Is Romney's "lead" underestimated?

[Roland99]

Flawed Poll Models Underestimating Romney’s Lead
http://www.wallstreetexaminer.com/blogs/winter/?p=5565

As far as modeling in these polls, the example of Marist and Mason-Dixon in Florida is illustrative of skewing. Marist tends to report big Obama leads, and M-D has reported decent Romney results.

From the Tampa Bay Herald: “Mason-Dixon, which has been polling in Florida for 28 years, uses a survey sample based on people’s voter actual registration to match the electorate in Florida, while Marist uses a sample based on whether people say they consider themselves a Republican, Democrat or independent. About 20 percent of the likely voters in the Marist poll were Hispanic, while 13 percent were Hispanic in the Mason-Dixon poll, more in line with the Florida voting patterns.”

Nationally, Pew Research illustrates Obama’s problem, as does a new Washington Post poll. The first Pew chart shows Romney’s strong supporters exploding in October, once he showed up at the debates appearing to be a moderate. Right now, each candidate has about the same level of strong supporters..

However, the badly flawed state polls don’t show that 5 percent fewer strong Obama supporters are more likely to vote than among Romney’s base.

discuss...

(images, graphs, and more at the link)

[Lex]

1. Since Romney doesn't have a lead . . .

[WI_DEM]

2. What's your opinion?

[Roland99]

3. I think they're assuming the GOP will GOTV moreso then the Dems

I don't agree.

[demwing]

4. "badly flawed state polls don’t show..."

"...that 5 percent fewer strong Obama supporters are more likely to vote than among Romney’s base."

That is one wickedly inside out sentence...

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. When you're explaining the polls, you're losing

Axiomatic.

[Thrill]

6. Don't they already underestimate Obama voters when they severely cut his leads with LV models?

I notice President Obama has huge leads in all the polls when they show RVs?

[yellowcanine]

7. We will know soon enough. Debating these points is pointless. We know Obama has a good ground game

in the states he needs to carry. That is what matters. Not a few points here and there in some polls.

[rzemanfl]

8. I have lived in the Tampa Bay area for 16 years.

I have never heard of the Tampa Bay Herald. Googling the name takes me to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. He's Right And Social Scientists Who Predict An O Win Based On Peer Reviewed Methods Are Wrong

I think I'll go with the latter:

http://votamatic.org/into-the-home-stretch/#comments

http://electionanalytics.cs.illinois.edu/election12/index.html

http://electoral-vote.com/

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

http://election.princeton.edu/

http://research.uvu.edu/DeSart/forecasting/

And as Professor Wang (Princeton) says any findings in a poll are already factored into the results, i.e. if Obama supporters are less enthusiastic that is already baked into the polls. That's why you see some larg RV-LV discrepancies.

[TexasCPA]

10. We will find out Tuesday night who is right

Romney is showing acts of desperation though. Trying to expand the map one week before the election shows that he knows he is losing OH, WI, and NV.

[defacto7]

11. I hope we do find out on Tuesday (Wednesday)...

but don't hold your breath.

[progressivebydesign]

12. WallStreet Examiner? What is that? Never heard of them.

is it a right wing rag like Washington Examiner?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. Another Poll Truther -PFFFFT

When Romney appeared to be doing well they were no where to be found.

[OldDem2012]

14. Yes, but you run the risk of being called a conspiracy nut by those....

....who don't believe the President's numbers are too low.

[fujiyama]

15. He may have some good points

about potential over-sampling of Democrats or using turn out figures and self identification numbers at the '08 level. It's clear that this time not nearly as many identify as Dems, and that many are now republican leaning independents.

But his analysis is sort of shallow. He basically overlays national independent identification figures for various states. It's obvious that more independents from say TN are going to be republican leaning, but that same % won't necessarily hold true for CO.

His map at the bottom is an even bigger joke, giving WI, IA and NV to Romney. Once again, this guy is assuming Obama has lost the same % of white voters all over the nation.

[regnaD kciN]

16. Another poll-unskewer...

[floppyfeet]

17. No

But what is underestimated is Obama's GOTV