Rasmussen, 8/16: Obama 43%, McCain 41% (with leaners, Obama 46%, McCain 45%)

[highplainsdem]

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

Saturday, August 16, 2008

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows Barack Obama attracting 43% of the vote while John McCain earns 41%. When "leaners" are included, it’s Obama 46% and McCain 45% (see recent daily results).

-snip-

Obama is now viewed favorably by 55% of the nation’s voters, McCain by 54% (see trends).

-snip-

The Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator currently shows now Obama leading in states with 210 Electoral College votes while McCain leads in states with 165 votes. When leaners are included, it’s Obama 273, McCain 227.

-snip-

[DFW]

1. This is actually bad news

With Republican electoral fraud machinery in place, anything this close is ripe
for another "stunning Republican upset victory." The margin needs to be bigger.

[Lasher]

2. The margin actually is bigger, but not by much.

Rasmussen almost always gives McCain a better result than other polls. The RCP average right now is Obama + 3.0%.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/polls/

But you're right, this isn't nearly good enough. Obama should easily win the debates. Then again the pundits will try to rob him of that during the post-debate 'analyses'.

[JoshDem]

10. Gallup Tracking Poll Today May Show McCain Ahead

[highplainsdem]

3. The convention and debates should help.

And I'm still hoping Clinton will be on the ticket, because then we should see most of her supporters who are now telling pollsters they'll vote for McCain returning to the Democratic Party. (The roll call vote should help a little, but since it is just symbolic, it can't possibly have the same impact as putting her on the ticket.)

We'll see...

I'm going to vote for Obama no matter who his running mate is -- well, as long as it's a Democrat -- just to keep McCain out of the White House.

But I won't have much hope that we'll win. I'll feel that a near-certain victory was thrown away. And although I'm planning to watch the convention anyway, it will be painful, if Obama makes a mistake that I'll consider so disastrous it dwarfs his FISA vote, which was bad enough.

And it's going to be interesting seeing what happens to the polls after the VP pick is announced, since I suspect some Dems who supported Hillary, and who are currently telling pollsters they'll vote for Obama, are still expecting him to put her on the ticket -- she's the obvious choice to unite the party -- and if he doesn't... The relatively few noisy PUMAs don't worry me 1/10 as much as the much greater number of Dems who are likely to just stay home on election day -- meaning down-ticket Democrats won't get their vote, either.

There is no VP choice other than Clinton who will appeal to the Dems who feel she should be on the ticket. Just as she could not have chosen anyone other than Obama, if she'd had a very narrow primary win.

[lojasmo]

4. Oh for fuck's sake.

It's a national poll. It's damn near meaningless.

And HPD. Your post is preposterous. If Clinton is on the ticket we lose plain and simple. From a purely anecdotal standpoint: I know at least ten moderate theological-based republicans who are voting for Obama who would NEVER vote for him if Clinton is on the ticket. The party is united. We don't need Clinton on the ticket....it can only hurt us.

Edit: I don't know any Clinton supporters (in real life) who would only vote for Obama if she's the VP nominee.

[DangerDave921]

5. State by State, people

That is the only way to analyze an election. National polls might give you a sense of the mood of the country, but they don't in any way tell you who's going to win. Look at state polling data if you really want to play Kreskin.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

7. Just because people keep saying this doesn't make it true

The "only state polling matters" mantra *sounds* right, but is actually wrong. National polling is a better predictor of the winner of a presidential contest.

That's not a theory. It's an historical observation that cannot be countered with what seems like it *should* be the case. If a polling firm polled 50 states on the same day with the same method and had samples in every state that matched the margin of error of a typical national poll you MIGHT have something preferable to national polling on the off chance the popular vote and EC don't match... and no living person has seen a contest when they didn't. (Gore won FL so there was no mismatch in 2000)

But since no polling firm has ever done that it's moot. The ACTUAL state polls suck. They differ in methodology, date, model of the electorate, partisan normalization and sample size. Adding them all together doesn't make the aggregate much more reliable because they are a mix of apples and oranges and always include some wildly wrong individual polls. Garbage In-Garbage Out.

Rather than going through all of this for the umpteenth time I'll offer the condensed "rainy-day activity" version:

1) Go to elctoralvote.com.
2) Look up November 1, 2004.
3) Compare to national polling on Nov. 1, 2004.

[DangerDave921]

8. Then why

do the campaigns run such intense internal polling in each state, including breaking it down by county and precinct? When you listen to the real pros, they talk about individual precincts as making big differences. Why would they do this, if it's all about national polling?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

9. Because campaigns are not interested in predicting the outcome. They are allocating resources.

My post is about predicting the outcome using publicly available polling. If you were a gambler betting on the winner and could only look at one or the other you'd be better off with national.

If you were running a campaign you would be interested in targeting localities, deciding where to campaign, etc..

The campaign wants to win big if it wins, lose close if it loses. The ultimate winner is almost irrelevant to how to conduct the campaign. (If Obama knew he would win it wouldn't mean he would stop campaigning and advertising.)

If the campaigns released all their state polling data it might give us a better view, but we don't have that data.

I agree that perfect state information would be better than prefect national vote information. The problem is in practice. It's not that state polling couldn't possibly be better in theory. It's that making it better would require more money than anyone wants to spend.

[Lasher]

14. OK let's look at it state by state.

Electoral votes:

Obama 275
McLame 250
Ties 13

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

Like I said upthread, way too close. Considering the last 7 years and 7 months, McSame's numbers should be under the whale shit on the bottom of the ocean. I have confidence in Obama and his team and I think we'll win. But it's not going to be the cakewalk I hoped it would be.

[DangerDave921]

17. Excellent explanation

Predictive power versus allocation of resources. Thanks!

[jerryster]

12. I agree with you

And to that end it speaks to a concern. The national polls show McCain gaining ground. This started to happen before Obama went on vacation and now he needs to make up ground.

I know that campaigns pick up in earnest after the conventions. However, these national polls CANNOT be ignored.

[highplainsdem]

6. And I know lifelong Democrats who supported Clinton, don't think Obama is really qualified

to be president (mostly because of a lack of experience), and are now considering either staying home or voting for a third-party candidate.

The polls support what I've said about the party not being united, and the lack of unity being largely due to Obama not having the support of a significant fraction of the Democrats who'd supported Clinton.

As for moderates -- the polls show he's splitting the moderate/independent vote with McCain, or McCain is getting more of that vote. We're running against the Republican candidate who's been most popular with those moderates/independents. That wouldn't be such a problem if Obama was getting as much support from Democrats as McCain is getting from Republicans, but polls show he ISN'T.

I wouldn't be making this argument again and again if the polling evidence didn't back it up.

[DFW]

11. Be that as it may

At some point, the Obama has to get started on an issues-oriented campaign, and ignoring
Republican efforts to make this into an "experience" thing. President ot he USA is always,
to some degree, an on-the-job training unless you have been an hands-on VP for 8 years. Al
Gore was probably THE most qualified man to run for the presidency in nearly a century, and
he lost due to a fraud that happened because we all thought the opposition wouldn't stoop as
low as they did.

Experience or not, Obama has the smarts to learn how to do the job, and has the good sense
to get competent people to be on his team. McCain has far less upstairs, and has promised
to have Cheneybush-like people to help him. I.E. Bush Lite, chapter 3. The issues, such as
foreign policy and the economy, cry out, scream out, for a well-intentioned Democratic president
with a competent team to take over in January. If the Obama campaign can't figure that out,
and if Clinton supporters can't figure that out, then, well, like they say, a country gets
the leadership it deserves.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

13. "Lifelong" Democrats who no doubt held their noses

And voted for candidates who did not meet their standards in the past. Yet for some reason, because it's Obama, they are considering staying home or voting 3rd party. Gee, I wonder what that reason could be.

[Tarheel_Dem]

15. I am so sick of your doom & gloom and Hillary advocacy. She didn't

win the nomination, Obama did. As an Obama supporter, had the situation been reversed, I would think it preposterous for me to insist that Hillary would lose without Obama. Why do we have to hear all these most likely "false" anecdoates about the people you know who won't vote for Obama, unless Hillary's on the ticket. They should get over it, and when they win a national primary, I would hope they would be able to pick whomever the hell they want as a running mate.

And by the way, have you considered stopping by and giving Skinner a couple of bucks for all the bandwidth spent advocating for Hillary's running mate status? The continuous concern posts are becoming a bit stale.

[quantass]

16. Americans favorite, most loved pasttime: Repubs accepted and expected rigging of Vote Machines

and everyone is oky-doky with it...America the beautiful. :patriot:

When will the American people wake up and take back their country because repubs have lobbyed it away long ago and its people are no more than its expendable employees.

[DCBob]

18. What happened to Gallup today?

No update.