Republicans dancing in the end zone; game not over

[ProSense]

As Democrats' message lags, GOP awaits huge wins

WASHINGTON – Two weeks before Election Day, Democrats fear their grip on the House may be gone, and Republicans are poised to celebrate big gains in the Senate and governors' mansions as well.

Analysts in both parties say all major indicators tilt toward the Republicans. President Barack Obama's policies are widely unpopular. Congress, run by the Democrats, rates even lower. Fear and anger over unemployment and deep deficits are energizing conservative voters; liberals are demoralized.

Private groups are pouring huge sums of money into GOP campaigns. An almost dizzying series of Democratic messages has failed to gain traction, forcing Obama to zigzag in search of a winning formula.

With early voting under way in many states, Democrats are trying to minimize the damage by concentrating their resources on a dwindling number of races.

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Game not over.

Why Gallup's LV screen is the way it is

by DemFromCT

Give credit to Gallup for showing us this, in light of their hugely favorable-to-GOP LV generic ballot for Congress:



After all if there are that many conservatives, no wonder the Democrats are losing.

But are there? Note Kristen Soltis writing at pollster.com last week:

Most major polls over the last few months have painted a picture of an American voting public that is predominantly conservative. Before we dig into the polls that have come out recently, let's look at historical data to get some context for what one might expect the ideological makeup of the American electorate to look like.

In fact she makes this point (she's a Republican):

But what it does say to me, as a Republican, is that we ought to stop dancing in the end zone before we've scored a touchdown. It tells me that two-and-a-half decades of data show things aren't as wobbly as they seem, that the electorate doesn't change its ideological makeup radically, and that polls with more conservatives than moderates just might be painting a rosier picture than we all might find ourselves looking at on election day.

Just as pollsters ought to get in the habit of releasing the partisan makeup of their samples, including their subsamples of registered and likely voters, they also ought to release the ideological breakdown. As a consumers of political data, we have a right to make informed decisions about whether or not a poll is sampling conservatives more heavily than we think it should.

When election day rolls around, and I update that ideology chart above, I may well find that red line for "conservatives" intersects and crosses over the green line for "moderates." But I'm not confident that's going to happen. I think everyone ought to seriously consider the ideological makeup of survey samples when weighing how much stock to put in the results they produce.

Here's the ideology she's talking about, based on exit polls:



So, thank you Gallup for that post. But don't forget, this year, you might have gotten it wrong.

NPR Poll Offers Sliver Of Hope For Democrats

by Mara Liasson
With only 18 days left until Election Day, an NPR survey of likely voters in battleground districts found that while the overall field still tilts to the GOP, Democrats are closing the gap in some places.

The good news for Democrats is that they have improved their position in 58 of the battleground districts. In June, Democratic candidates trailed their Republican opponents in these districts by 8 points. Now, the GOP advantage is only 3 points.

A Small Shift In 'Battleground' Districts
If the election for Congress were being held today, for whom would you vote? (Question asked of voters in 58 Democratic-held districts surveyed in both June and October.)



<...>

Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg sees a small, but silver lining.

"This is still an election that it would be very hard for Democrats to hold the House with these numbers," Greenberg said. "But there is movement here and it's not trivial movement.

<...>

Greenberg also points to the 10 battleground seats in the NPR survey that are currently held by Republicans. In June, the Republican advantage in those seats was 16 points; now it's 7.

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Cell Phones and Election Polls: An Update

The latest estimates of telephone coverage by the National Center for Health Statistics found that a quarter of U.S. households have only a cell phone and cannot be reached by a landline telephone. Cell-only adults are demographically and politically different from those who live in landline households; as a result, election polls that rely only on landline samples may be biased. Although some survey organizations now include cell phones in their samples, many -- including virtually all of the automated polls -- do not include interviews with people on their cell phones. (For more on the impact of the growing cell-only population on survey research, see "Assessing the Cell Phone Challenge," May 20, 2010).

It is possible to estimate the size of this potential bias. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducts surveys with samples of landline and cell phones, which allow for comparisons of findings from combined landline and cell interviews with those only from landline interviews. Data from Pew Research Center polling this year suggest that the bias is as large, and potentially even larger, than it was in 2008 (See "Calling Cell Phones in '08 Pre-Election Polls," Dec. 18, 2008).

In three of four election polls conducted since the spring of this year, estimates from the landline samples alone produced slightly more support for Republican candidates and less support for Democratic candidates, resulting in differences of four to six points in the margin. One poll showed no difference between the landline and combined samples.

In the Pew Research Center's latest poll, conducted Aug. 25 to Sept. 6 among 2,816 registered voters, including 786 reached by cell phone, 44% said that if the election were held today that they would vote for the Republican candidate for Congress in their district or leaned Republican, while 47% would vote for the Democratic candidate or leaned Democratic. Among the landline respondents, 46% preferred the GOP candidate and 45% the Democratic candidate, a four-point shift in the margin. In this survey, both estimates would have shown a close race between Republicans and Democrats.

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[rbilancia]

1. Yeah right, the Associated-GOP-Press = Almost as bad a FOX news. Piss on them !

Go vote. Go phonebank. Go canvass. Donate what you can. Just do that, and we'll be alright. These corporate RePUKE shills are and HAVE BEEN trying to force our voters to stay home by saying it is all over in favor of the GOP. DON'T GIVE THEM THE SATISFACTION. GO AND GET PEOPLE TO VOTE. WORK WORK WORK FOR YOU LOCAL DEM OFFICE. MANY of the House races are damn CLOSE and could go either way. The corporate shill media is trying to suppress our vote.

[Jade Fox]

2. "the electorate doesn't change its ideological makeup radically"

That's what I keep coming back to. Have voter sympathies changed so much since 2008 ago that large numbers of Americans now have completely different values?

I don't see how the same nation responsible for the 2008 election can now be so enamored with the Republicans.

[rbilancia]

3. Again, it is all based on LOW Dem turnout which is what they are trying to CREATE. So GOTV and we'll

be ok. PLEASE HELP.

[and-justice-for-all]

4. M$M hyperbole, total BS..nt

[Dawson Leery]

5. k/r

[Tarheel_Dem]

6. Thanks for compiling this very useful and uplifting information. Rec.

:kick:

[pruple]

7. K&R

good post, thank you

[realistiko]

8. We will see if our happiness over the cell phone vs. landline story was overhyped

Or justified, the day after the Nov. elections.