The Current American Electorate Is Hardly Stacked Against the Republican Party

An encouraging piece from left-wing polling guru Andrew Kohut, at the Wall Street Journal, "Misreading Election 2012":

Despite their weak candidate, Republicans increased their share of the presidential vote among many major demographic groups. Compared with 2008, they made significant gains among men (four percentage points), whites (four points), younger voters (six points), white Catholics (seven points) and Jews (nine points). Mr. Romney also carried the independent vote 50% to 45%. Four years ago, independents voted for Mr. Obama 52% to 44%.

Republicans can take some solace from these gains. In addition, only 43% of voters this year said they wanted an activist government (compared with 52% in 2008), and 49% continued to disapprove of Mr. Obama's health-care law (compared with 44% approving).

In short, the current American electorate is hardly stacked against the Republican Party. But Republicans should recognize that, on balance, Americans remain moderate—holding a mix of liberal and conservative views. They generally believe that small government is better and that ObamaCare is bad. But the exit poll shows that 59% believe abortion should be legal, 65% support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and a surprising plurality support legalizing same-sex marriage in their states.

Threading the ideological needle with this electorate is vital for the Republicans in the future—and for the Democrats, too.

There's still a lot of work to do, but I think digging down into the data will help Republicans (if not conservatives) grapple with their loss last week. That said, I think spirits are still pretty depressed on the right, so it's going to take a lot more than a few poll analyses for a lot of folks to snap out of it. Of course, this Petraeus scandal is dramatically weakening the credibility of Obama's reelection, so there's promise not only in congressional investigations, but in the invigoration of the grassroots against the historically corrupt administration. People gotta start taking this country back. It can be done and it will be done.

To Hell With Nate Silver!

That's Robert Stacy McCain, actually: "OHIO: IT’S MITT’S TO WIN":

Eight days into this Ohio road trip, I’m sick of all these experts who issue their pronouncements from the comfort of their living rooms without ever having set foot in a swing state, pundits whose idea of a “road trip” is blogging from their neighborhood Starbucks.

To hell with Nate Silver, and to hell with all the rest of them, these stationary buddhas of political prognostication, journalistic intellectuals who consider mere reporting to be beneath their dignity. You won’t find any graduates of the Kennedy School of Government sleeping on the floors of motel rooms and eating crappy breakfast food from the nearest convenience store. But I digress .

Read it all at the link. Plus, "Wild-Ass Scenarios? Chill."

I'm not for the "wild-ass" prediction scenarios either, although it's grim reaper time for Nate Silver if Obama fails to meet the "wild-ass" 538 "math-based" projections. The wonder boy's got Obama pegged at an 87 percent chance of wining? Sheesh. Talk about progressive dreams. The left is going to be all shot to hell if Romney wins.

And don't miss Colby Cosh at Macleans, "Tarnished Silver: Colby Cosh assesses the new king of stats." (The bottom line: Silver's lucky.)

PREVIOUSLY:

* "Romney's Internal Polling Shows GOP Up in Ohio, Tied in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin."

* "Don't Be Surprised When Obama Loses."

* "Nate Silver Bets $2,000 on Obama's Reelection, Provokes Public Editor's Ire."

* "Nate Silver Fast on His Way to One-Term Celebrity."

* "Akron Beacon Poll Finds Ohio Dead Heat at 49-49 — Presidential Race Tighter Than Obama's A**hole in a Prison Shower."

* "Nate Silver: Voice of the New Castrati."

* "If Bias Doesn't Matter Why Would Bill Maher Host Nate Silver on 'Real Time'?"

* "Oh My! Romney Back Up to 51 Percent in Gallup's Daily Tracking — Nate Silver Hardest Hit!"

* "'Grand Swami' Nate Silver Boosts O's Chances to 71.0% in Electoral College!"

* "Obama Crashing in Ohio; or, For the Love of Mercy, Leave Nate Silver Alone!"

* "Nate Silver Calls It: Advantage Obama!"

* "Nate Silver's Flawed Model."

* "Boom! Romney Back Up 52-45 in Gallup's Daily Tracking of Likely Voters."

* "ABC News Touts Nate Silver's Prediction That Obama's Handicapped at 68 Percent Chance to Win!"

* "'It's becoming increasingly obvious that Silver can't be taken seriously...'"

* "Nate Silver Blows Gasket as Gallup Shows Romney Pulling Away in the Presidential Horse Race."

Check back tonight for the final 2012 Nate Silver polling update!

Ed Gillespie: 'Romney Will Win Decisively...'

Listen to Ed Gillespie. He's not some flack hack activist cheerleading from Mitt Romney. He's the former RNC chairman with key insights into the mechanics of the vote. I've listened to him periodically over the last year of the campaign and his comments are usually even-keeled. He just lays it out. And he's been on the ground campaigning with Romney, so it's coming from both personal experience and first-hand knowledge. A lot of top analysts are predicting a big win for the GOP ticket on Tuesday. Here's one more:

Don't Be Surprised When Obama Loses

Oh my goodness!

Dan McLaughlin just clobbers Nate Silver and his hopelessly idiotic enablers on the left, at RealClearPolitics. This is a fairly involved essay, with a beefy methodological section that opens the essay. (Pay attention to the section titled, "Where Polls Come From.")

And this passage is especially crucial:

Nate Silver's much-celebrated model is, like other poll averages, based simply on analyzing the toplines of public polls. This, more than any other factor, is where he and I part company.

If you read only the toplines of polls - the single number that says something like "Romney 48, Obama 47" - you would get the impression from a great many polls that this is a very tight race nationally, in which Obama has a steady lead in key swing states. In an ordinary year, the toplines of the polls eventually converge around the final result - but this year, there seems to be some stubborn splits among the poll toplines that reflect the pollsters' struggles to come to agreement on who is going to vote.

Poll toplines are simply the sum of their internals: that is, different subgroups within the sample. The one poll-watchers track most closely is the partisan breakdowns: how each candidate is doing with Republican voters, Democratic voters and independent voters, two of whom (the Rs & Ds) have relatively predictable voting patterns. Bridging the gap from those internals to the topline is the percentage of each group included in the poll, which of course derives from the likely-voter modeling and other sampling issues described above. And therein lies the controversy.

My thesis, and that of a good many conservative skeptics of the 538 model, is that these internals are telling an entirely different story than some of the toplines: that Obama is getting clobbered with independent voters, traditionally the largest variable in any election and especially in a presidential election, where both sides will usually have sophisticated, well-funded turnout operations in the field. He's on track to lose independents by double digits nationally, and the last three candidates to do that were Dukakis, Mondale and Carter in 1980. And he's not balancing that with any particular crossover advantage (i.e., drawing more crossover Republican voters than Romney is drawing crossover Democratic voters). Similar trends are apparent throughout the state-by-state polls, not in every single poll but in enough of them to show a clear trend all over the battleground states.

If you averaged Obama's standing in all the internals, you'd capture a profile of a candidate that looks an awful lot like a whole lot of people who have gone down to defeat in the past, and nearly nobody who has won. Under such circumstances, Obama can only win if the electorate features a historically decisive turnout advantage for Democrats - an advantage that none of the historically predictive turnout metrics are seeing, with the sole exception of the poll samples used by some (but not all) pollsters. Thus, Obama's position in the toplines depends entirely on whether those pollsters are correctly sampling the partisan turnout.

That's where the importance of knowing and understanding electoral history comes in. Because if your model is relying entirely on toplines that don't make any sense when you look at the internals with a knowledge of the past history of what winning campaigns look like, you need to start playing Socrates.

RTWT at the link.

Plus, check out Sean Davis, at the Daily Caller, "Is Nate Silver's value at risk?" (via Memeorandum). Well, of course it's "at risk." I've been slamming Silver's "value" for weeks now. I just don't want anything bad to happen to him, but it may be too late. The dude's starting to lose it and the editors are giving him the backhand like a whiny bitch getting slapped. Hard. (Background here, "Nate Silver Bets Joe Scarborough $2,000 That Obama Wins.")

See also Mark Blumenthal, "Could Presidential Polls Be Wrong About Obama's Battleground Edge?" (Blumenthal gives significant odds that models like Silver's will fail miserably on election day, mostly on a theory of the fundamental freakishness and unpredictability of the human experience (see the part about the "black swan").

PREVIOUSLY:

* "Nate Silver Bets $2,000 on Obama's Reelection, Provokes Public Editor's Ire."

* "Nate Silver Fast on His Way to One-Term Celebrity."

* "Akron Beacon Poll Finds Ohio Dead Heat at 49-49 — Presidential Race Tighter Than Obama's A**hole in a Prison Shower."

* "Nate Silver: Voice of the New Castrati."

* "If Bias Doesn't Matter Why Would Bill Maher Host Nate Silver on 'Real Time'?"

* "Oh My! Romney Back Up to 51 Percent in Gallup's Daily Tracking — Nate Silver Hardest Hit!"

* "'Grand Swami' Nate Silver Boosts O's Chances to 71.0% in Electoral College!"

* "Obama Crashing in Ohio; or, For the Love of Mercy, Leave Nate Silver Alone!"

* "Nate Silver Calls It: Advantage Obama!"

* "Nate Silver's Flawed Model."

* "Boom! Romney Back Up 52-45 in Gallup's Daily Tracking of Likely Voters."

* "ABC News Touts Nate Silver's Prediction That Obama's Handicapped at 68 Percent Chance to Win!"

* "'It's becoming increasingly obvious that Silver can't be taken seriously...'"

* "Nate Silver Blows Gasket as Gallup Shows Romney Pulling Away in the Presidential Horse Race."

More later...

Romney's Killin' It With Independents in Latest Fox News Poll of Likely Voters!

See, "Three Numbers That Could Hold the Key to a Romney Win," especially the section on the independent vote:

Independents’ Day

Americans have grown largely frustrated with both parties and the trend toward political independence is really the biggest political story of the past two decades. Independent is not synonymous with moderate since voters disaffected with the partisan status quo range from very liberal to very conservative. The universe of independents is a parallel to the overall electorate, but more unpredictable in voting habits.

But with both parties dug in deeply, the independent vote is the most promising field of persuadable voters.

Self-identified Democrats usually outnumber self-identified Republicans. Republicans therefore rely on the aforementioned turnout advantage combined with support from independents to win elections. That’s certainly the case this year.

If the combination of organic enthusiasm and effective ground game for Republicans can offset the Democrats numerical advantage, then it would be support from independents that could put Romney over the top.

And in that measure, Romney is succeeding by a wide margin.

In the latest FOX News poll, Romney holds a 7-point lead among independent voters, with 16 percent on the fence or supporting a marginal candidate. Romney lost 2 points of his advantage with the group from the beginning of the month as the pool of undecided voters shrank from 25 percent.

But it seems highly unlikely that the incumbent will get half of those remaining. Of those who consider themselves unaffiliated and undecided, the challenger, especially one with majority favorability and an equally matched voter outreach, has a clear advantage over the incumbent.

And see, "Fox News poll: Race for the White House a dead heat."

Video c/o Gateway Pundit, "LANDSLIDE WATCH: Romney Holds Massive Lead Over Obama With Independent Voters …Update: Romney Up in CO, OH and IA."

Nate Silver Bets $2,000 on Obama's Reelection, Provokes Public Editor's Ire

You gotta love it. Basically, Nate Silver had a public meltdown.

From Margaret Sullivan, at the Times, "Under Attack, Nate Silver Picks the Wrong Defense."

My own Forecasting Model says there's a greater-than-zero chance that Nate Silver will be a laughingstock Nov. 7dailycaller.com/2012/11/01/is-…
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) November 2, 2012

Read the whole thing at the link. This part's especially good:

In a phone conversation, Mr. Silver described the wager offer as “half playful and half serious.”

“He’s been on a rant, calling me an idiot and a partisan, so I’m asking him to put some integrity behind it,” he said. “I don’t stand to gain anything from it; it’s for charity.”

He added that he is feeling the strain of being under attack and vulnerable to criticism as Election Day approaches.

“It’s a high-stress time,” he said.

I can understand and sympathize with that.

But whatever the motivation behind it, the wager offer is a bad idea – giving ammunition to the critics who want to paint Mr. Silver as a partisan who is trying to sway the outcome.

You think?

PREVIOUSLY:

* "Nate Silver Fast on His Way to One-Term Celebrity."

* "Akron Beacon Poll Finds Ohio Dead Heat at 49-49 — Presidential Race Tighter Than Obama's A**hole in a Prison Shower."

* "Nate Silver: Voice of the New Castrati."

* "If Bias Doesn't Matter Why Would Bill Maher Host Nate Silver on 'Real Time'?"

* "Oh My! Romney Back Up to 51 Percent in Gallup's Daily Tracking — Nate Silver Hardest Hit!"

* "'Grand Swami' Nate Silver Boosts O's Chances to 71.0% in Electoral College!"

* "Obama Crashing in Ohio; or, For the Love of Mercy, Leave Nate Silver Alone!"

* "Nate Silver Calls It: Advantage Obama!"

* "Nate Silver's Flawed Model."

* "Boom! Romney Back Up 52-45 in Gallup's Daily Tracking of Likely Voters."

* "ABC News Touts Nate Silver's Prediction That Obama's Handicapped at 68 Percent Chance to Win!"

* "'It's becoming increasingly obvious that Silver can't be taken seriously...'"

* "Nate Silver Blows Gasket as Gallup Shows Romney Pulling Away in the Presidential Horse Race."

More later...

The Numbers Favor Mitt Romney

From Karl Rove, at the Wall Street Journal, "Sifting the Numbers for a Winner":

It comes down to numbers. And in the final days of this presidential race, from polling data to early voting, they favor Mitt Romney.

He maintains a small but persistent polling edge. As of yesterday afternoon, there had been 31 national surveys in the previous seven days. Mr. Romney led in 19, President Obama in seven, and five were tied. Mr. Romney averaged 48.4%; Mr. Obama, 47.2%. The GOP challenger was at or above 50% in 10 polls, Mr. Obama in none.

The number that may matter the most is Mr. Obama's 47.2% share. As the incumbent, he's likely to find that number going into Election Day is a percentage point or so below what he gets.

For example, in 2004 President George W. Bush had 49% in the final Gallup likely-voter track; he received 50.7% on Election Day. In 1996, President Clinton was at 48% in the last Gallup; he got 49.2% at the polls. And in 1992, President George H.W. Bush was at 37% in the closing Gallup; he collected 37.5% in the balloting.

One potentially dispositive question is what mix of Republicans and Democrats will show up this election. On Friday last week, Gallup hinted at the partisan makeup of the 2012 electorate with a small chart buried at the end of its daily tracking report. Based on all its October polling, Gallup suggested that this year's turnout might be 36% Republican to 35% Democratic, compared with 39% Democratic and 29% Republican in 2008, and 39% Republican and 37% Democratic in 2004. If accurate, this would be real trouble for Mr. Obama, since Mr. Romney has consistently led among independents in most October surveys.

Gallup delivered some additional bad news to Mr. Obama on early voting. Through Sunday, 15% of those surveyed said they had already cast a ballot either in person or absentee. They broke for Mr. Romney, 52% to 46%. The 63% who said they planned to vote on Election Day similarly supported Mr. Romney, 51% to 45%.

Well, let's not get cocky.

A Brutal Polling Day? Not for Mitt Romney

I guess folks on the left don't really look at survey internals, which is odd, since all these drive-by commenters keep saying conservatives can't do math. Looks the other way around, frankly. A good example is this report at TPM, "After Brutal Polling Day, Romney Team Reassures That They’ll Win" (at Memeorandum).

And the evidence for these so-called "brutal" numbers for Romney? Well, an obvious outlier at National Journal that has Obama up 50-45 when no other national poll of any repute shows a spread in Obama's favor like that. Even the hopelessly Democrat-heavy New York Times/Quinnipiac poll today had a miniscule Obama edge at 48-47. And on Monday Pew Research had the race deadlocked at 47 percent, with a turnout edge for Romney.

TPM's also claiming Obama's up by five in Ohio, which is again relying on the Times/Quinnipiac survey for the Buckeye State. But as I noted this morning, NYT's Ohio numbers are badly off, way out of line with both 2008 exit polling data on Democrat and Republican turnout, as well as likely turnout numbers for the GOP this year with the enthusiasm gap taken into consideration. Bryan Preston has more on that, "That Q Poll Showing Obama Up by Five in Ohio Has a Flaw (Updated: PPP Too?)." (PPP is the far-left Kos pollster, which almost always favors Democrats and is thus widely discredited.) See Ed Morrissey on those NYT numbers as well, "Final CBS/NYT/Q-polls in OH, FL, VA show Obama up …":

In each of these three states, the CBS/NYT/Q-poll shows Republicans at a lower percentage level of turnout than in the 2008 election. If one makes that assumption, it’s not too difficult to be guess that Obama might be ahead. However, that’s exactly the opposite of what all other polls rating enthusiasm are telling us what the electorate will look like on Tuesday. In fact, it’s not even what this poll shows, with Republican enthusiasm +16 over Democrats in Florida, +14 in Ohio, and +7 in Virginia.

And to round things off, here's the poll from the University of Cincinnati's Institute for Policy Research on Ohio, which has Obama up 48-46 with a partisan breakdown of D-45, R-43 percent, and I-12 (and note that independents here, who are breaking for Romney in all other polls, are probably under-sampled, to say nothing of the over-sampled Democrats).

So, it's not Mitt Romney who's having a "brutal polling day." If anything, it's the truth that's having a "brutal honesty day." Polling methodology (i.e., math) is not hard. If progressives get it they're not letting on, which is even worse from an integrity standpoint.

Gallup Shows Romney Up 52-46 Among Early Voters

Actually, Gallup has Romney up all around, but early voting's a leading indicator.

At Astute Bloggers, "WOW: GALLUP: ROMNEY LEADS AMONG EARLY VOTERS!"

Nate Silver Fast on His Way to One-Term Celebrity

Robert Stacy McCain's in Ohio hoping to get in a decent bit of reporting, despite the political disruptions caused by Hurricane Sandy. See, "FROM OHIO: Schedule Scrambled; Obama, Romney Cancel Campaign Events," and "SCENES FROM ROMNEY-RYAN RALLY."

But we're in luck. Jonathan Tobin is pulling suicide watch at Commentary, "Infallible Election Prognosticators Tend to Have Brief Careers":

Back in May 2011, the leading liberal poll analyst of this election cycle returned to his roots in an op-ed published in the New York Times. Nate Silver, who had parlayed a brilliant record as an independent numbers cruncher in the 2008 presidential election into a gig as the paper’s political blogger in the age of Obama, first made his name as a writer as a baseball guy and one of the leading exponents of new and advanced ways of looking at baseball statistics. On May 9, 2011, Silver penned a piece for the Times explaining why New York Yankees captain Derek Jeter was finished as a baseball star. Given that that the Yankees shortstop had an uncharacteristically mediocre 2010 season and was off to a slow start in 2011, it was hard to argue with Silver’s conclusion.

Except the very same day that Silver was planting Jeter’s tombstone in the Times, the future Hall-of-Famer got four hits, including two home runs in a game. I noted this embarrassing development in a blog post here titled, “The Perils of Punditry: That’s Why They Play the Games.” For my pains, I was subjected to a chorus of abuse via e-mail and Twitter from Silver’s fans, most of which knew nothing about Sabermetrics. Indeed, another Times blogger noted my criticism (which was laced with respect for Silver’s work on both baseball and politics) and ironically noted, “the jury was out” on whether the results of “one game” could disprove the great Nate.

The jury was out in May, but within a few months, Silver’s fans would be dropping that prediction of his down the proverbial memory hole as Jeter put together a stellar second half of 2011 and followed it up with a brilliant 2012 in which he led the Major Leagues in base hits. That didn’t mean Silver didn’t know what he was talking about, but it was proof that a proper understanding of what has already happened didn’t necessarily give even the smartest of researchers the ability to predict the future. Fast forward to the last days of the 2012 presidential election campaign, and it looks like that day in May wasn’t the only time Silver’s crystal ball has clouded up.

Continue reading.

PREVIOUSLY:

* "Akron Beacon Poll Finds Ohio Dead Heat at 49-49 — Presidential Race Tighter Than Obama's A**hole in a Prison Shower."

* "Nate Silver: Voice of the New Castrati."

* "If Bias Doesn't Matter Why Would Bill Maher Host Nate Silver on 'Real Time'?"

* "Oh My! Romney Back Up to 51 Percent in Gallup's Daily Tracking — Nate Silver Hardest Hit!"

* "'Grand Swami' Nate Silver Boosts O's Chances to 71.0% in Electoral College!"

* "Obama Crashing in Ohio; or, For the Love of Mercy, Leave Nate Silver Alone!"

* "Nate Silver Calls It: Advantage Obama!"

* "Nate Silver's Flawed Model."

* "Boom! Romney Back Up 52-45 in Gallup's Daily Tracking of Likely Voters."

* "ABC News Touts Nate Silver's Prediction That Obama's Handicapped at 68 Percent Chance to Win!"

* "'It's becoming increasingly obvious that Silver can't be taken seriously...'"

* "Nate Silver Blows Gasket as Gallup Shows Romney Pulling Away in the Presidential Horse Race."

More later...

ADDED: There's more at Memeorandum, for example, from Elspeth Reeve "People Who Can't Do Math Are So Mad At Nate Silver." And Tim Stanley, at Telegraph UK, "Nate Silver is partisan and wrong. The voters will decide Romney v Obama, not The New York Times":

In the history of presidential elections, has there ever been such an effort by one side to poll their way to victory? While the Republicans have spoken this season about jobs and debt – willing themselves to a moral victory – the Democrats have talked constantly about how well their guy is polling in one or two states. The goal is to create a sense of inevitability, to convince the public to vote for Obama because he’s a winner and who wouldn’t want to vote for the winner? We’ve witnessed the evolution of polling from an objective gauge of the public mood to a propaganda tool: partisan and inaccurate.

Step forward Nate Silver of the New York Times. Nate has been an open supporter of the President and his newspaper just endorsed Obama (although it also went for Dukakis, so it ain’t that good at picking winners). But context doesn’t matter because maths is maths and maths can’t lie – and Nate says that, according to his model, Obama has a 74.6 per cent chance of winning. You might find that figure a little odd given that on the same page you’ll see that Obama is ahead by less than 3 per cent nationally and his advantage lies in one state, Ohio. It’s even odder when you consider how it conflicts with other polls that emerged this weekend giving a virtual tie in Wisconsin and Minnesota. It’s damn near-surreal when you discover that Gallup puts Romney ahead by four points among (and this distinction is critical) likely voters. Meanwhile, Obama’s job approval rating is heading downwards. Does Nate know something that the rest of the world doesn’t?

Actually, no. Nate Silver's an idiot, plain an simple, the mouthpiece for the "New Castrati."

Continue reading about the polling clown wonder boy.

STILL MORE: At Legal Insurrection, "If Nate Silver cannot be wrong, how can he be right?":

I find the whole focus on Silver and his presidential election “model” to be particularly annoying...

Well, Silver's obvious bias is annoying, but RTWT.

Pat Caddell on Jeanine Pirro Fox News Weekend

At Astute Bloggers, "COULTER AND CADDELL DEMOLISH OBAMA AND THE LEGACY MEDIA."

BONUS: "Media Blackout: Aside from FOX, Sunday News Hosts Fail to Raise Benghazi."

Monster Storm Targets East

At the Wall Street Journal, "Coastal Residents Evacuated, Flights Canceled as Hurricane Sandy Approaches":

Hurricane Sandy loomed Sunday over the northeastern U.S., triggering evacuation orders for hundreds of thousands of residents, the cancellation of nearly 8,000 airline flights and the mass closure of schools and public transit systems, as authorities warned of heavy rains, high winds and flooding when the storm reaches land late Monday or early Tuesday.

The Category 1 hurricane was forecast to drop 8 inches of rain on northeastern North Carolina and up to a foot in parts of the mid-Atlantic states over the next few days. Forecasters described a storm footprint expected to stretch from Washington, D.C., north to Philadelphia, New York City and Boston. The National Weather Service said two cold fronts, one west of Hurricane Sandy and another north, were drawing the warm-air hurricane toward the populous coast and expected to fortify Sandy's reach and intensity.

The unusual weather confluence will turn Sandy into a post-tropical cyclone, or nor'easter, unleashing record low-pressure readings and wind gusts to 70 miles an hour as far inland as western Pennsylvania and western New York, the National Weather Service said.

More at that top link.

And at CNN, "Sandy disrupts campaigns; impact on race too early to tell."

Also at Instapundit, "FOR SANDY UPDATES, follow Brendan Loy on Twitter." And Memeorandum.

Akron Beacon Poll Finds Ohio Dead Heat at 49-49 — Presidential Race Tighter Than Obama's A**hole in a Prison Shower

Well, Nate Silver's still whistling past the graveyard with his latest entry showing Obama with a 2.3 percent lead in the Ohio polling average, so the new numbers from the Buckeye State newspaper consortium will no doubt amp up the pressure on the New York Times wonder boy. To borrow from Bill Maher's vulger monologue the other night, the race is tighter than Barack Obama's a**hole in a prison shower.

See: "Presidential race tied in Ohio newspaper poll" (via Memeorandum). There's no way for Obama cultists to spin these numbers. Mitt Romney has the momentum, big time, with a little over a week to go until election day. Guy Benson provides a brief summary:

Dead heat, with independents split — but Romney ahead by six on the economy. And then there’s this: “Republicans as a group were more likely to say they were very enthusiastic about the election than Democrats were.” These results represent a five point swing to the GOP ticket since the last Ohio Newspaper Association survey, taken last month. Team Romney scrapped three rallies in Virginia tomorrow due to the impending severe weather, and that might be just as well: Mitt will join Paul Ryan on the trail in the Buckeye State instead.

If things don't change the New York Times wonder boy's poll predictions are going to take it in the rear, to say nothing of the nation's first gay president.

See also Ed Driscoll, "Michael Barone Predicts That Romney Will Win 2012 Presidential Race."

Nate Silver: Voice of the New Castrati

I'll be honest: I wasn't planning a series chronicling the foibles of wonder boy Nate Silver --- and I especially wasn't planning a suicide watch for left's "Grand Swami" of progressive prognostication --- but the geek keeps garnering media attention, so what the heck? Somebody's gotta do it. Thus, keeping with the theme, here's an essay from Robert Chambers, "The far left turns to Nate Silver for wisdom on the polls" (via Memeorandum):

Nate Silver is a man of very small stature, a thin and effeminate man with a soft-sounding voice that sounds almost exactly like the “Mr. New Castrati” voice used by Rush Limbaugh on his program. In fact, Silver could easily be the poster child for the New Castrati in both image and sound. Nate Silver, like most liberal and leftist celebrities and favorites, might be of average intelligence but is surely not the genius he's made out to be. His political analyses are average at best and his projections, at least this year, are extremely biased in favor of the Democrats.

Folks can read the whole thing, but that "New Castrati" part's a riot. Turns out this freaked the idiot sock-puppet Paul Campos --- the clueless f-ck outed last year, effortlessly outed, as "Scam Prof" --- at Lawyers, Guns and Money, "Right-wing psychosexual obsessions, Nate Silver edition." The comments are a self-parody bonanza, for example:

I have never seen people so insecure in their own masculinity as conservatives (which is what this kind of attack reveals). This column is a stupid person’s idea of what a smart response looks like. Have to say that even if he were right about Silver only being of average intelligence (the evidence strongly indicates well above that), it puts him light years ahead of most conservatives, who can only aspire to such intellectual heights.

Right.

Of course being so smart, progressives take it upon themselves to tell people how to run their lives. You NEED government. And if you say you don't NEED government, the left will make you an offer you can't refuse. You NEED government, or else!

F-king assholes.

PREVIOUSLY:

* "If Bias Doesn't Matter Why Would Bill Maher Host Nate Silver on 'Real Time'?"

* "Oh My! Romney Back Up to 51 Percent in Gallup's Daily Tracking — Nate Silver Hardest Hit!"

* "'Grand Swami' Nate Silver Boosts O's Chances to 71.0% in Electoral College!"

* "Obama Crashing in Ohio; or, For the Love of Mercy, Leave Nate Silver Alone!"

* "Nate Silver Calls It: Advantage Obama!"

* "Nate Silver's Flawed Model."

* "Boom! Romney Back Up 52-45 in Gallup's Daily Tracking of Likely Voters."

* "ABC News Touts Nate Silver's Prediction That Obama's Handicapped at 68 Percent Chance to Win!"

* "'It's becoming increasingly obvious that Silver can't be taken seriously...'"

* "Nate Silver Blows Gasket as Gallup Shows Romney Pulling Away in the Presidential Horse Race."

More later...

If Bias Doesn't Matter Why Would Bill Maher Host Nate Silver on 'Real Time'?

The entire episode's at the clip. Barney Frank is the first featured guest, and the panel includes Chrystia Freeland, Eliot Spitzer and Michael Steele. The New York Times wonder boy is the mid-show guest. He joins the panel at 30:30. Silver tries to come off reasonable and scholarly, being sure to mention that Mitt Romney could still win (even though the 538 model now has Obama with almost a 3-1 chance of winning in the Electoral College), but mostly you're getting the same old "Real Time with Bill Maher" hateful, misogynistic attacks on conservatives, with a little polling data thrown by Silver for that all-important gloss of "mainstream" respectability.

If you don't lose your breakfast watching this, be sure check out Robert Stacy McCain's latest deconstruction of the left's "counterfactual cheerleading," "If Bias Doesn’t Matter …"

[VIDEO PULLED]

. . . why is Dan Hodges cheering Nate Silver for “singlehandedly dismantling the myth of Mitt-mentum”? That is to say, if the reporting of poll data doesn’t influence voters one way or the other — if there is no bandwagon psychology effect created by such media narratives – then what does it matter whether journalists believe one candidate or another is winning?

Good luck answering that, and good luck to all the liberals who believe that counterfactual cheerleading can prevent Obama’s defeat if, in fact, we’re already on the other side of a “preference cascade.”

When Gallup showed Romney widening his lead to 5 points — and at 51 percent, just 10 days before Election Day — Donald Douglas anticipated that Nate Silver’s head would explode. But the Grand Swami will find a way to rationalize this, and the Graveyard Whistling Choir will cheerfully parrot whatever rationalization Silver provides them.

Continue reading.

PREVIOUSLY:

* "Oh My! Romney Back Up to 51 Percent in Gallup's Daily Tracking — Nate Silver Hardest Hit!"

* "'Grand Swami' Nate Silver Boosts O's Chances to 71.0% in Electoral College!"

* "Obama Crashing in Ohio; or, For the Love of Mercy, Leave Nate Silver Alone!"

* "Nate Silver Calls It: Advantage Obama!"

* "Nate Silver's Flawed Model."

* "Boom! Romney Back Up 52-45 in Gallup's Daily Tracking of Likely Voters."

* "ABC News Touts Nate Silver's Prediction That Obama's Handicapped at 68 Percent Chance to Win!"

* "'It's becoming increasingly obvious that Silver can't be taken seriously...'"

* "Nate Silver Blows Gasket as Gallup Shows Romney Pulling Away in the Presidential Horse Race."

More later...

Inferences

From Jay Cost on Twitter.

What inferences would you draw from this picture? I draw three... twitter.com/JayCostTWS/sta…
— Jay Cost (@JayCostTWS) October 26, 2012

Romney Surging With Independent Voters

At Gateway Pundit, "Mitt Romney’s Surge With Independent Voters Is ‘Sharpest Tilt’ Since Reagan’s 1984 Landslide (Video)."

 And from Matt Towery, at LaGrange News, "“Dewey Defeats Truman,” Polls have fatal flaws that hidetrue Romney surge":

While this topic has been covered, it is now time to put real “meat on the bones” to explain why polling in this year’s presidential contest, not just nationally but in many of the battleground states, may be off when compared to the actual results.

Looking at a vast array of polls coming out just two weeks before the presidential election, critically important states such as Florida and Ohio appear to be close and anyone’s guess as to the final result. And while some national surveys, such as Gallup, have shown Republican nominee Mitt Romney running ahead of President Obama by several points, most have the race very tight, and a few have Obama leading. Let’s examine one poll, released as a series of continuing surveys by a large television network joining with a respected national newspaper.

This particular poll, conducted Oct. 17-20, has no intended bias, since it is conducted jointly by both a Republican- and a Democrat-oriented polling firm. But read on, and you will quickly realize how the old style of polling and the way many polls “weight” raw results may be setting us up for one of the biggest polling disasters since the infamous polling blunders that led to the “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline blunder of 1948.

Consider the following, using the above-referenced survey as just an example of how many “big league” polls are conducted. Let’s look first at the questions asked of those who bother to answer the poll.

First, the poll has between 30 and 40 questions in it, depending on which questions a respondent is asked. Considering the fact that most questions take at least 30 seconds to read and some questions ask up to seven sub-questions, at bare minimum it takes 20 minutes to answer and more likely (just a guess) 30 minutes or more for some folks. So what hardworking, productive member of a family, taking care of a business, house or family, has time to spare for such an opus? Likely not the type that fits the profile of a Romney voter.

And it’s hard to imagine a modern and sane cellphone user staying on the line so long — but this poll includes 300 of them. Yeah, that fits my concept of cell users … not.

But let’s continue. This particular survey asks plenty of questions, such as whether the person answering the poll approves or disapproves of President Obama’s job performance and how they feel about both Obama and Romney.

The person responding to the poll has not only been trapped into opining on President Obama’s job approval, but their general “feelings” about the candidates. Now the “jury” is locked in by seemingly leading questions that they likely feel they must reflect when they are finally, several questions later, asked how they would vote for president.

So by the time the one question that will be at the top of ballots nationwide is reached, so many other positions and feelings have been expressed in taking the poll that many taking it might not utter the gut response that ultimately becomes a resolute vote.

Interestingly, in this particular survey, people seem to have much higher “positive or somewhat positive” feelings for the Democratic Party than the Republican Party. But later when they are asked which political party they would like to see control Congress, the split is nearly even.

Toward the end of the survey, we see that the percentage of individuals who identify themselves as “Strong Democrat” or “Strong Republican” is relatively low. More say they lean one direction or another or are independent and either lean toward one of the two parties or are just plain independent.

Many surveys being conducted not just nationally but in battleground states are weighted with a larger percentage of Democrat identified responses than Republican. And many, if not most, underrepresent the percent of voters who say they are independent.

That's pretty much it.

And if GOP enthusiasm lift's Romney's get-out-the-vote efforts over the Democrats, a lot of pro-'Bama poll watchers are in for a world of hurt. .

Oh My! Romney Back Up to 51 Percent in Gallup's Daily Tracking — Nate Silver Hardest Hit!

And that's among likely voters.

Gallup had the race tightening, with Romney holding a three-point edge yesterday, 50-47, but he's opening it back up. I think Nate Silver's head's about to explode.

See: "Election 2012 Likely Voters Trial Heat: Obama vs. Romney - Among likely voters."

And check NewsBusters, "Hi, Ho, Nate Silver: NYT's Star Poll Analyst Bolsters Fading Democratic Spirits Once Again."

BONUS: At Rasmussen, "Election 2012: Wisconsin President - Wisconsin: Obama 49%, Romney 49%," and "Wisconsin May Be the New Ohio."

PREVIOUSLY:

* "'Grand Swami' Nate Silver Boosts O's Chances to 71.0% in Electoral College!"

* "Obama Crashing in Ohio; or, For the Love of Mercy, Leave Nate Silver Alone!"

* "Nate Silver Calls It: Advantage Obama!"

* "Nate Silver's Flawed Model."

* "Boom! Romney Back Up 52-45 in Gallup's Daily Tracking of Likely Voters."

* "ABC News Touts Nate Silver's Prediction That Obama's Handicapped at 68 Percent Chance to Win!"

* "'It's becoming increasingly obvious that Silver can't be taken seriously...'"

* "Nate Silver Blows Gasket as Gallup Shows Romney Pulling Away in the Presidential Horse Race."

More later...

Romney Hits 50 Percent in New ABC News/Washington Post Poll

From Alana Goodman at Commentary, "Romney Hits 50% in WaPo/ABC Poll":

Today’s WaPo/ABC national tracking poll shows Mitt Romney leading President Obama, 50 percent to 47 percent (a “statistically insignificant” margin as WaPo makes sure to note at the top of its story). Still, it’s the first time Romney hit the 50-percent mark in this poll, and a sign Romney’s momentum isn’t fading:

As Romney hits 50, the president stands at 47 percent, his lowest tally in Post-ABC polling since before the national party conventions. A three-point edge gives Romney his first apparent advantage in the national popular vote, but it is not one that is statistically significant with a conventional level of 95 percent confidence.

However, Romney does now boast a statistically — and substantively — important lead on the economy, which has long been the central issue of the race. When it comes to handling the nation’s struggling economy, 52 percent of likely voters say they trust Romney more, while 43 percent say they have more faith in the president.

More remarkable than Romney’s advantage on economy is his advantage with independents. It’s not even close:

These advantages with independents undergird a sizable, 19 percentage-point Romney lead over Obama on the horse race. Should that advantage stick, it would be the sharpest tilt among independents in a presidential election since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide win. (Reagan won independent and other unaffiliated voters 63 to 36 percent, according to the exit poll). Obama won them by eight in 2008.

The poll’s party ID breakdown isn’t terrible: D/R/I is 34/30/32. In 2008, the numbers were 40/33/28. Considering the enthusiasm shift since then, you’d expect Republicans and Democrats to be more evenly split this time around, but plus-4 for Dems isn’t nearly as bad as some of the previous WaPo/ABC polls have been.

More at the link.

Two really important things to watch on election day: Democrat turnout number relative to election year polls (which will demonstrate the widespread pro-Dem sampling bias we've seen all year) and the turnout numbers among core Democrat and Republican supporters. If the enthusiasm gap favors the GOP, it's going to be hard for Obama to win.

At the clip is an awesome Greta Van Susteren interview with Donald Rumsfeld. It's worth your time.

Thanks for reading...

'Grand Swami' Nate Silver Boosts O's Chances to 71.0% in Electoral College!

Or he re-boosts O's chances. It's déjà vu with the wonder boy of the New York Times.

At The Other McCain, "Polls Continue to Show Trend Toward Romney — Nate Silver Notwithstanding":

Excuse me for my continued attention to Nate’s graveyard-whistling, but no matter how clear the evidence of a pro-Romney trend, the Grand Swami at the New York Times won’t stop. He’s now raised the likelihood of Obama’s re-election to 71.0%. (The one-tenth of a percentage point being necessary to the pretense of scientific exactitude.)

Is Nate Silver hustling an insider-trading scam with InTrade? Or is he merely acting as an Obama pompom girl? Either way, the poll-watcher at the nation’s most influential newspaper cannot be unaware of how his coverage functions to shape elite opinion, which is in turn reflected in other media coverage that then influences mass opinion, and believing that Nate Silver is acting as an honest neutral broker in this transaction requires a faith in human goodness that I lack.

You can say that again. More at the link.

Plus, linked at The Other McCain, Ted Frank at Point of Law, "2012 election: why Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight.com might be wrong and Romney might be doing better than Silver thinks."

And Erin Burnett gives Silver the "Grand Swami" treatment at CNN, "'Romney no longer gaining ground in polls," says Nate Silver'."

PREVIOUSLY:

* "Obama Crashing in Ohio; or, For the Love of Mercy, Leave Nate Silver Alone!"

* "Nate Silver Calls It: Advantage Obama!"

* "Nate Silver's Flawed Model."

* "Boom! Romney Back Up 52-45 in Gallup's Daily Tracking of Likely Voters."

* "ABC News Touts Nate Silver's Prediction That Obama's Handicapped at 68 Percent Chance to Win!"

* "'It's becoming increasingly obvious that Silver can't be taken seriously...'"

* "Nate Silver Blows Gasket as Gallup Shows Romney Pulling Away in the Presidential Horse Race."

More later...