Nate Silver: An Above-Average ‘Likely Voter Gap’ for Romney

[WI_DEM]

CNN’s latest national poll, released on Friday, contained a mix of good, bad and indifferent news for each candidate. The good news for Barack Obama? Among registered voters, he led Mitt Romney by nine percentage points, with 52 percent of the vote to Mr. Romney’s 43 percent.

However, Mr. Obama led by just two percentage points, 49 to 47, when CNN applied its likely voter screen to the survey. This is the first time this year that CNN has reported likely voter results.

But in past presidential elections, the difference has been relatively small — favoring the Republican candidate by about 1.5 percentage points, on average. (The gap can vary more in midterm election years, when turnout is lower.) This year, however, most of the polls to report both sets of results have shown a larger gap than that.

A turnout gap is one of the bigger reasons for Democrats to be concerned about the election...

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/25/aug-25-an-above-average-likely-voter-gap-for-romney/

Why do Democrats traditionally have the laziest voters?

[GallopingGhost]

1. Thanks for the heads up, Silver

GOTV, GOTV, GOTV!!!

[flamingdem]

5. +1 +1 +1

[yardwork]

2. Democrats do not have "lazy" voters. We have voter suppression.

Many Democrats are unable to vote because they can't get to the polls, or when they get to the polls they're told that they are ineligible to vote.

For instance, many employers don't allow employees time off from work in order to vote. If you are on a time clock and have to show up for work before the polls open and can't leave until after the polls close, you don't get to vote. Efforts to expand opportunities to vote such as early voting are often suppressed by Republican secretaries of state and Republican precincts. Look at what is happening in Ohio.

And look at what is happening Florida, where thousands of Democrats are being thrown off the voter rolls.

And then the insult - Democratic voters are "lazy" - that just plays into the hands of Republicans. We're not lazy. We're disenfranchised.

[WI_DEM]

7. That yes, but also we do have lazy voters. We proved that in 2010

and when a voter tells a pollster now that they aren't as inclined to vote then I consider that lazy too--whichever party they belong to.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

10. A lot of progressives and Dems were upset at President Obama and demoralized in general

and the Republican Tea Party was energized and in full swing- aided by LOTS and LOTS of $$$$- in 2010.

[woolldog]

12. Correct.

Obama has mainly himself to blame for the enthusiasm gap.

[KurtNYC]

3. It is hard to match up poll numbers against registered dems and Reps

Some data shows independents will soon be the largest group of voters. The percentage of Republican continues to shrink, extending the decline from the Bush years.

>>Registered Democrats still dominate the political playing field with more than 42 million voters, compared to 30 million Republicans and 24 million independents.<<

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2011-12-22/voters-political-parties/52171688/1

[onehandle]

4. It's simply harder for poorer people to get to the polls.

If election day was a national holiday, the GOP would be history.

[WI_DEM]

8. I agree election day should be a holiday. Of course many poorer people still work

on holidays (retail, fast food, etc).

[ProSense]

6. Likely voters.

A lot of the polls have switched to the likely voter model, and while they've indicated that initially, they're still comparing the results to polls using their previous model.

PPP recently switched, and indicated that for another state poll.

Here is the August and July polls for Iowa:

Public Policy Polling surveyed 1,244 likely Iowa voters from August 23-26. The margin of error for the survey is +/-2.8%. This poll was not paid for or authorized by any campaign or political organization. PPP surveys are conducted through automated telephone interviews.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_IA_828.pdf

PPP surveyed 1,131 Iowa voters from July 12th to 15th. The margin of error for the survey is +/-2.91%. This poll was not paid for or authorized by any campaign or political organization. PPP surveys are conducted through automated telephone interviews.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_IA_071612.pdf

These pollsters really need to make it clear in the data what the previous results were based on and if there has been a shift.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

9. Is the "laziest voters" comment Nate's?

[polichick]

11. I think Dems are more likely to realize that the system is corrupt...

They may be more heartsick than they are lazy.

Unfortunately, they don't seem motivated to use their power to force the party to shed it's corporate-whore ways and represent the people and the planet.