posts from me and from other contributors that also appear on HuffPost's front page will draw far more comments than our posts here. And no, we will not be migrating the Typekey user logins to Huffington Post, although you can log in and comment there using an existing Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google or Yahoo account or create an account on HuffPost.

For those concerned about the changes to the comments section, let me highlight two things. First, over the last month, Huffington Post has implemented a new "Community Pundits" feature that, as HuffPost's social news editor Adam Clark Estes explained to WebNewswer earlier this week, aims to highlight the most "insightful, informative, and engaging commentary" on any feature from across the ideological spectrum. Such comments appear in a prominent Community Pundit box that appears at the top of the comments section of each post.

Moreover, those who leave such comments consistently can earn a Community Pundit badge, which comes with privileges: "Besides having their comments highlighted in the Highlights tab and the Community Pundits box," Estes said, "we also allow our Pundits to leave longer comments."

Better yet, Estes and the Social News team have pledged to create a special Community Pundit badge specific to the Pollster section that will identify and highlight comments that are consistently insightful, informative and on topic, which is to say relevant to our focus on political polls and survey research. We have not yet begun working on this feature, so we would welcome your input and suggestions for it.

Now all that said, you should know that some entries -- especially the Outliers feature and the many "Poll Update" entries that Emily posts constantly -- will appear only on the new Pollster page and not elsewhere on Huffington Post. We're hoping that the Pollster corner of HuffPost will attract its own unique community of readers, so we encourage those of you who comment frequently to come along and try it out. We hope that the existing community can move along with the charts and the blog archive.

If you have questions about Huffington Posts comments and moderation policies, please see this FAQ page.

Within a few hours of my update yesterday, which highlighted a new Rasmussen survey in West Virginia showing Democrat Joe Manchin leading Republican John Raese by seven percentage points (50% to 43%), Public Policy Polling (PPP) released another automated survey there showing the Democrat trailing by 3 (43% to 46%). Whether you prefer our trend estimate or a simple average of the two surveys, the bottom line is the same: On the basis of these two recent polls, the race merits "toss-up" status.

In Wisconsin, a new PPP survey paints a picture that even the survey sponsor Daily Kos characterized as "uber-ugly" for the Democrats. It shows Democratic Senator Russ Feingold trailing Republican Ron Johnson by eleven points (52% to 41%), a slightly larger margin than measured by a Rasmussen automated survey a week ago (51% to 44%). Our trend estimate splits the difference these two results, the only two public polls released in Wisconsin so far in September, pushing the state into our "lean Republican" classification.

Democrats pushed back yesterday, sharing with TPM results on an internal poll conducted before last week's primary showing "Feingold ahead, by 48%-41% among all voters and 47%-43% among those definite to vote."

Incidentally, one reader took me to task last week, appropriately, for not noting PPP's status as a firm that polls for local Democrat candidates (though they have not disclosed doing work for candidates for U.S. Senate and Governor). That said, their results in West Virginia and Wisconsin tend to counter the notion that the Democratic firm produces results biased toward the Democrats.

A batch of new automated surveys released yesterday by Rasmussen Reports and their subsidiary Pulse Opinion Research (for Fox News) generally confirm other polling in the Senate races in California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada and New York.

The new Fox/Pulse survey in Nevada has Republican Sharon Angle up by a single, non-significant percentage point (46% to 45%), generally confirming what other recent polls suggest is a slight tightening in the race. Our standard trend estimate, which gives greater weight to the surveys conducted earlier in the month, shows Reid leading by a single percentage point (46.3% to 45.3%). Our more sensitive estimate (shown below), which gives greater weight to the most recent surveys, has it dead even (44.9% to 44.9%).

In Alaska, Rasmussen was first out of the box with a poll testing a three-way race with incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski running as a write-in candidate. They show Republican nominee Joe Miller with 42%, Murkowski with 27% and Democrat Scott McAdams with 25% of likely voters. While the Rasmussen release did not include the specific language of their vote preference question, they did provide this curious description:

Polling for write-in campaigns is always challenging, so results should be interpreted with caution. For this survey, Rasmussen Reports asked respondents about a choice between Miller and McAdams without mentioning Murkowski. That is the choice voters will see when they enter the voting booth. However, when response options were offered to survey respondents, Murkowski's name was mentioned.

They only provided results for a three-way contest, so this reference must be to the structure of their question. Presumably, they first mentioned that Miller and McAdams were the names on the ballot, then offered Miller, McAdams and Murkowski as choices. For more on how pollsters will measure vote preference in Alaska, see my Monday update.

California's race for Governor provided yesterday's ray of hope for Democrats, where a new PPP poll showed Democrat Jerry Brown leading Republican Meg Whitman by five points (47% to 42%) while a new Fox/Pulse survey has the race dead even (at 45% for each). Those results are a slight improvement over five other surveys conducted in late August and early September by Rasmussen, Pulse, SurveyUSA and CNN/Time.

Our standard trend estimate, which gives greater weight to the earlier surveys, shows Whitman leading by just under three points (47.1% to 44.2%). Our more sensitive estimate, which gives greater weight to this week's polls puts Whitman ahead by slightly less than two (47.0% to 45.1%). Either way, the polling puts the California Governor's race in our toss-up category.

And this just in: Quinnipiac University released two new polls early this morning, including a eyebrow raising result in the New York Governor's race where they show Democrat Andrew Cuomo leading Republican Carl Paladino by just six percentage points (49% to 43%). Previous surveys conducted over the summer had shown Cuomo leading Paladino by 30 or more percentage points.

In Pennsylvania's Senate race Quinnipiac shows Republican Pat Toomey leading Democrat Joe Sestak by seven percentage points (50% to 43%), roughly the same margin as our previous trend estimate.

Cross-posted at the Huffington Post

Mondale recalled that President Carter, as his standing in the polls slid, "began to lose confidence in his ability to move the public." The President, he said, should have "got out front earlier with the bad news and addressed the people more." He sees a similar problem with Obama: "I think he needs to get rid of those teleprompters, and connect. He's smart as hell. He can do it. Look right into those cameras and tell people he's hurting right along with them." Carter, on the other hand, he said, might not have been able to. "At heart, he was an engineer," Mondale said. "He wanted to sit down and come up with the right answers, and then explain it. He didn't like to do a lot of emotional public speaking."

The Washington Post's Dan Balz frames the issue similarly, suggesting it's some sort of mystery why Obama "has had so much difficulty making a connection with voters on economic issues" in the context of what is arguably the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression:

One of the persistent mysteries about the president is why someone who began his adult life as a community organizer, working with economically displaced workers in Chicago, has had so much difficulty making a connection with voters on economic issues. That was a problem during his presidential campaign. From the questions on Monday, it remains a problem today.

Salon's Steve Kornacki does a fantastic job illustrating why these claims are nonsense in a retrospective on Bill Clinton in 1994 (disclosure: I cross-post on Salon). Just as with Reagan in 1982 (see here and here), an unfavorable political environment overwhelmed Clinton's ability to "connect":

It's tempting -- really, really tempting -- to watch Bill Clinton on television these days and to say, "Gee, the Democrats would be much better off right now if he were in the White House instead of Barack Obama"...

We're hearing a lot of this kind of talk this week, with Clinton back in the news, thanks to his annual global summit in New York...

Clinton, pundits are now telling us, embodies the magic formula that Obama is missing...

This is true, but only to a point. Yes, Clinton was -- and is -- one of the most effective communicators the Democratic Party has ever produced. But his gift for persuasion had sharp and clear limits while he was president, and when he was faced with a political climate like the one Obama now confronts, it was utterly useless.

That was in the 1994 midterm elections, the last time before this year that a Democratic president's party controlled both chambers of Congress. The economy wasn't as feeble, but Clinton had been weakened by a series of public relations blunders and by the success of congressional Republicans in stalling major pieces of his agenda (a stimulus package, healthcare reform, and a crime bill, mainly) and making Clinton seem ineffective. His poll numbers were slightly weaker than Obama's are now and the prospects for his party weren't good.

Nonetheless, Clinton hit the campaign trail with vigor, believing that he could talk and emote his way to a decent November result. And if you look back now and read Clinton's campaign trail words -- or watch him in action -- you'll quickly realize that all of the magical-seeming traits we now celebrate were on full display...

In short, Bill Clinton was Bill Clinton in the 1994 midterms -- and his party still got massacred. The GOP still won 52 House seats and won the chamber for the first time since 1954, and it still won eight Senate seats to control that body for the first time in eight years. And when the dust settled, the political world -- Republicans, Democrats and the media -- was united in one conclusion: Clinton was a goner in 1996. The country had tuned him out. He had lost his ability to "connect."

His experience is well worth keeping in mind now. We like to think that personality, message and campaign tactics are what define elections -- that the good politicians are the ones who put all of this together in a way that trumps structural factors like the economy. But that's just not how it works. Clinton's words -- no matter how masterfully crafted and articulated -- fell on deaf ears in 1994, just as Obama's are mostly falling on deaf ears today. It was only when favorable structural factors were again present that Clinton began "connecting" again. Obama's style may be different than Clinton's, but it already played well with the general public once, and it can again -- if favorable structural factors return.

[Cross-posted to brendan-nyhan.com and Huffington Post]]]> http://www.pollster.com/blogs/the_zombie_myth_of_presidents.php http://www.pollster.com/blogs/the_zombie_myth_of_presidents.php 2010 Wed, 22 Sep 2010 09:25:13 -0500 bnyhan@yahoo.com (Brendan Nyhan) by Brendan NyhanIs Sarah Palin the frontrunner for the 2012 GOP nomination? That's the claim that's been made by some prominent commentators (here, here, and here), but it's wildly premature. There's a reason that the Intrade futures market currently puts the odds of Palin winning the nomination at 18% (behind Mitt Romney and John Thune) -- in particular, her terrible poll numbers.

It's worth underscoring just how bad Palin's numbers are. The closest comparison to her is probably Hillary Clinton, another female politician with high unfavorables entering an anticipated presidential campaign. But even Clinton had much better numbers than Palin at this point in 2006:

Also, though Palin's ability to raise money and turn out crowds has made her a star within the party, it's unlikely that she will enjoy anything near the level of elite support that helped get Clinton so close to the Democratic nomination.

I've looked back through polls on possible presidential candidates at this stage in the election cycle, and it's difficult to locate an appropriate comparison for Palin. Besides Clinton, the best comparison might be to Dan Quayle, a former vice president with extremely high unfavorables who was widely perceived as not ready to be president. As a result (presumably), Quayle ultimately decided not to run in 1996 and 2000 dropped out of the field before Iowa in 2000. Similarly, though he was perceived as competent, high unfavorables may have helped dissuade Al Gore from running again in 2004 and 2008. Here's how Quayle, Gore, Clinton, and Palin's favorable/unfavorable numbers compare from the Gallup poll question closest to this point in the current electoral cycle:

Obviously, neither Quayle nor Gore inspired the sort of adulation that Palin does today, but there's a reason that they didn't run. Given that Palin can make millions if she stays out of electoral politics, I'd put the odds of her running at less than the current Intrade estimate of 69%.

[Cross-posted to brendan-nyhan.com and Huffington Post]]]> http://www.pollster.com/blogs/is_sarah_palin_like_hillary_cl.php http://www.pollster.com/blogs/is_sarah_palin_like_hillary_cl.php 2012 Tue, 21 Sep 2010 11:07:27 -0500 mark@mysterypollster.com (Mark Blumenthal) by Mark BlumenthalThe smattering of new statewide polls released over the last few days yields no new significant trends, although a new poll on the West Virginia Senate race shows the Democrat, Joe Manchin, maintaining narrow but consistent lead over Republican candidate John Raese in September.

The new survey, from automated pollster Rasmussen Reports, gives Manchin a seven-point lead (50% to 43%). Rasmussen is the only pollster to release results in West Virginia since July, but their last three polls conducted over the last four weeks show Manchin leading by 6, 5 and 7 percentage points respectively, for an average of 50% Manchin, 44% Raese. While those margins are far closer than what Rasmussen and other pollsters measured earlier in the summer, voter preferences in West Virginia appear to have stabilized, at least for now, leaving Manchin with a modest lead.**

Other recent polls of note:

Two new polls released over the weekend in Pennsylvania confirm the single digit lead that Republican Pat Toomey has held over Democrat Joe Sestak since July. Both the live-interview Wilkes Barre Times Leader poll and a PoliticsPA/Municipoll automated survey yield much larger numbers of undecided voters than other recent surveys, but the effect on our overall trend estimate) is minimal. Our trend estimate now shows Toomey leading Sestak by eight points (46.7% to 38.7%). All eleven public polls released in August and September have shown him leading by margins ranging from 2 to 11 percentage points.

This past Friday, Rasmussen Reports also released another automated poll yesterday on the Massachusetts governor's race that shows Democrat Deval Patrick running just three points ahead of Republican challenger Charlie Baker (45% to 42%), with independent Tim Cahill falling to just 8%. Massachusetts is another state where Rasmussen has produced most of the recent polling -- three of the four surveys released in August and September. Rasmussen's surveys of likely voters have shown a steady decline in support for independent Cahill, from 23% in April to 8% on the current survey, although a poll of all registered voters conducted in late August by the State House News and KRC/Communications Research showed Cahill winning 18% of the vote and slightly larger Patrick lead over Baker (34% to 28%).

**The recent polling in the West Virginia Senate presents a scenario that our classic polling chart does not handle well. With fewer than seven polls available, our standard practice is to draw a linear trend line (or, in plain English, a straight line) through the data points. In this case, the straight line tries to reconcile two polls conducted in July that showed Manchin leading by more than 20 points with the three more recent Rasmussen polls showing consistently narrower margins. The result is that the trend lines converge on an estimate of the margin that is closer than any of the last three surveys. Since the last three Rasmussen surveys show no discernible trend, we've opted to report on the average of those surveys rather than our chart's trend estimate.

Update (9/21): Earlier today, PPP released a new survey of West Virginia that shows Republican John Raese leading Democrat Joe Manchin, 46% to 43%. Our trend estimate now splits the difference between the two most recent polls, leaving the race essentially even (Manchin 47.1%, Raese 46.3%).

DemFromCT notes that although Republicans are likely to see large gains in seats, they're still not very popular; Barry Pump considers implications (via Nyhan).

Alan Abramowitz explains his model that predicts House seats from Gallup's final likely voter poll.

Daniel Hopkins sees no evidence for polls underestimating support for the out-party during wave elections.

John Dickerson and David Brooks ask whether Tea Party victories will help Republicans.

Democracy Corps advises Democrats on speaking to the "rising American electorate."

Rasmussen Reports finds more voters identify with Palin's views than Obama's.

Gallup finds a "modest uptick" in Obama approval and Democratic party ID in September.

Jonathan Cohn says opinion on health care reform is more complicated than a first glance suggests; Kevin Drum and M.S. add more.

AP-GfK finds a majority of Americans support same-sex marriage; Steve Benen takes a look at the question wording.

Andrew Gelman teaches a lesson in question wording effects on Afghanistan.

The National Annenberg Election Survey makes its 2008 data available for scholars online.

Marist finds Peyton is the most popular Manning.

The short answer is that it will not be easy, especially since successful write-in candidacies are rare and Murkowski's bid has little precedent. Media pollsters, who often feel obliged to report voter preferences as a single set of numbers, may feel especially challenged, but the best measurement of the Alaska Senate race may require asking at least two of the following questions:

• A totally open-ended question that offers no candidate names and instead tests the ability of respondents to remember the name of the candidate they're voting for.

• A closed-ended question that closely mimics the ballot, asking voters to choose between Republican Joe Miller, Democrat Scott McAdams and "another candidate" (perhaps the choice to "write in another candidate"). Live interviewers could then probe for and record the name of the "other" candidate.

• A closed-ended question offering a choice between voting for Republican Miller, Democrat McAdams "or writing in Lisa Murkowski?"

Those who ask two or more of these questions will do so with the understanding no single question will get it exactly right and that Murkowski's true support at any point in time lies between the extremes. Not prompting with Murkowski's name will likely understate her potential support, due to a lack of knowledge of her write-in candidacy or by an implied dismissiveness of it by omission.

Prompting that Murkowksi is running as a write-in risks overstating that support, either because such a mention gives that candidacy special emphasis or because some truly undecided respondents sometimes gravitate toward independent candidates on survey questions. But asking a completely open-ended question will tend to overstate the undecided percentage, because some respondents will have trouble remembering the candidate names and because some will be reluctant to share their decision without more of a push. So again, the truth will fall somewhere in the between.

As many of our readers have speculated in comments, this situation creates special challenges for pollsters that use an automated, recorded voice methodology rather than live interviewers. It may be technically possible to ask an open-ended question, create an audio recording the respondents's answers and subsequently allow live humans to code the answers, but doing so would be a costly departure from the automated pollsters' standard procedures. The purely open-ended question is far better suited to a live interviewer survey.

In other U.S. Senate polling news since our last update:

In Wisconsin, automated pollster Rasmmussen Reports released a new survey showing incumbent Democratic Senator Russ Feingold trailing challenger Ron Johnson by seven percentage points (44% to 51%). Their previous survey in late August had the race closer -- 47% for Johnson and 46% for Feingold.

We generally try to view any new poll in the larger context of other surveys by other pollsters -- since any one survey is subject to random error and pollster "house effects" -- but in this case, Rasmussen has been the only pollster active in Wisconsin since July.

In Ohio, Quinnpiac University released a new survey on Friday showing Republican Rob Portman leading Democrat Lee Fisher by an astounding 20 points (55% to 35%), although polls from three other pollsters conducted over roughly the same time period show Porter leading by closer margins of between 8 and 11 percentage points.

Our focus this week has been largely on the U.S. Senate and particularly the outcome of the Delaware primary, which has boosted the prospects for that state's Democratic candidate and with it, the odds that odds that Democrats will maintain their Senate majority (despite significant losses). But the larger ongoing story this year is about a gale-force wind blowing in the Republican direction, and nothing demonstrates that trend as clearly as polling in the governors races.

The contests for governor have more potential volatility because more states (37) hold their gubernatorial elections this year and because so many of those (24) involve open seats. "It is always easier," writes Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report (gated) "for the opposing party to win an open contest than it is to defeat a sitting governor." This higher than usual vacancy rate gives Republicans a better chance of capitalizing on a favorable political environment.

You can see that impact in the following table, which shows our current polling trend estimates in states now represented by Democratic governors. Polling in 13 states shows the Republican candidate leading, and 11 of those contests are open seats. The only incumbent Democrats currently trailing are Iowa's Chet Culver and Ohio's Ted Strickland.

Two more incumbent Democrats are in potential jeopardy. In Maryland, Democrat Margin O'Malley leads by a "toss-up" margin of less than three points (46.0% to 43.4%). In Massachusetts, Democrat Deval Patrick leads Republican Charlie Baker by roughly five points (40.1% to 34.7%), but Patrick's margin has narrowed over the summer as support for independent Tim Cahill's support has trended down.

Meanwhile, Republicans are running comfortably ahead in holding most of the states currently represented by a Republican. All of the five seats either trending Democratic or in the toss-up category are open.

Only Connecticut and Hawaii look like probable Democratic pick-ups based on current polling. Hawaii holds its primary elections tomorrow, and the two candidates competing for the Democratic nomination-- Neil Abercrombie and Mufi Hanneman -- both hold comfortable leads over likely Republican nominee Duke Aiona.

Our trend estimates do show Democrats with nominal advantages in Minnesota, Florida and Rhode Island, but all three margins are close enough to merit a "toss-up" designation.

Add it all up, and we show Republicans on the verge of flipping 13 states from blue to red, and Democrats on the verge of flipping two states from red to blue, for a net Republican gain of 11 seats. One small consolation for Democrats: Of the four contests currently close enough to merit our "toss-up" designation, three are currently represented by Republican governors.

But a caution: These statistics are all based on constantly evolving polling "snapshots" which reflect preferences "if the election were held today." In some states, the number of polls is small and their reliability may be questionable. Moreover, the efforts of some campaigns to communicate via paid advertising are just getting underway in many states.

On that score, it's worth noting that the Cook Political Report, which considers more than just polling in its assessments, still rates as toss-ups six of the states where we show Republicans on the verge of a pick-up (Illinois, Iowa, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon). It also still rates Maine as lean Democrat. So public polls alone may not tell the full story in some states

Still, a quick glance at the many statewide polls available -- including nearly 50 released in September -- makes it very clear that Republicans stand to make major gains in races for governor in 2010.

[Cross-posted to the Huffington Post]

Alex Bratty notes that Democratic candidates are turning their backs on Obama.

Stu Rothenberg prefers partisan pollsters.

Mark Mellman makes the case for sampling from registered voter lists.

Nate Silver points out that "tightening" polls may actually be a results of pollsters switching to likely voter screens.

Julie Phelan says Barack and Michelle Obama and Sarah Palin are all campaign trail liabilities.

Josh Krashaar thinks polling shouldn't trump common sense.

Democracy Corps finds Democrats on solid ground on dropping the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy; Geoff Garin supplies tax talking points to Democrats (via Smith).

David Hill advises Democrats to confess their mistakes.

Joe Lenski wonders if Republican delegate rules could prolong the primary process in 2012.

Chris Bowers offers the "ubiquitous political junkie fallacy."

Republicans are heading into the general election phase of the midterm campaign backed by two powerful currents: the highest proportion of voters in two decades say it is time for their own member of Congress to be replaced, and Americans are expressing widespread dissatisfaction with President Obama's leadership.

But the latest New York Times/CBS News poll also finds that while voters rate the performance of Democrats negatively, they view Republicans as even worse, providing a potential opening for Democrats to make a last-ditch case for keeping their hold on power.

Is this really true? Will the poor state of the GOP brand limit the party's gains in November? I made this argument months ago (see here, here, and here), but the Republican party's image hasn't prevented it from taking a substantial lead in the generic ballot.

To review the evidence about where the GOP brand stands relative to the opposition party in previous midterm elections, let me update my post from last October. Here's a bar chart of each party's net favorable ratings (% favorable - % unfavorable) for the most comparable available CBS poll from midterm elections between 1990 and 2010*:

The GOP's net favorability ratings relative to Democrats are still worse than any opposition party in the previous five midterm elections (the closest comparison is 1998, when Republicans were seeking to remove Bill Clinton from office).

In the past, the opposition party's (dis)advantage in net favorability relative to the president's party has been relatively highly correlated (r=.71) with changes in the number of House seats in midterm elections. However, a simple linear fit shows a totally implausible result for 2010 (Republicans losing 17 seats):

I'm not buying it. At this point, every other major factor (the high number of seats Democrats currently hold, the fact that it's a midterm election, and the generic ballot) points toward big GOP gains -- the predicted result of most House forecasting models. Unfortunately for Democrats, midterm elections are a referendum, not a choice.

Update 9/17 9:09 AM: Barry Pump points out that the net favorability advantage appears to be a better predictor in the last five midterms than the generic ballot. It's very hard to say what will happen. As he points out, this is uncharted territory:

First, we've never been in a situation until now -- as far as we have data to show it -- where both parties were disliked but one party was disliked far more than another. We've also never been in a situation where the difference between the favorability rankings of the two parties was as great as it is now. (That's from the first graph.)

Second, we've yet to be in a situation until now -- as far as we have data to show it -- where the favorability rankings of the two parties were so discordant with the generic ballot.

* I focus on net favorables rather than net approval of the parties in Congress (which Zeleny and Thee-Brenan cite) because the available data is more comprehensive and the measure is less confounded with feelings about Congress as an institution.

[Cross-posted to brendan-nyhan.com and Huffington Post]]]> http://www.pollster.com/blogs/will_the_gop_brand_make_a_diff.php http://www.pollster.com/blogs/will_the_gop_brand_make_a_diff.php 2010 Thu, 16 Sep 2010 10:17:00 -0500 questions@pollster.com (Guest Pollster) by Guest PollsterDavid C. Wilson is a professor of Political Science and International Relations, and Psychology, at the University of Delaware. He studies public opinion, polling and survey methods, and political psychology. His research has appeared in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Public Opinion Quarterly, and the Du Boise Review.

Christine O'Donnell's win over the long tenured U.S. Representative Mike Castle, 53% to 47% (+6% points), might have been a shocker to most, but what really happened, and what most observers missed, was that turnout was higher than normal in lower Delaware (Kent and Sussex Counties), and average in upper Delaware (New Castle County).

Polls underestimated these levels for most of the campaign, and thus, missed the trend. Plus, the lack of in-state polling provided no clues about the sources and substance of information that mobilized voters. It turns out that lower Delaware counties, which are traditionally Republican, are losing their liberal and moderate appeal. It suggests that the GOP leadership may not be in as much touch as they think with their constituents. And, questions abound about the ability of existing state GOP leadership's ability to mobilize support given the shock of the O'Donnell win. In sum, evidence points to a geo-political realignment of the GOP within Delaware.

Castle won New Castle County 58% to 42%, but lost Kent and Sussex counties, 64% to 36%. O'Donnell's support in both Kent and Sussex was twice that of Castle's. It appears that Castle failed to mobilize liberal and moderate Republicans, and relied too heavily on the state party for his campaigning. Although Castle was well funded, O'Donnell's last minute support from outside sources allowed her to communicate her message and get out the vote; and it paid off.

Segue to the polls. The last poll conducted before the election (Public Policy Polling), 9/11-9/12) showed O'Donnell with a 47% to 44% advantage over Castle with 8% undecided, and a margin of error of roughly 4%. So how did O'Donnell beat her estimates? It could be that the 8% of formerly undecided voters decided to go with O'Donnell over Castle. However, I think the answer is probably turnout.

Approximately 57,582 registered Republicans voted in Tuesday's primary. An estimated 27,021 voted for Castle and 30,561 voted for O'Donnell; a vote difference of 3,540 (6% points). Interestingly enough, Castle received far more actual votes in the 2008 general election for Representative than O'Donnell received for Senate that same year, suggesting that Delawareans voted for Castle and Biden (or Castle and not O'Donnell). This splitting of the ticket in 2008 raises questions about how turnout might affect the state's mid-terms; especially across counties in the state. O'Donnell should expect that her win will move some Castle supporters to her Democratic opponent, New Castle County Executive Chris Coons.

I think turnout will be the key in November because some of the popular media arguments about what's going on in the state are somewhat untenable. The September PPP poll found that only 24% of Republicans consider themselves "members of the Tea Party," and a plurality of 47% felt the Republican Party was "about right" in terms of their ideology; 17% felt they were "too conservative." Approximately 42% of Republicans said that a Sarah Palin endorsement would not make a difference in their vote for a candidate, and 24% said it would make them "less likely" to vote for a candidate. Thus, I see no big Tea Party movement in terms of attitudes and beliefs. However, Tea Party funding is related to turnout.

According to the state of Delaware's Elections Commissioner, the 2010 Republican primary produced a 32% turnout rate. On the surface this might seem low; however, the turnouts for past Republicans primaries were 16% in 2008, 8% in 2006, 12% in 2004, 14% in 2002, and 16% in 2000. Thus, the 2010 primary doubled Republican turnout.

The PPP polling likely underestimated this higher than usual turnout when they calculated their likely voter estimate or in weighting their final estimates. So what does this mean going forward? It's likely that O'Donnell will continue to run the same type of campaign but receive more outside funding and attention. The interesting part will be how the electorate in Delaware, and the nation, responds to the results. Mid-term turnout percentages in the state usually hover around the mid to upper 40s, while in presidential election years, turnout is in the mid to high 60s.

Coons has been leading in the polls in all head to head match-ups against O'Donnell. And, in the general election, O'Donnell will have to convince independent voters, moderate Republicans, and Castle supporters that she will represent their interests. This will be an uphill battle given that she's already indicated that she feels she can win without "them" referring to the Republican Party Organization, and suggesting the GOP might be too lazy to help her.

All of this bodes well for Coons who will certainly win the Wilmington area, and much of the Wilmington suburbs which make up the largest portion of the state's electorate. But it's tough to gauge Democratic turnout in the state because Coons did not have a primary challenger, and thus we cannot use primary numbers as an indicator of enthusiasm. Traditionally, Republican turnout during the primaries is slightly higher than for Democrats, but in 2008 the latter's turnout was 12% points higher than the former's. O'Donnell's win could actually work to mobilize support for Coons. It will also be interesting to see if Castle's supporters, and perhaps Castle himself, will remain loyal to the party or decide to support Coons because he has governing experience and is not considered an outside candidate.

According to 2008 exit poll data on that year's Senate race, 75% of Republicans voted for O'Donnell, while about 25% voted for Joe Biden, who was also running for Vice President. Biden won the contest by nearly 30% points, 64% to 35%. More telling, approximately 38% of Democrats voted for Mike Castle over his Democratic challenger, Karen Hartley-Nagel. Half of the individuals who say they voted for Castle in 2008, also voted for Democrat Joe Biden. In fact, 36% of Democrats who voted for Biden also voted for Castle. This all suggests that Castle has good standing among Democrats, which could help Coons, who according to Public Policy Polling, in early August held a 31% approval rating with 39% saying they were "unsure" about their approval of him.

What does all of this signal?

First, the media will heavily scrutinize the race and the candidates. O'Donnell is particularly vulnerable because she is a woman (yes, sexism still exists), she has no governing experience, she is not well know or at least revered by the state and national GOP, and there are many questions about her personal and campaign finances, educational background, ethics issues related to non-profit work, past gender discrimination lawsuits, and her personal relationships. O'Donnell does appear to be media savvy, but as things heat up, those skills will be tested.

Second, Coons' single most important priority will need to be turnout. If he can mobilize support among the electorate in New Castle country, especially the suburbs of Wilmington, he will win the election. He should not ignore Kent and Sussex counties either; they hold more opportunities than barriers to his election. His message must be at least two-fold: he can govern and he will represent Delawareans with pride and uphold the reputation of the state. How he frames and packages those messages will be up to his campaign.

O'Donnell's single most important priority will be to somehow move slightly more to the ideological and political center, and make friends with the state and national party. The September PPP poll showed O'Donnell having strong support only among self-described conservatives. Conservatives make up the largest portion of the Republican Party in DE, but they are heavily outnumbered in the state when moderate Republicans are combined with all Democrats regardless of ideology.

Also, the outside funding by the Tea Party movement may become a problem if Delawareans, who traditionally like to handle their own politics, perceive too much outside influence. O'Donnell must now come up with solid policy proposals that will show she can actually be effective in the male dominated, seniority ruled world of the Senate. She also has weak support among seniors, who heavily favored Castle.

Finally, regardless of the outcome Delaware will elect someone other than Joe Biden for the first time in almost four decades. That's big.

Belief in the Muslim myth has increased

As I noted at the time, the Pew poll found that the proportion of the public identifying Obama as Muslim increased from 11% in March 2009 to 18% in August 2010 and the proportion who didn't know his religion increased from 34% to 43%. This shift was corroborated by a subsequent Newsweek poll using somewhat different wording (PDF), which found that the proportion of the public saying Obama is Muslim had increased from 13% in June 2008 to 24% in late August 2010. (Time similarly found that 24% of Americans think Obama is Muslim, but no previous survey is available for comparison.)

Americans hold several false beliefs about Obama

In addition to the Muslim myth, polls have shown that a substantial fraction of the public believes Obama was not born in this country. Most recently, CNN found that 27% of Americans think Obama was "probably" or "definitely" born in another country (Berinsky similarly found in July that 27% said Obama was not born in this country.) The Newsweek poll mentioned above also found that 31% of Americans said the allegation that Obama "sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world" is "definitely" or "probably" true.

False beliefs about Obama are concentrated among Republicans

Pew found that the proportion of Republicans saying Obama is Muslim increased from 17% in March 2009 to 31% in August 2010 and the proportion who don't know increased from 28% to 39%. Similarly, CNN's poll showed that 41% of Republicans think Obama was "probably" or "definitely" not born here, a figure that corresponds closely to Berinsky's 46-47% (based on his bar chart). Newsweek also found that 52% of Republicans thought that the claim that Obama wanted to impose Islamic law was "definitely" or "probably" true. These figures are consistent with other polls showing differences by party in politically salient misperceptions (e.g., Iraq having WMD before the U.S. invasion). It's important to note that misperceptions are not confined to Republicans. Democrats, for instance, were far more likely than independents or Republicans to endorse the claim that the Bush administration was complicit in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in a 2006 Scripps poll, a 2009 PPP poll, and Berinsky's 2010 poll.

These large partisan differences in misperceptions appear to be the result of people's bias toward factual claims that reinforce their partisan or ideological views (selective acceptance). This pattern of motivated reasoning -- plus possible biases in the information to which people are exposed (selective exposure) -- appears to result in large partisan differentials in misperceptions along partisan or ideological lines (see my research here and here for more).

Misperceptions are not simply a function of ignorance

As Berinsky and many others have found, people who know more about politics (as measured by the questions political scientists typically use to measure political knowledge) tend to be less likely to hold false beliefs. However, that doesn't mean that the problem is simple ignorance. A better approach is to distinguish between ignorance (when you know you don't know the truth) and misinformation (when you falsely believe you know the truth). Politically salient misperceptions typically fall into the latter category, which is why they are so pernicious. For instance, I found that Republicans who believed they were knowledgeable about the Clinton and Obama health care plans were more likely to endorse false claims about them (Berinsky misstates my finding on this point).

In addition, elites often appear to play an important role in spreading false claims ranging from "death panels" to the Muslim myth and Obama supporting Islamic law. For this process to operate, partisans must be exposed to the message from elites, understand it, and integrate it into their belief system, which is not consistent with a simple story of ignorance. GW political scientist John Sides has provided evidence that is consistent with this account, showing that the persistence of the Obama Muslim myth increased more during Obama's presidency among Republicans with higher levels of education:

As TNR's Jon Chait notes, Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels similarly found that more knowledgeable partisans were more likely to develop false beliefs of economic performance that was consistent with their political views:

Voters' perceptions may be seriously skewed by partisan biases. For example, in a 1988 survey a majority of respondents who described themselves as strong Democrats said that inflation had "gotten worse" over the eight years of the Reagan administration; in fact, it had fallen from 13.5 percent in 1980 to 4.1 percent in 1988. Conversely, a majority of Republicans in a 1996 survey said that the federal budget deficit had increased under Bill Clinton; in fact, the deficit had shrunk from $255 billion to $22 billion. Surprisingly, misperceptions of this sort are often most prevalent among people who should know better--those who are generally well informed about politics, at least as evidenced by their answers to factual questions about political figures, issues, and textbook civics.

The beliefs that people express aren't fixed

While the prevalence of these misperceptions has been repeatedly validated in national polls, it's important to note that the exact responses people provide will vary depending on question wording, context, etc. as in any other survey. For instance, in research with Reifler and Duke undergraduates, we found (PDF) that the presence of non-white interviewers appeared to influence how participants responded to corrective information about Obama's religion. Likewise, a study (PDF) recently published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology found that McCain supporters were more likely to accept the claim that Obama is Muslim when their racial identity was made salient.

Does this mean these beliefs aren't "real"? It's hard to know what that claim means. All survey responses are to a certain extent an artifact of the context in which they are solicited -- there is no way to measure what someone "really thinks." However, it's possible that people are expressing an ideological or partisan view as much as they are making a factual claim about the world. The strongest claim along these lines comes from Reason's Julian Sanchez, who suggests that misperceptions like the claim that Obama was not born in the U.S. are best conceptualized as "symbolic beliefs" rather than statements of what people believe to be literally true -- an argument that was subsequently endorsed by New York Times columnist Ross Douthat and ABC News polling consultant Gary Langer. Determining to what extent these beliefs are "symbolic" rather than literal is an important question for future research.

Update 9/16 1:26 PM: See John Sides for more on recent research into partisan bias in factual beliefs about politics.

[Cross-posted to brendan-nyhan.com and Huffington Post]]]> http://www.pollster.com/blogs/what_we_know_about_political_m.php http://www.pollster.com/blogs/what_we_know_about_political_m.php Barack Obama Wed, 15 Sep 2010 12:24:59 -0500 mark@mysterypollster.com (Mark Blumenthal) by Mark BlumenthalWhile pollsters released a flurry of new surveys yesterday in the most competitive Senate races, the surprise result in the Delaware Republican primary had a much bigger impact on the GOP's chances of taking control of the Senate this year.

Specifically, Christine O'Donnell's upset of Republican Congressman Mike Castle flips Delaware from a seat that looked comfortably in the Republican column this year, to one that now looks comfortably (if tentatively) Democratic. Four polls conducted since July all showed Castle leading Democrat Chris Coons by double-digit margins, while the most recent Rasmussen poll had Coons leading O'Donnell by 11 (47% to 36%).

Public Policy Polling (PPP) fielded a general election survey in Delaware over the weekend that they plan to release today, though they teased results yesterday that imply an even bigger Coons lead. They reported Coons "polls 26 points better" against O'Donnell than against Castle, that O'Donnell's personal rating is 29% favorable, 50% unfavorable and that only 31% of Delware's voters think she is "fit to hold office."

While we are on the topic, congratulations to PPP for going where all other pollsters feared to tread and producing an accurate forecast of the O'Donnell surprise in Delaware.

As of this hour, the outcome of the New Hampshire Republican primary remains in doubt, with Kelly Ayotte leading Ovide Lamontagne by just under a thousand votes. A victory by Lamontagne would also cheer Democrats, as most polls show Democrat Paul Hodes faring better against Lamontagne than Ayotte. Our current trend estimate based on all public polls shows Hodes trailing Ayotte by 9 points (38.5% to 47.5%), by leading Lamontagne by just over 4 points (41.8% to 37.3%).

Meanwhile, yesterday brought 11 new polls in 7 of the most competitive states. Seven of those survey came from either Rasmussen Reports or from a set of new Fox News tracking polls that -- as I reported yesterday -- use the same field service and essentially the same methodology as the automated Rasmussen polls.

The new surveys included three on the Nevada race between Democratic Senator Harry Reid and Republican challenger Sharon Angle. The two automated polls from Rasmussen/Fox show the race slightly closer (a tie and one point Angle edge) than the live-interviewer survey from Ipsos (which puts Reid up by two). Our trend estimate now shows Reid leading Angle by about a point and a half (46.9% to 45.5%).

We also saw three new polls in Ohio -- all automated -- from Rasmussen, Fox and SurveyUSA. All three show Republican Rob Portman leading Democrat Lee Fisher by a comfortable margin. Our [trend estimate](http://www.pollster.com/polls/oh/-10-oh-sen-ge-pvf.php) puts Portman ahead by eight points (47.4% to 39.4%) and gaining support since the summer.

Finally, the new Fox News survey in Florida is the second since the primary to show Republican Marco Rubio hitting a new high of 43% and Republican-turned-independent Charlie Crist below 30%. Rubio's lead over Crist on our trend estimate is now nine points (40.1% to 31.1%) with Democrat Kendrick Meek still trailing (19.1%).

The answer (as reported earlier today by Political Wire) is that Pulse is a "field service" spun off of of Rasmussen Reports that conducts their well known automated, recorded-voice surveys. It also conducts polls for other clients including, as of today, Fox News. While the questions asked on specific surveys may differ, the underlying methodology used by Fox/Pulse and Rasmussen are essentially identical.

Earlier this year, Rasmussen launched a new website for Pulse that, as he explained to Tim Mak of the Frum Forum, allows anyone to "go to the [Pulse] website, type in their credit card number, and run any poll that they wanted, with any language that they want... In effect, you will be able to do your own poll, and Rasmussen will provide the platform to ensure that the polling includes a representative national sample." According to the Pulse web site, basic election surveys start at $1,500 for a sample of 500 state or local respondents.

Scott Rasmussen confirms, via email, that surveys conducted by Pulse for Fox News and for Rasmussen reports are essentially equivalent in terms of their calling, sampling and weighting procedures:

Pulse Opinion Research does all the field work and processing for Rasmussen Reports polling. They do the same for other clients using the system that I developed over many years. So, in practical terms, polling done by Pulse for any client, including Fox News, will be processed in exactly the same manner. In a Rasmussen Reports poll, Rasmussen Reports provides the questions to Pulse. In a Fox News poll, Fox News provides the questions for their own surveys.

Both will use the same targets for weighting, including weights applied for partisan identification:

The process for selecting Likely Voter targets is based upon partisan trends identified nationally (and reported monthly). In an oversimplified example, if the national trends move one point in favor of the Democrats, the targets for state samples will do the same. As Election Day draws near, the targets are also based upon specific results from all polling done in that state. In competitive states, Pulse can draw upon a large number of interviews to help estimate the partisan mix.

For Election 2010, the net impact is that the samples are typically a few points more favorable to the Republicans than they were in Election 2008. Also, most of the time, the number of unaffiliated voters is a bit lower than in 2008. The samples also show a lower share of minority voters and younger voters.

One positive aspect of the new Fox News/Pulse surveys is that Fox is making demographic cross-tabulations freely available (example here) that Rasmussen Reports keeps behind a subscription wall. And Fox is going a step further, adding weighted sample sizes for each subgroup (something Rasmussen does not currently make available even to subscribers). So if you want to see the demographic composition, you can use the weighted counts to calculate the percentages.

On the other hand, this development may well double the number of polls conducted with the Rasmussen methodology in some races going forward. For example, the Fox/Pulse surveys were conducted on Saturday, September 11 and included samples in Nevada and Ohio. Today, Rasmussen Reports released two additional surveys conducted in Nevada and Ohio on Monday, September 13. Rasmussen, again via email, confirms that his "Rasmussen Reports polling schedule in entirely independent of anything the Fox or Pulse does." He adds:

Our plans were laid out long ago, with the only variable being which races remain the closest as Election Day approaches. For example, we don't expect to poll Connecticut as often as California. But, if the CT race gets closer (as possibly suggested by Quinnipiac), we will poll it more frequently. Same thought process holds true for West Virginia.

As it is, the Rasmussen surveys have already grown far more numerous and dominant so far this election cycle than in 2008. Pollster.com has already tracked 237 Rasmussen Reports surveys on the 2010 elections for U.S. Senate, almost double the number at this point for U.S. Senate races in 2008 (120). While the total number of surveys fielded by all pollsters have also increased, Rasmussen's share of these polls has grown significantly, from 35% of all Senate polls so far to 49%

Rasmussen is the only pollster active in about a half dozen less competitive contests and has fielded three out of four polls in states that have been only marginally competitive, like Indiana and Delaware.

The growing predominance of Rasmussen's surveys so far this cycle has consequences for all that follow and track polling data, including our efforts to track and chart polls at Pollster and Huffington Post. This is another story that we will focus on in the weeks ahead.

[Cross-posted to the Huffington Post]

Scott Brown's victory on January 19th cemented what Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie started in November of 2009 and signaled the start of this terrible run. A look at the Pew Research Center's polling on the news stories "most closely followed" really tells the story. From February through April the most closely watched news story in the country was health care reform (the economy was in second place). The battle for health care reform represents the first splintering of the Obama coalition, as Independents and swing voters began to move away from Democrats and the President. The issue was divisive and it served to energize the GOP base (and fuel the Tea Party movement), creating the intensity gap that we see today: Republicans are almost twice as energized about the upcoming elections as Democrats. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll in August showed that only 43% of Americans had a favorable view of health care reform, while 45% had an unfavorable perspective.

The period from May through July was dominated by the Gulf oil leak story. Political historians may look back at this time as the moment when Democrats lost the midterm election. The oil leak dominated headlines for an incredibly sustained period; it was the dominant news story for nearly three months. From a political perspective it did two things: 1) it signaled to voters that President Obama and the administration were not as competent as previously thought and 2) it took POTUS and the Democrats off-message for 90 days. The White House political apparatus is loath to admit this, but the Gulf oil leak severely damaged the President and his agenda. Every day that the President and Democrats were not talking about the economy was a lost day, and for three months the oil leak ensured that they couldn't address the issue that would be most important to voters in November.

While the oil leak was still the most closely monitored story in America in early August, the capping of the leak changed things instantaneously. In the absence of the leak story, the economy became the most covered and watched story in America in mid- to late-August. According to Pew's latest poll, 43% of Americans said they were "very closely" following stories about the economy (the Iraq troop withdrawal, immigration and Hurricane Earl were other issues being closely observed). Even more importantly, the recent news on the economy has been almost entirely bad. In one of the worst political branding exercises since "Mission Accomplished," the Obama Administration decided to call this the "Recovery Summer." But the economy fizzled and consumer confidence dropped. In the latest NBC/WSJ poll, 65% of voters say that America is in a state of decline. In September of 2009, 47% of voters thought that during the next 12 months the economy would get better. In the latest poll, only 26% say that.

The following is our up-to-the-minute take on the current political environment:

• Democrats (and the New York Times) are misreading the electorate again if they think they can make John Boehner into a boogeyman for this election. Most voters have no idea who John Boehner is and it is unlikely that he becomes a factor in this election. The man is simply not a lightning rod. This is not 1996 and Boehner is not Gingrich. Speaking of which...
• Newt Gingrich's Obama/Kenya comments are an embarrassment for the GOP and exactly what the party does not need at this time. It suggests again that that if the Republicans retake the house it will be because of massive rejection of Democratic policies rather than an attraction to the GOP.
• Obama's coalition is fractured because Independents have lost faith in the President. In October 2009, the President had a 54% approval rating among Independent voters. Today it stands at 39.2% in Pollster.com's latest average of media polls. That is an astounding 14 point drop in less than a year.
• Ignore polls showing the President's approval rating in the 45-47% range. In reality, Obama's approval rating with the voters who will be counted is much lower. A look at Gallup's latest poll on the President's approval rating suggests that his rating is artificially bolstered by the 18-29 age segment (he has a 61% approval rating among this group). But the President's rating with 30-49 year olds is 44%, it's at 43% among 50-64 year olds, and among those over 65 years of age it is only 38%. We are not discounting young voters, but when you consider those most likely to vote in a mid-term election (18-29 year olds are far less likely to vote in a non-Presidential year), the President's approval rating effectively drops to 41-42%. This is hugely problematic for Democrats.
• There is some good news for Democrats: Obama is finally in campaign mode. The White House is now committed to talking jobs and the economy 24/7. Obama's visit yesterday with families in Fairfax, VA was a smart--and necessary--move. The White House had a good week driving its economic message, but the September economic report is its last real chance to make an argument that things are improving, and the report is unlikely to be good enough. Yesterday's front page WSJ story on global uncertainty in the face of a waning economic recovery will further feed voter anxiety.
• The problem for Democrats is that this isn't just about the economy. The election frame is also about the appropriate size and role of government. There has been a real reaction against this administration's expansion of the size of government in addition to a general concern about its ability to do something to "fix" the economy. To understand the momentum in 2010, you only need to look at these two charts from a recent Gallup poll that compares the importance of this election's key issues and which party is more trusted. Other than a virtual tie on health care and corruption, Republicans are now more trusted by the electorate on every key issue. Contrast this with 2006, when Democrats held every advantage, including core Republican issues like terrorism and "moral standards."
• Today is the last major primary day of this cycle and the races in Delaware and New Hampshire are the most closely watched. Despite the latest poll showing O'Donnell with a slight lead over Castle in DE, we believe Castle will prevail. A sizable segment of the GOP electorate thinks that O'Donnell is not fit for office and that number has been trending up in the last few days thanks to some Castle attack ads. If O'Donnell does win, she faces a much tougher slog against Democrat Chris Coons. This would make it very unlikely that the GOP retakes the Senate so this race is one to watch.

Does the new poll mean that Murray has gained ground in recent weeks, following a post August 17 primary "bump" for Rossi, (as our chart implies)? Not necessarily. What may be going on is a combination of timing and wide variation among pollsters that we have seen elsewhere this year: The most recent polls conducted using live interviewers show Murray doing better than those using an automated, recorded voice methodology.

Specifically, two automated polls conducted in late August by SurveyUSA and Rasmussen Reports show Rossi leading by 7 and 3 points respectively, while live interview polls conducted by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and by Elway show Murray leading by 5 and 9 points.

Less obvious from the table is that the variation in the recent polling is far greater for challenger Rossi's support (a 9 point range varying between 41% and 52%) than incumbent Murray's (a 5 point range varying between 45% and 50%). That pattern is similar to what we saw in last year's New Jersey governor's race, where surveys showed much less variation in support for incumbent Jon Corzine than challenger Chris Cristie, but where Christie's number was consistently higher on automated surveys. In New Jersey, the automated polls were closer to the final result.

In this case, the new Elway poll puts far more voters in the "other" and undecided categories (9% total) than the recent automated surveys (3%). That's a typical pattern, and hints that a harder push of the undecided may work against a Democratic incumbent like Murray, at least for now.

We will have to wait and see whether these pollster "house effects" persist into October, although it is also possible that the two automated surveys late August were an anomaly. Automated surveys earlier in the summer by Rasmussen and Public Policy Polling (PPP) showed Murray leading by a margin of 2 to 4 points that is more consistent with the 2.2 percentage point Murray margin we get (48.7% to 46.5%) when we use our chart's "smoothing" tool to pay less attention to recent variation and plot a smoother line.

Either way, the Murray-Rossi race is shaping up to be one of the most competitive in the nation, so we will be watching it closely.

And this just in: Just as I'm about to post this update, my email inbox tells me that Quinnipiac University has released a new poll on the Connecticut Senate race showing Democrat Richard Blumenthal (no relation) leading Republican Linda McMahon by just six points. That margin is slightly closer than other recent polls in Connecticut.

[Cross-posted to the Huffington Post].

Sean Trende ponders whether there are "green shoots" in recent polls for Democrats.

Tom Jensen sees hope that Democrats will narrow the enthusiasm gap.

Resurgent Republic finds increasing opposition to Democrats among independents.

Frank Newport digs into polling on raising taxes for the rich.

PPP finds that 63% of Maine Republican primary voters want a more conservative alternative.

Bob Groves sums up thought on the quality of the Census.

Rahm Emanuel polls Chicago (via Smith).

Adrian Fenty doesn't trust polls.

Ezra Klein says people don't listen to the president.

In the last week, polling junkies and reporters alike have been delving into a fresh batch of post- Labor Day polls and debating just how big of a majority the Republicans will win in the House of Representatives in November.

Last week my company, the communications and strategy consulting firm FD, fielded several questions on a national survey that pre-supposed Republicans would win majority control of the House. The question we wanted to answer was "How do Americans feel about that prospect?" Like other polls, our polling finds news to cheer the GOP. But, we also find a note of caution about taking a potential takeover in stride.

Namely, in our poll, we find that voters generally believe:

1. A GOP majority in the House will improve overall economic conditions;
2. A GOP House would do a better job than past GOP-controlled Congresses (i.e., the party has learned their lesson);
3. But, voters want a GOP Congress to work with President Obama and Democrats, as opposed to pursuing their own agenda.

Let's take each of these one by one.

1. More voters think economic conditions will improve as a result of a Republican takeover of The House.

Our polling finds that 47% of voters think economic conditions will significantly or somewhat improve as a result of GOP control of the House, while 38% think conditions will significantly or somewhat worsen. Among those "very likely" to vote, 49% say conditions will improve and 39% say conditions will worsen.

2. More voters think a Republican-controlled House will do a better job than past Republican Congresses.

Specifically, our Poll finds that 49% of voters say that a Republican -controlled Congress would do a better job than past Republican Congresses, while 36% say they would do a worse job. Among "very likely" voters, a majority (51%) say that a Republican-controlled Congress would do a better job than previous Republican Congresses, while 37% say they would do a worse job.

Interestingly, this finding clearly signals that the GOP has begun to repair its "brand" in less than two years. Additionally, taken together, the similar double-digits margins on these questions do suggest to me that a double-digit GOP lead on the Generic Ballot that we have seen in other polls might not be far off.

3. That said, voters want a Republican Congress to work with President Obama and Democrats.

When asked which approach they would prefer a hypothetical GOP-controlled Congress take, a whopping 71% of voters say they would prefer them to "compromise and work with President Obama to get things done." Only 27% of voters would want Republicans to "pursue their own agenda to get things done."

Among "very likely" voters, 68% want to see the two parties to work together, while 27% want the GOP to pursue their own agenda. (I won't know until I field it, but my bet is if we had put the question to voters whether a Republican victory in November is a signal to President Obama and Democrats that it is time to compromise, we would see similar numbers.)

Most significantly, even among Republican "Very likely" voters, while 50% say they want Republicans to pursue their own agenda, a sizeable 47% say they want Republicans to work with President Obama and Democrats.

So, what do all of these data tell us? By a significant margin, voters appear poised to vote for divided government, with the expectation that it will improve the economy. But, they also expect that the two parties will work together to solve economic challenges.

It seems like we hear that message from every election. But, I would posit that, in the face of such dire economic conditions, the data show us the limits of either party's pursuit of a "base" strategy have been reached. The Great Recession as an added an "or else" to what seems to be the electorate's biennial electoral plea, and the failure of a party in power (or perceived to be in power ) to heed that message carries major electoral risks.

In politics, as in life, where you stand depends upon where you sit. Recent polling I have conducted demonstrates that what people believe to be true about the political world is in large part a function of whether they are a Democrat or a Republican.

Last month the Pew Center for the People and the Press conducted a poll which found that almost 20 percent of Americans mistakenly believe that President Obama is a Muslim, and another 43 percent cannot identify his religion. Recently released polls by Time and Newsweek confirm the prevalence of this false information.

These findings have sparked a flood of analysis. Some commentators have rightly pointed out that large numbers of Americans believe a number of crazy things. For instance, according to Gallup, 18 percent of Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth. Others have argued that Republican politicians and conservative media sources have helped perpetuate the myth of Obama's religious identity. Recent polling I have conducted seems to support the latter view. There is a strong political component to misinformation about Obama's beliefs and identity. But politically motivated misinformation is not limited to Republicans. Some Democrats are quite willing to believe false information about Republican politicians. The politics of misinformation, it seems, is not so much a product of direct reactions to Obama as it is to the polarized nature of the current political times.

At their heart, questions about Obama's religion are critical because they are tied into broader questions about his character and ability to lead. As part of a larger project on the political consequences of misinformation, I measured belief in another controversy that gets to heart of Obama's identity as an American - whether people believe that he is a citizen of the United States.

I contracted Polimetrix/Yougov to conduct a national internet sample of 800 Americans, from July 8th to July 15th, 2010. I asked, "Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States or not?" Consistent with other polls on the "birther" controversy, I found that 27 percent of respondents said that Obama was not born in the U.S. and another 19 percent did not know if he was or not. These findings paint a picture that is similarly unsettling to the Pew polling - misinformation about Obama's national and religious identity is pervasive.

My results raise a number of important questions. One question is whether some people are simply ignorant about politics - as they are about other aspects of the world (as the Gallup question mentioned above would suggest) - or if instead the uncertainty about Obama's background is politically motivated.

To adjudicate as best I could between these two explanations, I asked a follow-up question of those people who said that Obama was not born in the U.S. or were unsure about where he was born. Specifically, I gave them a multiple choice question: "Where do you think Obama was born: Indonesia, Kenya, The Philippines, Hawaii, or some other place."

I picked this multiple-choice question rather than an open-ended question in part because it was easier to ask the question this way, but also to see how the story dominant among "birthers" (Obama was born in Kenya) fared in relation to other possibilities, including one that could be derived from general ignorance (Hawaii was made a state in 1959; Obama was born in 1961).

The vast majority of these respondents subscribed to the dominant conspiracy story, choosing Kenya as Obama's birthplace. Among the 46 percent of respondents who either said that Obama was not born in the U.S. or were unsure if he was, two thirds said he was born in Kenya. This pattern was especially pronounced among those who said that Obama was not born in the U.S. - almost three-quarters of these respondents said he was born in Kenya.

There is some evidence that, since the beginning of the year, the story about Obama's citizenship has become clearer. Earlier in the year, in January 2010, I designed the follow-up question described above for inclusion on a survey conducted by Angus Reid Global Monitoring. In that poll, the distribution of beliefs about Obama's citizenship were roughly similar to what they are now - 25 percent said that he was not born in the U.S. and 20 percent were not sure where he was born. However, the follow-up looked very different - only 41 percent chose Kenya (the dominant "birther story"), while 25 percent chose Hawaii (a clear demonstration of ignorance). Thus, over the last seven months, it seems that the "birther" story has become more pervasive.

Partisan differences in beliefs about Obama's citizenship also indicate that the uncertainty about Obama's background is politically motivated. Though it has been said before, the difference between partisans in their beliefs about Obama's citizenship is striking. As the data show, the vast majority of Democrats say that Obama was born in the U.S. and a plurality of Republicans say that he was not. Similar patterns emerge when beliefs are broken down by approval for Obama; the President's supporters think he is a natural-born citizen and his opponents do not. Put simply, on the question of Obama's citizenship, where you stand depends on where you sit.

This pattern of partisan misperception is striking and carries over to other political rumors. On the July Polimetrix/YouGov survey, I also asked my respondents questions about whether they thought that the changes to the health care system that have been enacted by Congress and the Obama administration create "death panels" and whether John Kerry lied about his actions during the Vietnam war in order to receive medals from the U.S. Army.

The large partisan gaps found in the acceptance of false beliefs about Obama's citizenship, not surprisingly, extended to rumors about Obama's policies. But they also extended to rumors about other Democratic politicians as well - a majority of Republicans said that Kerry lied to receive medals and a majority of Democrats said that he did not.

The pervasiveness of politically motivated perceptions of reality is not limited to Republicans. On my survey I also asked respondents if they thought that "people in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East." The overall acceptance of this particular piece of misinformation was lower than the Obama citizenship case - 18 percent thought that government officials were aware of the attack beforehand and another 18 percent were unsure - but the accusation here is certainly more severe. What is important for present purposes is that partisan differences in acceptance of this statement were large, as shown in this graph (which has been placed on the same scale as the birther graph above to facilitate comparisons).

These same differences do not, however, extend to rumors that are not grounded in partisan politics. I also asked respondents a question that has been asked on several surveys in the past, "Do you believe that a spacecraft from another planet crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947?" As the graph below shows, the stark partisan differences found on the other questions do not emerge in the case of beliefs about alien life.

All these results beg the question of what can be done to correct these persistent misperceptions. The answer is difficult, largely because the incorrect beliefs about politics are as much a function of partisan perceptions as they are about genuine ignorance.

Clearly, some people hold false beliefs because they do not pay much attention to the political world. Providing these individuals with greater knowledge of politics might improve the situation. In order to assess the impact of general ignorance, I measured how much my respondents knew about politics by asking them a series of three factual questions about political figures and political processes.

The results here are somewhat heartening. I found that the more of these factual questions the respondents got right, the more likely they were to think that Obama was a citizen. Contrary to the findings of some scholars who examined beliefs about rumors concerning death panels, I found that information had the same effect for both Democrats and Republicans. However, the news is not all rosy on this score; even information can only get us so far. There were large differences between the beliefs of Democrats and Republicans at all levels of political attentiveness and even among Republicans who got all three of my factual questions right, 27 percent believed that Obama was not born in the U.S.

So what can be done? In a recently published paper that has received a great deal of deserved attention, Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler hold out little hope for the possibility of correcting false beliefs. In fact, they argue that providing misinformed people the truth can exacerbate the problem, because these people just cling more firmly to their false beliefs. In a project associated with the Polimetrix/YouGov survey, I have begun to explore other possibilities and I remain hopeful. Still, given the nature of the current political climate, it may be a long road to find a common political reality that everyone can believe in.

That result is stunning because Castle, a moderate Republican and popular former Governor, has led likely Democratic nominee Chris Coons by double-digit margins all year. His entry into the race last year was seen as a boon for the Republicans because Castle, as the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza reported, "is widely regarded as the only GOP candidate who can win the seat" in next month's general election.

While polling on an O'Donnell-Coons match-up has been relatively sparse, an August survey by Daily Kos and PPP and a early September Rasmussen poll both show the Democrat leading O'Donnell by margins of 7 and 11 points respectively.

Even though O'Donnell was the Republican Senate nominee in 2008, most handicappers gave her little chance against Castle. Yet aided by at least $250,000 in Tea Party Express television advertising and endorsements from Sarah Palin, Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, and the National Rifle Association, her campaign has made a significant dent in Castle's popularity among Republicans. PPP reports that Castle's favorable rating among Delaware Republicans has fallen from 60% favorable, to 25% unfavorable a month ago, to net negative (43% favorable, 47% unfavorable) now.

The only other public poll on the primary was an internal Tea Party Express survey of 300 Delaware Republicans shared with Hotline OnCall that showed Castle leading two weeks ago by six percentage points (44% to 38%).

PPP's new survey also measured general election preferences, which they promise to release later this week, but hint that Democrat Coon has benefitted from the contested primary: "He would start out with a large advantage over O'Donnell in a general election match up," writes PPP's Tom Jensen, "and is polling closer to Castle than he was when PPP polled Delaware last month."

The weekend's other notable Senate poll, conducted by the Las Vegas Review Journal and Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, shows Democrat Harry Reid with the same 2 percentage point margin over Republican Sharon Angle (46% to 44%) as they found two weeks ago. While Reid's margin fall's within the margin of error of both surveys, nine of eleven polls released since July have shown him with similar single digit margins. Reid's very narrow advantage is likely real, at least for now.

[Cross-posted to the Huffington Post].

If these polls prove to be accurate, Republicans could achieve their biggest popular vote margin since the 1920s. In 1946, Republicans won the national popular vote for the House of Representatives by a margin of about 9 points and that was their biggest win in the past 64 years. The Republicans' second biggest popular vote margin was 7 points in 1994.

What would such a popular vote margin mean in terms of seats? In 1946, Republicans won 246 seats in the House--a gain of 56 seats over their previous total of 190. A 12 or 13 point Republican margin would likely produce close to 260 Republican seats--a gain of about 80 seats over their current total of 179. That would be the biggest seat swing in a House election since 1932 when Republicans lost 101 seats. It would dwarf the 1994 shift when Democrats lost 52 seats, their worst showing since 1946.

It is very likely that Republicans will make substantial gains in this year's midterm election. Democrats are defending many seats in Republican-leaning districts that they picked up in 2006 and 2008, Americans are very anxious about the condition of the economy, and President Obama's approval rating has fallen into the low-to-mid 40s in recent weeks. My own forecasting model now has Republicans gaining between 40 and 50 seats in the House. But how realistic are polls that show Republicans winning the national popular vote by a double digit margin-- enough to produce record-setting Democratic losses?

There is one reason to be skeptical about some of these recent poll results--they reflect an enormous gap between the preferences of registered and likely voters. Rasmussen does not release generic ballot results for registered voters, nor do they provide any information about how they identify likely voters. But the recent NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll reported a tie on the generic ballot among registered voters. Likewise, the new Washington Post/ABC News Poll reported only a 2 point Republican advantage among registered voters.

It is not surprising that Republicans would be doing better among likely voters than among all registered voters, especially in a low turnout midterm election. Republicans generally turn out in larger numbers than Democrats because of their social characteristics and this year Republicans appear to be especially motivated to get to the polls to punish President Obama and congressional Democrats. But a double-digit gap between the preferences of registered and likely voters is unusually large.

According to data compiled by the Gallup Poll, in 13 midterm elections between 1950 and 2006 for which relevant data were available, the average gap between the preferences of registered and likely voters was 5 points. Only once, in 2002, did the gap reach double digits. In that year Democrats had a 5 point lead among registered voters but Republicans led by 6 points among likely voters. However, the gap in party preference between registered and likely voters did reach 9 points in 1962 and 8 points in both 1974 and 1982 and in every one of these years, the preferences of Gallup's likely voters were closer to the actual election margin than the preferences of registered voters. In fact, across all 13 midterm elections, the Democratic margin among likely voters differed from the actual Democratic margin in the national popular vote by an average of only 2.1 percentage points while the Democratic margin among registered voters differed from the actual Democratic margin by an average of 6.5 percentage points.

These results appear to support two conclusions. First, while a double-digit gap between the preferences of registered and likely voters is unusual, based on the history of Gallup's generic ballot polling, it is not unprecedented. Second, result of the final Gallup generic ballot among likely voters has been a very good predictor of the national popular vote for the House of Representatives. If that poll finds Republicans with a double-digit margin, Democratic losses in November could be substantially greater than those the party suffered in 1994.

The automated Voter Survey Service poll poll in Florida shows Republican Marco Rubio with 43% of the vote and a double-digit lead over independent Charlie Crist (29%) and Democrat Kendrick Meek (23%). It confirms the decline in Crist's support shown in other surveys as support for Rubio and Meek began to rise following the August primary.

Rubio's position is enviable, since he now receives 70% of the Republican vote (on the two most recent surveys), while Crist and Meek continue to divide the Democratic vote. His lead over Crist has grown to six points on our trend estimate (38.7% to 32.6%), enough to classify the race as leaning Republican. In a pattern we noted yesterday, Rubio does better on the automated Voter Survey Service poll (43%) than on other recent surveys done with live interviewers.

But Crist's decline makes voter preferences in this race especially volatile. The last two polls have shown Crist ahead of Meek by an average 10 and 6 points. How many of Crist's supporters will stick with him if polls in the next few weeks show Meek tied with or slightly ahead of Crist?

Elsewhere, Rasmussen Reports released new automated survey results for four states, Arizona, Illinois, Missouri and West Virginia. The polls shows no consistent trend compared to Rasmussen's previous surveys in the same states a month ago, with non-significant variation in all but Arizona.

In Arizona, a state in which only Rasmussen has released public surveys since April, they show an eight point net improvement for John McCain's Democratic challenger Rodney Glassman since August, although McCain still leads comfortably (51% to 37%).

Rasmussen shows a slight drift for Democrat Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois, from dead even in August to a four-point deficit against Republican Mark Kirk (37% to 41%), although the change is not statistically significant. Our trend estimate, based on all recent public polls, shows this contest to be a virtual tie (38.7% Giannoulias to 38.6% Kirk) -- the closest in the nation as of this morning.

Rasmussen's West Virginia poll shows Democrat Joe Manchin continues to narrowly lead Republican John Raese by roughly the same margin (50% to 45%) that Rasmussen measured a month ago. As with Arizona, Rasmussen is the only public pollster to release results since a Repass and Partners poll showed Manchin leading by 22 points (54% to 32%) in early August.

David Hill warns Republicans not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Mark Mellman explains why it hasn't been a "summer of love" for Democrats.

Andrew Levison urges Democrats to calm down and keep perspective on polls.

Tom Jensen looks at how the 2010 likely electorate compares to the 2008 electorate.

Larry Bartels charts the great divergence in income growth by the party in power.

StrategyOne finds most Americans expect a double-dip recession.

John Sides highlights his panel on how political science should inform journalism.

The new CNN/Time polls released for Kentucky, Florida and California yesterday reported results for all self-described registered voters, while other recent polls have started to narrow their samples to those most likely to vote in this year's mid-term elections. The split represents a divergence in philosophy among pollsters: Some have less faith in the ability of polls to identify the likely electorate before October, while others apply simple likely voter "screens" a year or more before the election.

This year, national results reported by the Pew Research Center and Gallup have shown bigger than usual gaps between Republicans and Democrats on enthusiasm and especially interest paid to the campaign (many pollsters use the latter measure as part of an index used to select likely voters). Moreover, two new national polls this week by ABC News/Washington Post and NBC/Wall Street Journal showed Republicans running much better among likely voters on the generic U.S. House ballot.

The "likely voters" identified by pollsters are typically a few points more Republican, as turnout is typically higher among Republican leaning demographic groups, those who are older, better educated and white. But, again, this year's gap -- at least in early national surveys -- appears to bigger than usual.

We are also seeing another pattern emerge that is mostly unique to 2010: In several states, pollsters using automated methods, particularly Rasmussen Reports, SurveyUSA and Public Policy Polling (PPP), are reporting results consistently more favorable to Republican candidates than those using live interviewers.

Until recently, the two differences were confounding and hard to disentangle, as the automated polls were usually the only ones that also screened for likely voters. But as more pollsters are now shifting to likely voter screens, we are beginning to see the differences that are more clearly about the survey "mode."

The Kentucky Senate race is a prime example. Yesterday's CNN/Time live interviewer survey of registered voters shows a dead-heat tie (46% to 46%) between Republican Rand Paul and Democrat Paul Conway. Yet surveys of likely voters conducted in August by Rasmussen and SurveyUSA have shown Paul leading by larger margins (roughly 10 points on average), with the surveys of likely voters conducted with live interviewers by CN2 Politics/Braun Research and Reuters/IPSOS fall somewhere in between (Paul leading by 5 point on average).

We do not see these patterns everywhere. For example, CNN and Time also released new surveys yesterday on the races for Senate and Governor in California and Florida which were generally more consistent with other recent surveys that used automated methods or likely voter screens.

But we are seeing the Kentucky pattern elsewhere and will certainly have more to say about it over the next nine weeks. or today, however, we offer this advice: Remember New Jersey.

Another highlight from yesterday's polls:

Although CNN/Time survey on the Florida Senate race shows Democrat Kendrick Meek running a distant third, his 24% of the vote is the most he has received since Charlie Crist announced his intention to run as an independent.

Yes, the registered voter screen used for the survey may produce a slightly more Democratic sample, but the results among Democrats explain much of the difference: Meek leads Crist in that subgroup on the CNN/Time poll (54% to 36%). When I averaged Meeks' standing among Democrats in polls conducted before the August primary, Crist actually ran slightly ahead among Democrats (43% to 37%).

Coming up tomorrow morning: An look at the races for Governor.

To be sure, Democrats are in trouble. To be sure, according to pollster.com's tracking, the generic ballot is trending Republican when you aggregate all polling outlets. But why is one poll (+10) covered so extensively, while another (+0) hardly at all? Why is the former considered important, and the second, perhaps an outlier? This new data point is receiving far less coverage. (Media Matters has a very good summary of the difference in coverage here.)

It's hard to know exactly what is causing the fluctuation--whether it's simple poll fluctuation, or "real" movement. But looking at Gallup's breakout of the generic by party, we see most of the movement comes from Democrats consolidating the base. In the current poll, 93% of self-identified Democrats say they are voting for the Democratic candidate, up from 88% in the previous wave. Republican support for the Republican candidate dropped just slightly (96% to 93%). The difference in base consolidation is now even, for the first time in a month. The chart below shows this metric since Gallup began nightly tracking in March.

That remaining Democratic holdouts would begin to come home as we head into the final stretch is not a surprise. Will this pattern hold, and how it translates into actual House seats, remains to be seen. But for those following campaign twists and turns, the latest Gallup poll is a twist worth a bigger mention.

We're seeking a three-month unpaid intern to work in the Huffington Post office in Washington DC. Primary responsibilities will include:

• Entering polling data into our database and publishing tables and charts to Huffington Post/Pollster
• Entering and publishing poll update blog entries into our content management system

Strong attention to detail is a must. Experience using basic HTML, entering content into a CMS (especially Movable Type), and experience with statistical analysis including the R programming language are appreciated but not required.

If you're interested, please send a resume and brief statement of interest/availability to pollsterintern@huffingtonpost.com

Remember that to win an absolute majority in the Senate, the Republicans need to gain at least 10 9 seats (although as several Pollster and HuffPost commenters have pointed out, a gain of 9 8 seats would leave the Democratic majority dependent on vote of not always reliable Joe Lieberman).

Currently, Republican candidates hold strong double-digit leads in four states now represented by Democrats: North Dakota, Arkansas, Indiana and Delaware. The Delaware margin assumes that Mike Castle wins next week's Republican primary. Democratic hopes there will brighten considerably should Republican Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell prevail, as two recent polls show she would trail Democrat Chris Coons.

Six seats currently held by Democrats remain in our toss-up category:

• In Colorado, our most recent trend estimate shows Republican Ken Buck with a slim 3.3 point advantage (46.1% to 42.8%), over Democratic Senator Michael Bennet, although the two most recent polls point in opposite directions: The most recent Rasmussen Reports tracker gives Buck a four-point lead, while a survey conducted by a bi-partisan team of campaign pollsters gives Bennet a 3-point advantage.

• In Washington state, two recent automated surveys by SurveyUSA and Rasmussen show Republican challenger Dino Rossi narrowly but not significantly ahead of Democratic Senator Patty Murray. Rossi's 1.9 point edge (49.7% to 47.8%) on our trend estimate is slightly improved, but leaves Washington very much in the toss-up category.

• California has also seen two new automated surveys in the last week from Rasmussen and SurveyUSA both showing Republican challenger Carly Fiorina deadlocked with Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer. Our trend estimate now shows Boxer with an advantage of less than one percentage point (46.8% to 46.2%), an edge that has narrowed roughly two points over the last two weeks.

• All of the recent pubic polling in Wisconsin comes from Rasmussen Reports, which has shown a deadlocked race between Senator Russ Feingold and his Republican challenger Ron Johnson. Johnson's less than one-point margin on our trend estimate (47.3% to 46.0%) mirrors those results.

• In Illinois, a new live-interviewer survey by the Chicago Tribune confirms the results of the most recent Rasmussen automated survey. Both show Democrat Alexi Giannoulias and Republican Mark Kirk tied. Our trend estimate gives Giannoulias Kirk a two-point edge (39.7% to 37.7%)

• In Nevada, two recent surveys by Mason-Dixon and Rasmussen both show Democrat Harry Reid with non-significant leads of 3 and 1 percentage points respectively. Our trend estimate gives Reid a 3.4 point advantage (48.6% to 45.2%), mostly because Reid has led nominally on 8 of 10 surveys conducted since July.

Of the seats currently held by Republicans, only Florida remains in our toss-up category, and there our trend estimate shows Republican Marco Rubio with a 3.1 point advantage over Republican-turned-independent Charlie Crist (37.1% to 34.0%) with Democrat Kendrick Meek running a distant third (16.6%)

Two week ago, our trend estimate put Kentucky in the toss-up category, but two new recent polls by SurveyUSA and Kentucky cable news channel CN2 put Republican Rand Paul leading Democrat Jack Conway by margins of 15 and 5 points respectively. Our trend estimate now shows Paul leading by 5.3 points (44.9% to 39.6%), enough to shift Kentucky to lean Republican.

All tallied, we currently show 48 seats leaning or currently held by Democrats (including the two independents that caucus with the Democrats), and 45 seats leaning or currently held by Republicans. Thus, control of the U.S. Senate rests on the outcome of the seven contests now now in the toss-up category: Colorado, Washington, California, Wisconsin, Illinois, Nevada and Florida.

Steve Singiser doubts polls' "books are cooked" to the detriment of Democrats.

Pat Caddell expounds on Obama, Democrats' ties to Wall Street and the 2010 elections (via Smith).

Tom Jensen says very few who don't approve of Obama plan to vote for Democrats this year.

"Swampland" contributers discuss why Obama is slipping in the polls.

Gary Langer finds growing support among Afghans for talks with the Taliban.

Frank Newport discusses religion and party identification.

Charles Blow wonders why the US is such an outlier in its religiosity relative to its GDP.

The annual meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA), which featured nearly 5,000 participants and close to 900 panel and roundtable sessions, was about far more than election forecasting. Those most interested in the 2010 campaigns, however, gravitated to a Saturday session in which five political scientists presented the latest results from their forecasting models, some of which have been in development for 30 years or more.

Democrats currently hold a 256 to 179 seat advantage, so Republicans need to win at least 39 seats to gain majority control. Three of the models, two of which draw on national polls measuring whether voters plan to support the Democrat or Republican candidate in their district, point to Republicans picking up between 49 and 52 seats in the House, more than enough to win majority control. Specifically:

• Alan Abramowitz of Emory University forecast a Republican gain of 49 seats, based on current polling showing Republican with a roughly five percentage-point lead on the generic House ballot.
• Joe Bafumi of Dartmouth College presented his forecast of a 50-seat Republican gain, based on a model and paper co-authored with Robert Erikson of Columbia University and Chris Wlezien of Temple University (and summarized last month in the Huffington Post). Their model also rests heavily on national polling on U.S. House vote preferences.
• James Campbell of SUNY Buffalo predicted a gain of 50 to 52 seats for the Republicans, using a model that combines assessments of the number of "seats in peril" by the Cook Political Report with the recent job approval rating of president Barack Obama.

Two more models offered a less pessimistic outlook for the Democrats:

• Alfred Cuzan forecast a Republican gain of 27 to 30 seats based on a model, developed with University of West Florida colleague Charles Bundrick, that relies mostly on measures of economic growth and inflation rather than voter preference polling.
• Michael Lewis Beck of the University of Iowa predicted a Republic gain of just 22 seats. He collaborated with Charles Tien of CUNY Hunter College on a more than 30-year-old "referendum" model based on measurements earlier this year. Their model was the only one to exclude measurements of the current seat division between Democrats and Republicans.

Why so much variation in the forecasts? Another speaker, Gary Jacobson of the University of California San Diego, pointed out that the number of previous elections typically used by forecasters (typically between 16 and 32) is "not a very big number," while a great many "plausible" predictive measures exist. Moreover, the national polling numbers used by the modelers are often "really, really noisy."

Jacobson also noted the differences between the "fundamentalist" models of Cuzan/Bundrick and Lewis-Beck/Tien that assume that views of the the economy and the Obama administration drive voting, and the others that use vote preference questions which, as he put it, "add in the information that's already the product of these fundamentals" as well as "the other stuff that's going on" with voter preferences.

Lewis-Beck argued that the "the best models are based on theory ... things that we know [or] that we're pretty certain we know," which in this case means the belief that "people vote about the main direction of the economy, and they vote about big macro political issues," especially in midterm elections.

At least one of the academics noted the apparent gap between what the fundamentals alone predict and what the polls are picking up. "Republicans are polling a lot better than they should be," Bob Erikson argued, "by [the] fundamentals."

[Cross-posted to the Huffington Post]./p>]]> http://www.pollster.com/blogs/political_scientists_forecast.php http://www.pollster.com/blogs/political_scientists_forecast.php 2010 Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:51:24 -0500 Enten@Dartmouth.edu (Harry Enten) by Harry EntenOn Saturday, political scientists at the American Political Science Association conference in Washington, D.C. will debut their models for predicting results in the House of Representatives. In this article, I put forth my own model that translates Gallup's final generic ballot result into seats. While the generic ballot has generally not been fantastic at forecasting House outcomes, Gallup's final likely voter generic ballot poll has proven itself to be a great predictor in midterm elections.

In 2002, Alan Abramowitz created a model based off of Gallup's final likely voter poll in every midterm election since 1950. What I have done here is recreate that model and included 2002 and 2006 data. Abramowitz's model estimates the amount of seats the Republican party will gain by how many seats they won in the prior Congressional election, the party in the White House, and the Republican lead (or deficit) on the final generic ballot. I have also added my own variable: whether the party in the White House has been in power for more than one term. It is important to keep in mind that this model is based off only 14 elections and the final Gallup likely voter poll (before then Gallup's polls can be bouncy). If past trends hold, the model will do very well at predicting the 2010 final House seat count.

This simple model is quite robust and explains a little over 97% of the variation in the amount of seats won by Republicans in midterm elections from 1950-2006. In addition to gaining more seats when they do better on the generic ballot, Republicans are also more likely to perform well when Democrats control the White House, and the party in the White House has been there for more than a term. In 12 of the 14 elections*, the regression's error is 5 seats or less. The model's error is never greater than 9 seats for any of the 14 elections.

So what type of lead do Republicans need on Gallup's final likely generic ballot to take back the House? Amazingly, they only need to be leading by 3% to be slated to garner 218 seats and win a majority by the slimmest of margins. If Republicans have a 6% lead, an error in estimate larger than this model has ever seen would be needed for Republicans not to gain back the House. A likely voter lead of 10% like Republicans had on Monday with registered voters, not likely voters who Republicans will do better among, translates into a cosmic 240 seats.

Other possible generic ballot margins to seat translations are

When Gallup makes the transition to a likely voter model, we will have a very good idea which party is destined to control the House chamber. Considering the current Republican position on the registered voter ballot, and how that has historically translated to the likely voter model, the Republicans look to be in mighty good position. Of course, November is still two months away.

*Gallup did not have a likely voter model in the fall of 1986.

Josh Kraushaar looks at possible House bellweather districts.

Steve Schale sees tough math for Charlie Crist in Florida (via Smith).

A team of psychologists release a study on the "Obama is a Muslim" myth; Brendan Nyhan and Jeanna Bryner have more.

Gary Langer discusses the impact of Iraq on Bush's popularity.

Nathan Gonzales asks if Rasmussen is better than its reputation.

The Telegraph lists 10 ways data is changing how we live (via Lundry).

Pew finds teens who text do so far more than adults (via Witt).

1. Pundits and reporters closely observe the behavior of candidates and parties, focusing on the tactics they use rather than larger structural factors.
2. The candidates whose tactics appear to be successful tend to win; conversely, those whose tactics appear to be unsuccessful tend to lose (and likewise with parties).
3. The media concludes that candidates won or lost because of their tactical choices.

The problem is that any reasonable political tactic chosen by professionals will tend to resonate in favorable political environments and fall flat in unfavorable political environments (compare Bush in '02 to Bush '06, or Obama in '08 to Obama in '09-'10). But that doesn't mean the candidates are succeeding or failing because of the tactics they are using. While strategy certainly can matter on the margin in individual races, aggregate congressional and presidential election outcomes are largely driven by structural factors (the state of the economy, the number of seats held by the president's party, whether it's a midterm or presidential election year, etc.). Tactical success often is a reflection of those structural factors rather than an independent cause.

What advocates of the tactical view have failed to do is provide a viable counterfactual -- where is the example of the president whose messaging succeeded despite a similarly poor economy? TNR's John Judis has tried to argue that Reagan was more successful than Obama in 1981-1982 (here and here), but as I have pointed out (here and here), the 1982 election results do not suggest Republicans significantly overperformed and Reagan's approval ratings (both on the economy and overall) were extremely similar to Obama's at the same point in their presidencies.

The reality is that Obama's current standing -- and the rush to blame it on tactical failures -- could be predicted months ago based on structural factors. His approval ratings largely reflect a poor economy. Similarly, Democrats were likely to suffer significant losses in the House no matter what due to the number of seats they currently hold and the fact that it is a midterm election. Nonetheless, expect the tactics-are-everything crowd to be saying "I told you so" on November 3.*

* Bonus prediction: If the economy rebounds before 2012, the media will rediscover the tactical genius of Obama and David Axelrod.

[Cross-posted to brendan-nyhan.com and Huffington Post]]]> http://www.pollster.com/blogs/the_tactical_fallacy.php http://www.pollster.com/blogs/the_tactical_fallacy.php 2010 Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:21:50 -0500 Enten@Dartmouth.edu (Harry Enten) by Harry EntenThe Gallup generic ballot has provided plenty of fodder with election analysts this summer. No clearer was the importance of the Gallup generic ballot to the news cycle than it was on Monday when Gallup showed a 10% Republican advantage. As noted, a 10% Republican lead on Gallup's generic ballot is unprecedented, and it will likely get worse once Gallup switches over to a likely voter model. Congressmen and political analysts alike have mentioned that Republicans could possibly do 4% better on a likely voter model. Upon further examination, however, I think it could be worse for Democrats. Why? History.

Gallup has a relatively famous likely voter model that has been in place since 1950. Therefore, we can compare past differences in the generic ballot between registered and likely voter models to give us an idea of how different they will be this year. Below, I have gathered the relevant Gallup data from every final midterm poll since 1994 and contrasted the registered and likely voter model. I have also placed the difference in net enthusiasm (percentage of voters saying they are more enthusiastic about voting and less enthusiastic) between Republicans and Democrats in the table. You should notice two important pieces of data.

First, Republicans have for the past four midterms always done better on the final Gallup likely voter poll than registered voter poll by at least 4%. This deviation is to be expected as midterm electorates tend to be older and whiter than presidential year ones.

Second, the gap between the likely and registered models benefited Republicans greatest in years where they had large leads in enthusiasm. In both 1994 and 2002 (where Republicans held at least a 8%+ edge in Gallup's final measure of enthusiasm), the Republicans margin was 7% and 11% higher respectively on the likely voter model. In 1998 and 2002 when Democrats had a lead in enthusiasm, they "only" picked up 5% and 4%. The Republicans edge on net enthusiasm was 28% a month ago, which means that voters this year are even more enthusiastic than in 1994 or 2002. So what does that mean for the registered to likely voter transition for this year?

It is important to keep in mind that the correlation between enthusiasm and differences between the registered and likely voter model has only been about 68% (not statistically significant at 95% confidence). Still, there seems to be some relationship. And keeping this connection in mind, the general Republican advantage on the likely voter model, and the large Republican lead in net enthusiasm this year, I believe that it is quite possible that at least on the final Gallup generic ballot (prior ones may differ) the Republican margin on the likely voter model could be 5-10% greater than on the registered voter model.

Lymari Morales reviews recent Gallup polling on views of government..

Jane Hamsher declares vindication, Dave Weigel has more.

Jason Linkins says Quinnipiac's polling on the mosque near Ground Zero makes little sense.

Jerome Armstrong reviews a new book by Scott Rasmussen and Doug Schoen.

Kyle Dropp notes that name confusion may be helping a city council candidate in Washington D.C.

As I noted yesterday, the Newsweek poll did produce a result on the more positive end of the bell curve for Democrats. Make no mistake: A simple average of recent polls (including Newsweek) shows a roughly five-point Republican advantage on the so-called generic House ballot -- a result that points to Republicans winning 50 or more seats and with it, control of the House. Moreover, the trend is moving in the Republican direction. So no one should interpret anything that follows as evidence that "all is well" for the Democrats.

If Eberly had confined his criticism to Newsweek's headline and story, which focused only on the Newsweek poll and thus concluded that Democrats "may not be headed for a bloodbath," I would be sympathetic. But Eberly goes much farther and alleges that the data are "fishy," that "someone at Newsweek cooked the books and hoped we wouldn't notice."

On that score Eberly has his math -- and the facts -- flat wrong.

The crux of his argument -- the evidence that he oddly alleges the Newsweek pollsters hoped we wouldn't notice -- appears at the very top of the "complete poll results" document produced by Newsweek's polling firm, Princeton Survey Research Associates (PSRA; interests disclosed: PSRA CEO Evans Witt is a neighbor and friend). Because they provide results for the entire survey tabulated by party identification, PSRA also discloses the unweighted sample sizes for all the party subgroups, Democrats (280 registered voters), Republicans (284) and independents (247) as well as the total of all registered voters interviewed (856).

Eberly finds that partisan mix inconsistent with the results that Newsweek reports for the generic ballot. "[I]t is mathematically impossible," he writes "for Democrats and Republicans to be tied at 45%" given that party breakdown.

Well of course it is. The party breakdown is unweighted. PSRA also discloses, on the same front page of their questionnaire, that their data are "weighted so that sample demographics match Census Current Population Survey parameters for gender, age, education, race, region, and population density."

Now in fairness, PSRA's report does not explicitly say that the subgroup sample sizes are unweighted -- an omission which often leads to this sort of confusion -- but they do provide weighted results for party identification at the end of their report. Among registered voters the weighted result is 32% Republican, 35% Democrat, 29% independent and the rest volunteering that they have no party (5%), are a member of another party (1%) or are unsure (3%).

"Now it's possible," Eberly concludes, "that after weighting for gender, age, education, race, region, and population density the partisan ID of the sample would change."

Yes. It's also likely. Any national pollster will tell you that weighting a sample of adults to match census statistics will typically make the sample a few points more Democratic. The four-point shift seen on this survey is slightly bigger than usual, but that's the way random variation works.

Newsweek does not weight it polls by by party. They weight their adult samples demographically and then, in this case, report on the results among registered voters. Most national media pollsters use the same procedure. A simple Google search on "weighting by party ID" will quickly yield a full explanation and more.

But Eberly is having none of that. His smoking gun? When he enters Newsweek's results-by-party ballot into a spreadsheet, and plugs in the "reported [party] breakdown" (36% Democrat, 32% Republican), he can't reproduce the 45% to 45% tie on the they report on the generic House ballot. By his calculations, "the Republicans still lead by 47.4% to 42.6% -- [so] the poll is pure nonsense."

Professor Eberly? Did you notice that the the unweighted sample sizes of Democrats (280), Republicans (284) and independents (247) add to just 811, not the 856 registered voters that Newsweek reported?* Did you wonder why? Did it occur to you that your tabulations *omitted results for 45 interviews conducted among the registered voters whose answers were "other," no party or unsure and that the omission might explain why your calculations don't match what Newsweek reported?

Apparently not.

Now there's nothing unusual about Newsweek's omission. Few public pollsters report results for subgroups of less than 100 interviews, and for good reason. The margin of error on 45 interviews would yield a margin of error of at least +/- 15%. But I asked PSRA to make an exception in this case and they kindly disclosed that the 45 other/none/unsure respondents support the Democratic candidate in their District rather than the Republican by a 40% to 29% margin. Put those numbers into a spreadsheet along with the rest of the result-by-party, apply the weighted party composition reported at the end of the questionnaire (36% Democrat, 32% Republican, 27% independent, 5% other/none/unsure), and I get a result on the generic ballot of 45.8% Democrat, 44.6% Republican. The slight difference from the 45% to 45% reported by Newsweek is likely due to the rounded numbers we plugged into the spreadsheet.

Eberly calls on Newsweek "to release fully the effects of it's weighting." I have no idea what he means, but readers should know that Newsweek discloses more about its weighted and unweighted party identification results than most pollsters. Can you point to any Rasmussen poll of registered or likely voters, for example, that discloses either its unweighted or weighted party identification breakdown?

Now again, the results of this Newsweek's poll are arguably on the optimistic end of the bell curve for Democrats, but given the reported +/-4% margin of error, the 45%-to-45% result does not differ significantly from our 45.6% Republican to 41.1% Democrat trend estimate (as of this writing) based on all available public polls.

The charge that Newsweek and PSRA intentionally "cooked the books and hoped we wouldn't notice" is nonsense. Eberly owes them a retraction and an apology.

**Hat tip to Pollster reader John who did notice the discrepancy.

[Cross-posted to the Huffington Post]

On Friday, under the headline "Democrats May Not Be Headed for Midterm Bloodbath," Newsweek reported results from a new national poll of registered voters showing Americans evenly split (45% to 45%) on the question of whether they would vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate for Congress in their district.

This afternoon, Gallup released another national survey of registered voters, also conducted last week, showing Republicans with an "unprecedented 10-point lead" (51% to 41%), the largest Republican advantage Gallup has measured in its nearly sixty years of tracking the so-called "generic ballot."

So what's going on?

Much of the gaping difference between the two polls is probably explained by the usual random variation that affects all polls. Use your mouse to poke around our interactive chart (posted below), and you will soon discover that the latest Gallup survey result is more favorable for the Republicans than most, the Newsweek poll is similarly more favorable for the Democrats and that both fall within the typical range of variation, amounting to +/- three or four points from the trend line. Our overall trend estimate based on all of the available polls gives Republicans a 5.2 percentage point advantage (46.8% to 41.6%)

We could obsess further over the consistent differences ("house effects") among pollsters, but what is far more important, is that the averages show a GOP lead that has been trending in the Republican direction all summer. That trend is consistent with the historical pattern identified here on Friday by political scientists Joe Bafumi, Bob Erikson and Chris Wlezien, the "electorate's tendency in past midterm cycles to gravitate further toward the "out" party over the election year."

Moreover, you see the same trend even if we drop all Newsweek and Gallup polls, plus all of the Internet-based surveys and automated surveys (including Rasmussen), and focus only on the remaining live-interviewer telephone surveys, as in the chart below. The margin for the Republicans is virtually identical (46.6% to 41.4%).

So while the "unprecedented 10-point lead" reported by Gallup probably exaggerates the Republican lead, any result showing a net Republican advantage on the so-called generic ballot is bad news for Democrats. Bafumi and his colleagues estimated their 50-seat gain for the Republicans assuming a two-point advantage for Republicans on the generic ballot, which they project will widen to a six-point lead by November. If the Republican lead on the generic ballot is already that wide (or close), their projection for the Democrats would worsen.

[Cross-posted to the Huffington Post].

Gary Andres says partisanship is here to stay; John Sides has more.

Daniel Hopkins examines the "threat gap" behind both Glen Beck's Rally and anti-war protests in the last decade.

A 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll finds more don't think Palin is qualified to be president; Ben Smith adds more.

Patrick Murray assesses polls on whether NJ Governor Christie is a "bully" or "leader."

Nikhyl Singhal sounds a death knell for phone numbers (via Rivers).

Marc Ambinder asks, "where's Edward Tufte when you need him?"

Gallup reports Muslims approve of Obama more than any religious group; Ben Smith says Obama is dropping among all religious groups; Charles Blow notes the largest drop is among Jews.

Frank Newport responds to Joe Biden's comments on the midterm elections.

Jeremy Jacobs and Josh Kraushaar discuss the American Action Forum House polls; Desmoinesdem claims evidence of a GOP skew.

Tom Jensen shares "brutal" numbers for Obama in swing states.

Doug Schoen thinks Obama should "pull a Clinton."

Joe Lenski notes Blanche Lincoln's predicted big loss in Arkansas could be historic.

A Sacramento Bee/Rasmussen poll shows increasing support for Tea Party Candidates.

Stefan Hankin advises on how to pick your pollster (via Matthews).

Pew Internet finds that social media use is growing among older adults.

How many House seats will the Republicans gain in 2010? To answer this question, we have run 1,000 simulations of the 2010 House elections. The simulations are based on information from past elections going back to 1946. Our methodology replicates that for our ultimately successful forecast of the 2006 midterm. Two weeks before Election Day in 2006, we posted a prediction that the Democrats would gain 32 seats and recapture the House majority. The Democrats gained 30 seats in 2006. Our current forecast for 2010 shows that the Republicans are likely to regain the House majority.

Our preliminary 2010 forecast will appear (with other forecasts by political scientists) in the October issue of PS: Political Science. By our reckoning, the most likely scenario is a
Republican majority in the neighborhood of 229 seats versus 206 for the Democrats for a 50 seat loss for the Democrats. Taking into account the uncertainty in our model, the Republicans have a 79% chance of winning the House.

The model has two steps. Step 1 predicts the midterm vote division from only two variables, the generic poll result and the party of the president. With this estimate of the partisan tide in place, step 2 forecasts the winners of 435 House races using separate statistical models for open seats and races with incumbent candidates. At each step, the forecast takes into account uncertainty about the inputs.

First, we simulate 1000 separate outcomes of the national vote. The pooled generic polls
conducted 121 to 180 days in advance of the 2010 election show a very close division of 49.1% Democratic and 50.9% Republican. But a near tie in the polls in mid-summer projects to a significant vote plurality for the Republicans in November, close to a 53%-47% split. This prediction is not due to any bias in the polls, but rather stems from the electorate's tendency in past midterm cycles to gravitate further toward the "out" party over the election year--ultimately gaining about two extra points beyond what summer polls would otherwise show.

The national vote only tells us part of the story, and we still need to determine how it would translate into seats. For each of the 1000 simulated values of the national vote, we simulate the outcome in 435 congressional districts. Open seats and incumbent seats are treated separately. Open seat outcomes are estimated based on the simulated national vote swing plus the 2008 presidential vote in that district. Outcomes with the incumbent on the ballot are estimated based on the simulated national swing plus the incumbent's vote margin in 2008 and whether the incumbent is running as a freshman. The weight that these variables are given in predicting the final outcome depends on their explanatory power in past elections. Full details are presented in our forthcoming PS paper.

To sum up, first, we generated 1,000 simulations of the national vote. Then, we applied each of the 1,000 simulated national outcomes to each congressional district, noting the party of the "winner." For each of the 1,000 simulated outcomes of the national vote, we project the partisan division of the 435 congressional districts.

The figure below displays the range of simulated results. As can be seen from the predominance of red bars, the Republicans win the majority of seats in 79% of the trials. On average, the Republicans win 229 seats, 23 more than the Democrats and 11 more than the 218 needed for a majority. However, the simulations yield considerable variation, with a 95% confidence interval of 176 to 236 Republican seats.

This prediction comes with important caveats. Applying our model to 2010 assumes that the forces at work in 2010 are unchanged from past midterm elections. However, we should be wary of the possibility that the underlying model of the national vote works differently in 2010 or is influenced by variables we have not taken into account. Because the 2010 campaign started to heat up earlier than usual, the usual tilt toward the out party may already be complete, with no further drift to the Republicans. It is also uncertain how voters will react to the tea-party movement as the public face of the Republican Party.

The key will be to follow the generic polls from now to November. If the polls stay close, the Democrats have a decent chance to hold the House. But if the polls follow the past pattern of moving toward the "out" party and move further toward the Republicans--even by a little--the Republicans should be heavily favored.

The current polling snapshot can help us understand the challenges that each face, but perhaps more than in any other Senate race, the horse race polling numbers here are potentially volatile and subject to change. This race is definitely one to watch.

The tabulations that pollsters have produced by party are, for now, the most important. I averaged the vote-by-party results reported for the general election by four pollsters, Ipsos Public Affairs, Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Public Policy Polling (PPP) and Quinnipiac University (my tabulations do not include results from the Rasmussen poll conducted last night and released earlier today, mostly because they did not provide complete results by party for non-subscribers, but the numbers they reported are generally consistent with those below).

The by-party-numbers show that Meek faces a huge challenge: Crist leads Meek narrowly among Democrats (42% to 37%), while Crist wins a greater share of the vote among Democrats (42%) than among Republicans (20%). Meanwhile, Meek trails Rubio among independents by 22 points (9% to 31%)

The numbers also demonstrate the difficulty Crist will have growing his current support (and keep in mind that Crist trailed Rubio narrowly overall on three of the four surveys). Self-identified independents are a relatively small portion of the likely Florida electorate. In the four polls I looked at 18% of the voters, on average, identified as independent, and Crist is already winning 42% of their support. Thus, even if he can somehow boost his support among independents to 60%, it would add just 3 percentage points to his overall total.

Meanwhile, Meek's obvious strategy is to win over Democrats, fast, and his campaign is wasting no time touting Meek as "the only real Democrat" and reminding reporters of the many conservatives stands Crist took until days before abandoning the Republicans earlier this year. And that strategy also works for Marco Rubio, who joined Meek in pounding Crist this week for not saying who he plans to vote for for majority leader.

All of this, as Politico's Martin and Burns put it, "leaves Crist in the position of having to perform Houdini-like marvels of contortion to find a large enough space in the political middle to keep his independent bid on track."

Not surprisingly, both the Meek and Rubio campaigns agree that "political gravity" will work in Meek's favor. But can Meek really rally from a distant third to challenge Rubio? In a public memo, Meek campaign manager Abe Dyk argues that he can:

With Republicans coalescing around a Tea Party candidate, and Democrats with Kendrick, the math does not exist to elect Charlie Crist. With an expected turnout of 43% Democrats and 40% Republicans, Kendrick needs to win 75% of registered Democrats and just 17% of the registered Independent vote to secure 35% of the vote total. 35%-40% is all that is needed to win in a three-way race.

That math strikes me as a bit optimistic, first in assuming that Democratic voters will outnumber Republicans in Florida this year,** and second in assuming that a candidate can win with less than 40% of the vote while also assuming that Crist's support among Democrats will collapse. But that's mostly quibbling: To run even with Rubio, Meek will need to close the gap among independents and win a percentage of Democrats that is at least as high as Rubio's percentage among Republicans. So whether Meek's goal among Democrats is 75% or 80%, it's a tall order. Can Meek really double his support among Democrats between now and November?

To get a better handle on that question I asked two of the Florida pollsters to tabulate their results among a crucial subgroup: The self-identified Democrats in their surveys that support Crist. The resulting subgroups of "Crist Democrats" are relatively small -- just 106 interviews on the Ipsos survey and 147 on the Quinnipiac poll, yielding margins of error of +/- 10% and +/- 8% respectively -- but the results are largely consistent. They help explain Crist's current appeal among Democrats, but also why he will have trouble maintaining that support.

For example, the Crist Democrats overwhelmingly approve of Barack Obama's performance as president (79% on the Ipsos survey and 80% on Quinnipiac), but not surprisingly, they are even more approving of Crist as governor (90% on the Ipsos survey and 88% on Quinnipiac).

There are also hopeful signs for Meek: Quinnipiac finds that nearly half of the Crist Democrats (45%) say they haven't heard enough about Meek to rate him, and only 20% report an unfavorable rating. Quinnipiac finds that half of the Crist Democrats are self-described liberals (46%), and Ipsos finds 36% "strongly" identify with the Democratic party. Quinnipiac finds that nearly a quarter (23%) are African American.

So collectively these results suggest that Meek has much room to grow, and that "political gravity" is poised to work in his favor. On the other hand, they also suggest that some Democrats will stick with Crist no matter what. What is Crist's floor of support among Democrats? We will have to wait and see.

One thing is certain: Crist's independent candidacy will make voter decisions more complicated than in other races and, for that reason, potentially far more volatile. Voter preferences could shift, and fast, at any point this fall (including the final week). As such, this is a race worth watching.

**Those who want to go deeper into the wonky weeds should know that Dyk's memo references actual party registration, while poll respondents may sometimes report something different. More specifically, while Mason-Dixon asks explicitly about party registration, Quinnipiac and Ipsos use a more traditional party identification question that asks respondents what they "consider" themselves and PPP asks respondents simply whether they "are" Democrats, Republicans or independents. So the numbers I'm reporting are probably slightly different than what Dyk is using.

[Cross-posted to the Huffington Post].

Nate Silver's new Senate model shows Democrats losing 6-7 seats; Megan McArdle thinks it could be too conservative.

Alexander Burns declares robo-polling the winner in Florida's primary.

Peter J. Woolley and Dan Cassino write up their experiment on polling on independent Chris Daggett in NJ.

Survey Practice publishes its August issue.

Judging by the tweets I've seen (and my own snap judgment), most of you may be thinking the polls were most off in the Governor's race, where most of the final polls showed Bill McCollum leading. If so, you'd be wrong. The three polls fielded in the last week on the Democratic Senate contest understated Kendrick Meek's margin by an average of 11 percentage points. The three final week polls on the Republican Governor's underestimated Rick Scott's margin by an average of just 5 points (the absolute value of the errors was 7.7; all of these numbers are based on the unofficial count with all precincts reporting).

Thus, we have another example of the pre-election pollster's paradox: The errors that get noticed are those that are just wrong enough to give everyone the wrong impression about the likely winner.

But let's focus on the Republican primary for Governor, for now, since theories are flying about why some polls missed Scott's looming victory. I asked our Pollster.com colleague, University of Wisconsin Professor Charles Franklin, to run one of his patented "bullseye" polling error charts. The chart below displays each poll as a dot, with the vertical axis representing Scott's percentage, the horizontal axis representing McCollum's percentage, and the center of the bullseye representing the actual result.

In this case, two pollsters -- Public Policy Polling (PPP) and Sunshine State News/VSS/Susquehanna Polling and Research -- land in the center ring of the bullseye. Their final surveys yielded the smallest undecided percentages and were also the only two to show Scott ahead.

Pollsters have long debated how to handle the undecided category in measuring poll error. Should we allocate the undecided among the candidates and, if so, how? This chart sidesteps that debate, although keep in mind that polls that get the margin exactly right will fall in the lower left quadrant along an unplotted diagonal line from the center of the bullseye to the lower left corner.

So, aside from getting fewer undecided, why did the PPP and Susquehanna polls get closer to the final result?

One theory, floated by our intern Harry Enten (see the 9:01 p.m. entry in last night's live blog), is that the polls by PPP and Susquehanna used an automated, recorded-voice methodology and drew their random samples from the official list of registered voters. Harry argues that both methods provide a more accurate identification of truly likely voters: The registered voter list because it identifies actual voters (and can make use of their actual history of past voting) and the automated method because voters are theoretically more willing to provide honest answers about their vote intent to a machine rather than a live interviewer.

I have long speculated that automated surveys are better at selecting truly likely voters in especially low turnout races, on the theory that they can identify likely voters more accurately and are better able to interview a narrower slice of the electorate at reasonable cost. In this case, however, PPP's Tom Jensen speculates that their survey was closer to the final result because their they "used a loose screen" in selecting likely voters and thus "picked up more non-typical voters who went for Scott." Yesterday's Republican turnout (1.28 million voters) was slightly larger than the turnout in the August Republican primary for Senate in 2004 (1.16 million) and much larger that the Republican Gubernatorial primary in 2006 (0.96 million).

Another intriguing theory concerns the surprising 10% of the vote received by Mike McCalister, a third Republican candidate for Governor. Politico's Jon Martin observed, via Twitter, that McAlister's showing was perhaps "the biggest surprise of the night" because he aired no television ads, did not appear in the debates and got little media attention. Republican media consultant Mike Murphy suggests, also via Twitter, that some voters may have been confused by the similarity in the names: "McCollum + McCalister = McConfused."

What complicates this issue further is that only one pollster -- Mason Dixon -- offered McCalister as a choice on their vote question, and they showed him getting only 4% to 45% for McCollum. PPP and Quinnipiac University offered only Scott and McCollum as choices (although Quinnipiac recorded 4% who named "someone else" as their choice). So what may have happened is that some Republicans headed to the polls intending to vote for McCollum, but accidentally chose a similar looking name by mistake.

Whatever the explanation, we should always remember that polling in primary elections is more prone to mishaps than polling in general elections. Learning that first lesson, however, is the easy part. Anticipating which polls will be right, and even explaining why they differ after the fact, is much harder.

Marc Ambinder wonders if a Republican House could be an advantage for Obama.

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