Nate Silver - Oct. 7: National Polls Show Signs of Settling

[TroyD]

Mitt Romney remains in a considerably stronger polling position than he was before last Wednesday’s debate in Denver. But the polls released on Sunday did not tell quite as optimistic a story for him as those in the debate’s immediate aftermath.

The four national tracking polls as published on Sunday were largely unchanged from their Saturday releases. Mr. Romney maintained a 2-point lead in the Rasmussen Reports tracking poll, but President Obama’s lead held at 2 points in an online poll published by Ipsos and at 3 points in the Gallup tracking poll. In the RAND Corporation’s online tracking poll, which lists its results to the decimal place, Mr. Obama’s lead declined incrementally, to 3.9 percentage points from 4.4 on Saturday.

Only the Rasmussen Reports tracking poll consists of interviews that were conducted entirely after the debate, but the share of post-debate interviews is now large enough in the other polls that we can start to come to some inferences about the overall magnitude of Mr. Romney’s bounce.

My effort to do that is reflected in the chart below. I’ve compared the most recent reading in each poll to the average result that the poll showed in the period between the Democratic convention and the Denver debate. I’ve also listed the approximate share of interviews in each poll that post-dated the debate.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/oct-7-national-polls-show-signs-of-settling/

[budkin]

1. After the first debate the numbers usually hold

This according to Nate Silver a couple weeks ago, so chill the fuck out. He's got this.

[RedSpartan]

2. Keep calm and carry on...

[TroyD]

3. Now that Obama has a good Jobs Report

We need to get that news out as much as possible to get Obama back up in the polls and crush Romney's bump as soon as possible.

[Doctor_J]

4. the 12-D Chess adherents told us the debate would be a net win for the president

they're the same ones who tell us that he should never fight back, so as not to appear the "angry black man".

Hopefully before I go to my grave we'll get a real fighting Dem with some real Dem advisors to work for.

[Democat]

8. Fighting Democrats are coming up in the ranks

It's just a matter of time. Those who suffered through the Bush years with disgust will eventually become the leaders of the party.

[ThomThom]

11. maybe the debate this week?

our VP may come out swinging

[chillfactor]

5. until Thursday.....

when our Joe trounces lyin' ryan in their debate.....

[cheezmaka]

6. the US deficit has decreased as well...

which is even MORE good news...

[frazzled]

7. I needed that ...

I'm generally positive about this election, but I never underestimate the capriciousness and gullibility of my fellow American citizens. I wasn't worried right after the debate, but this weekend I started to get weak knees.

Look, the tiny sliver of people who are moveable in this election have a lot of power. And lots of them simply want to vote for the "winner": they heard Romney won (and we stupidly reinforced that notion), and they wanted to move to the winning side. For that reason, I think it's incumbent upon us to keep a positive, supportive, confident attitude throughout the next weeks, and no matter what narrative the media is supporting, we need to be focused on how "great" our president is doing and how his reelection is imminent. It matters.

(Doubts and worries can be expressed to oneself, and criticisms can wait until the Republicans are defeated.)

My measly two cents.

[davidpdx]

9. Lots of stuff happened Thursday and Friday

You had the debate, the jobs numbers, and Obama's fundraising numbers as well.

[magical thyme]

10. Jobs and Deficit numbers on Thursday and Friday trump debate

I would expect.