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News & ArtsWednesday, October 17, 2012
2012 New PPP Poll Has Obama Up By Only Five Percent in Washington
Posted by Paul Constant on Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 5:20 PM
Let's remember that this is pre-debate, but it's still worrisome: Public Policy Polling's new Washington state poll (PDF) has Jay Inslee over Rob McKenna, 48% to 42%, and President Obama over Mitt Romney, 50% to 45%.
That presidential poll is closer than any other presidential poll we've seen in Washington this year. Past polls have had Obama up by double digits. Hell, Rasmussen's poll out today shows Obama over Romney by 13% in Washington state. So it's not time to panic yet, but it's certainly a reminder that even here at home, we have to be vigilant about getting out the vote, donating money and time, and doing everything we can to get our candidates elected.
2
I'm not sure that a survey confirming that Seattle is surrounded by a bunch of dumbfuck hicks is actually worrisome.
3
There goes my "protest the 2 party system" vote for Dr. Stein. I told myself if a reputable poll came out within single digits in Washington before I sent in my ballot, that I would do the responsible thing and hold my Guanatano-tainted nose and fill in the Obamabubble. And so it goes...
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@3, so you were willing to do the not-responsible thing before? This is not a world where protest votes are safe, no matter what the polls say.
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66% of the people who "don't remember" who they voted for in 2008 are voting for Mitt Romney. Sounds about right.
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The one to "panic" over is Marquette University's poll showing a statistical tie in Wisconsin. Marquette leans way Democratic.
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If there is one thing that annoys me, it's my fellow liberals talking about panicking. It's almost as annoying as when any adult talks about anything as being "scary". No one over five should find anything "scary" - especially anything political.
Stop being such Pomeranians. It's just a stupid poll.
Stop being such Pomeranians. It's just a stupid poll.
13
Take enough polls and outliers will eventually happen. Not worth considering until it happens more than once.
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University of Colorado model professors double down on their forecast:
Forecasting the 2012 Presidential Election with State-Level Economic Indicators
Michael J. Berrya1 and Kenneth N. Bickersa2
a1 University of Colorado, Denver
a2 University of Colorado, Boulder
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/dis…
More...
Forecasting the 2012 Presidential Election with State-Level Economic Indicators
Michael J. Berrya1 and Kenneth N. Bickersa2
a1 University of Colorado, Denver
a2 University of Colorado, Boulder
Never in US history have White House residents been determined through a national popular vote. Presidential elections are decided through contests in the states and the District of Columbia. The forecast model we developed explicitly models the presidential contest based on factors inherent to these 51 jurisdictions. This modeling approach allows us to make a projection of the Electoral College result, which popular vote estimates cannot.
...
As figure 1 shows, the states we predict President Obama will carry include a substantially reduced set than those he carried in 2008.5 This is supported by the fact that no states won by McCain are predicted to flip to Obama. What is striking about our state-level economic indicator forecast is the expectation that Obama will lose almost all of the states currently considered as swing states, including North Carolina, Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. Three other states that might be viewed as swing states—Michigan, New Mexico, and Nevada—are predicted to stay in Obama's column. Our forecast is that the president will receive 213 Electoral College votes, putting him well short of the 270 needed to win reelection.
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/dis…
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Yeah and I remember thinking
'Meh, so what if George W. Bush gets elected, sure he's a fuck up born into the right family but his dad was actually pretty sensible, called "Trickle Down Economics" what it was/is, "Voodoo Economics", had enough sense not to drag us into a protracted war in the middle-east, raised taxes when needed, at least little George W. would have adult supervision.'
I still voted for Gore, but my bad thinking that.
With Romney we don't even get the chance at adult supervision. This Oedipal complex will take us completely over the cliff.
'Meh, so what if George W. Bush gets elected, sure he's a fuck up born into the right family but his dad was actually pretty sensible, called "Trickle Down Economics" what it was/is, "Voodoo Economics", had enough sense not to drag us into a protracted war in the middle-east, raised taxes when needed, at least little George W. would have adult supervision.'
I still voted for Gore, but my bad thinking that.
With Romney we don't even get the chance at adult supervision. This Oedipal complex will take us completely over the cliff.
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@5 - I appreciate where you're coming from in your reply, I really do, and would say that the "responsible" thing to do is to use your vote for the most good. And for me that is:
#1 - Not allow us to go back to the policies of the past that got us into this mess in the first place (i.e. Not Romney)
#2 - Get rid of this corrupt two party system.
With only 2 parties, it's very easy for them to just hate each other to death, and unfortunately we all go down with them. The GOP did all they could to sabatoge Obama's first term. They did this because they believe that the Dems did all they could to sabatoge GWB. Supposedly the Dems did this as punishment for Clinton's impeachment. And on, and on, and on. I have no illusions that this scenario is going to stop now, regardless of which candidate is elected on Nov. 06.
Until compromise as a fundamental necessity returns to Washington, DC, we will continue to spiral into governmental Hell. And if there were more than the "Us vs. Them" mentality, then maybe we as a people, and the leaders that we elect would be able to come together vs a common enemy, if you will.
I hope that in my lifetime someone other than a Republican or Democrat will finally be elected President, but unless I use option #2 above (when it doesn't enable #1), I doubt I will see it. There hasn't been a respectable emergence of a third party in ages, and if we don't look for other alternatives to the D and R continuum we never will see it.
But with a race that could conceivably be tightening, I'll opt for #1 over #2.
#1 - Not allow us to go back to the policies of the past that got us into this mess in the first place (i.e. Not Romney)
#2 - Get rid of this corrupt two party system.
With only 2 parties, it's very easy for them to just hate each other to death, and unfortunately we all go down with them. The GOP did all they could to sabatoge Obama's first term. They did this because they believe that the Dems did all they could to sabatoge GWB. Supposedly the Dems did this as punishment for Clinton's impeachment. And on, and on, and on. I have no illusions that this scenario is going to stop now, regardless of which candidate is elected on Nov. 06.
Until compromise as a fundamental necessity returns to Washington, DC, we will continue to spiral into governmental Hell. And if there were more than the "Us vs. Them" mentality, then maybe we as a people, and the leaders that we elect would be able to come together vs a common enemy, if you will.
I hope that in my lifetime someone other than a Republican or Democrat will finally be elected President, but unless I use option #2 above (when it doesn't enable #1), I doubt I will see it. There hasn't been a respectable emergence of a third party in ages, and if we don't look for other alternatives to the D and R continuum we never will see it.
But with a race that could conceivably be tightening, I'll opt for #1 over #2.
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#14, in every election the people in the Wrong Washington come up with a new word that they pass around to each other, and to their victim/readers/viewers, and irritate the living shit out of all of us. Want to guess what that word is? Haven't figured it out? Well, how about not doubling down on double-down, okay? Enough!
18
It seems that everyone and their mother is obsessed over polls these days. So let me make a grand prediction. President Obama will win in Washington by 10%. Jay Inslee will become Governor, winning by 6%. Kathleen Drew will become our Secretary of State, winning by 8%. Bob Ferguson will become our Attorney General, winning by 10%. And Brad Owen will become our Lieutenant Governor again, winning by a whopping 12%. The only way the Koch Brothers and Rupert Murdoch can succeed in buying off the elections for their tea-bagger buddies Rob McKenna, Reagan Dunn, and Kim Wyman is if we forget to vote. And honestly, how long do you think it will fucking take before these law-breakers figure out how to change the laws to prevent us undesirable Americans (ie. Democrats) from voting, if they ever to get elected? We already know how easy it is to buy off Seattle Times and Publicola endorsements. Let's show these fascists our democracy isn't for sale!
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Nate silver's model has Obama's probability of winning increasing again -- and I think that's pre-second debate.
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This week's Gallup has Obama losing a lot of support from college-educated people. He's still at his 2008 level with minorities but he's way deep in the hole with white folks and men. Obama is also firmly behind in the 30-54-year-old group. He's ahead with the younger adults, but we all know young people don't vote. He's only ahead by a little bit with women and he's down twenty points with men (or something like that), which means that the gender gap is real and it's against him. Finally, the week-long poll has Obama sliding down - not up - after the VP debate. The Gallup poll has a larger sample size than almost all the other polls and it focuses on what it determines are likely voters, and it includes cell phones as well as landlines.
So! Where does this put us? Well, we can say that this was conducted before the second debate, and almost as many people watched it as they did the first debate. Most viewers, as has been noted, thought Obama came out on top, giving him the advantage on every issue except (unfortunately) the economy. Romney was trying to exploit this opening today. The next-day narrative, particularly in regards to women's issues, has been negative for Romney. And I heard somewhere that most of the remaining undecideds are women. The second debate has also reenergized us liberals, turning more of us into "likely voters", for the purposes of the Gallup poll. So, all in all, look for those numbers to improve.
Kerry and Bush were essentially tied in early October, before the Bush ticket won all the remaining debates after losing the first one. The caveat, of course, is that Bush didn't lose as badly and Republicans tend to do a little better than the polls predicted on Election Day. (On a related note: Turnout! Turnout! Turnout!)
So it's not time to repanic, people. Obama and Romney are prettty much tied when you add up all the polls and it should only get a little bit better after the second debate. I feel that one of the most important things is having the news cycle on your side. Winning debates helps that, and so does avoiding dumb statements from the team. Obama is still up in Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Nevada, even after the fallout from the first debate. And did I mention that the economy's getting better, and that the so-called misery index is dropping?
Good news stories, people. It's going to be okay.
More...
So! Where does this put us? Well, we can say that this was conducted before the second debate, and almost as many people watched it as they did the first debate. Most viewers, as has been noted, thought Obama came out on top, giving him the advantage on every issue except (unfortunately) the economy. Romney was trying to exploit this opening today. The next-day narrative, particularly in regards to women's issues, has been negative for Romney. And I heard somewhere that most of the remaining undecideds are women. The second debate has also reenergized us liberals, turning more of us into "likely voters", for the purposes of the Gallup poll. So, all in all, look for those numbers to improve.
Kerry and Bush were essentially tied in early October, before the Bush ticket won all the remaining debates after losing the first one. The caveat, of course, is that Bush didn't lose as badly and Republicans tend to do a little better than the polls predicted on Election Day. (On a related note: Turnout! Turnout! Turnout!)
So it's not time to repanic, people. Obama and Romney are prettty much tied when you add up all the polls and it should only get a little bit better after the second debate. I feel that one of the most important things is having the news cycle on your side. Winning debates helps that, and so does avoiding dumb statements from the team. Obama is still up in Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Nevada, even after the fallout from the first debate. And did I mention that the economy's getting better, and that the so-called misery index is dropping?
Good news stories, people. It's going to be okay.
21
@16, I appreciate your hope for having a more-than-2-party system one day. If we had either a multi-party system or a coalition government (like Britain's), I'd vote for Jill Stein. But until we have several parties which could conceivably split off the Republican vote (as the Greens will split off the Democratic vote), it's not safe.
23
Remember kids, vote for one of the two parties in our two party corporate dictatorship or else!! FEAR!!! BE SCARED!!! Don't you DARE vote your conscience at all!! BE SCARED!!!! FEAR from the right FEAR from the Democrats!! Just remember...BE SCARED!!!!!
I'm voting for Jill. I'm against drone attacks that kill children and the execution of American's without due process under any circumstance.
Don't like it? Then tell the Democrat running for the White House to stop his illegal criminal actions. He certainly isn't listening to me.
I'm voting for Jill. I'm against drone attacks that kill children and the execution of American's without due process under any circumstance.
Don't like it? Then tell the Democrat running for the White House to stop his illegal criminal actions. He certainly isn't listening to me.
25
uh oh.....
WASHINGTON DC (AP) — Weekly applications for U.S. unemployment benefits jumped 46,000 last week to 388,000, the highest in four months.
WASHINGTON DC (AP) — Weekly applications for U.S. unemployment benefits jumped 46,000 last week to 388,000, the highest in four months.
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@ 23, So principled of you to do that when your state is going to be carried by Obama. What a brave stance!
27
So the troll regards Mitt Romney as a father figure? That explains so much...... The poor little guy never really had a chance, did he?
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